... a certain amount of permanent brain damage ?
I mean to say, can a person be totally raised as a faithful christian, then one day, wake up saying WTF was I ever thinking ... Then never have any problems, or doubts, or guilt trips from then on out ?
Impo, indoctrination of a child with religious BS is psychlogical abuse. Not much different than teaching them to be racist.
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Brain damage, no. Pshycological issues, potentially so. To be imprinted at a young age about the nature of reality that does not match with the actual reality can cause the individual to have a deeply ingrained cognitive dissonance. They may later find themselves confused or disparaged as their model of how the world is doesn't match with their experience. For example; if the child is taught that if they are good only good things will happen to them and bad things happen to them... They may end up with self esteem issues as they will always think that they are doing something wrong. The problem is, they will live this way unaware of the cause of this distress. This example is hypothetical, although I have met someone with this exact problem (I helped them get to a positive state of mind if you care to know).
Disclaimer: I'm not a psychologist, but I have paraphrased here from an actual psychologist. They weren't talking about religion per Se, but about what children are taught and how it can affect them in their future.
I agree that religious indoctrination of children is straddling the line of child abuse. But because it doesn't always have such obvious negative effects, it's difficult to determine. I would vote no to it, but I think more studies need to be done before any ruling is to be made.
One can break free form decades of conditioning, but from my observations that after the breakthrough, they struggle for many years with self doubt and uncertainty. Many atheists I know had to travel that rocky road.
Yeah, I still run across a few minor mental speedbumps here and there. Thankfully, nothing major, plus I have a very stable support system. It's all good for me. Of course, I was somewhat lucky in that I never had it severely forced upon me in the same manner as it was forced upon others I knew growing up (family and friends). To this day, whenever I happen to run across some of them, I can still see in them the lingering detrimental effects of the brainwashing they endured. Can't say that I would call it brain damage, exactly, but the psychological "damage" is real enough.
Psychological = potentially yes. Others, no. Seth Andrews. Thinking Atheist.
rmfr
Not sure it constitutes "brain damage" ..... but
The religious mind set has its disadvantages ,
This concerns the Xhosa people of southern Africa. They fought a series of 9 wars against the incoming white settlers between 1779 & 1879 (non of which were religious in nature) ,they were eventually defeated ,of course, however there was this one episode in their history that clearly demonstrates the potential dangers of religion/faith.
During the pause between the 8th & 9th wars (in April 1856) there occurred a series of extraordinary events.
In April or May 1856, the teenaged Nongqawuse and her friend Nombanda went to fetch water from a pool near the mouth of the Gxarha River. When she returned, Nongqawuse told her uncle and guardian Mhlakaza, a Xhosa spiritualist, that she had met the spirits of three of her ancestors.
She claimed that the spirits had told her that the Xhosa people should destroy their crops and kill their cattle, the source of their wealth as well as food. In return the spirits would sweep the white settlers into the sea. The Xhosa would be able to replenish the granaries, and fill the kraals with more beautiful and healthier cattle.
During this time many Xhosa herds were plagued with “lung sickness”, possibly introduced by European cattle. Many cattle had died.
Mhlakaza repeated the prophecy to Paramount Chief Sarhili. Sarhili ordered his followers to obey the prophecy, causing the cattle-killing movement to spread to an unstoppable point. The cattle-killing frenzy affected not only the Gcaleka, Sarhili's clan, but the whole of the Xhosa nation. Historians estimate that the Gcaleka killed between 300,000 and 400,000 head of cattle.
Nongqawuse predicted that the ancestors' promise would be fulfilled on February 18, 1857, when the sun would turn red. On that day the sun rose the same colour as every other day, and the prophecy was not realized. Initially, Nongqawuse's followers blamed those who had not obeyed her instructions, but they later turned against her.
In the aftermath of the crisis, the population of the Eastern Cape dropped from 105,000 to fewer than 27,000 due to the resulting famine. In at least one case, people were reportedly forced to resort to cannibalism. Nongqawuse was arrested by the British authorities and imprisoned on Robben Island. After her release, she lived on a farm in the Alexandria district of the eastern Cape. She died in 1898.
So you see the problems that "certainty" can bring ..... that the real "truth" can unleash...... not ,perhaps a mental illness but certainly bloody stupidity on a monumental scale.
Permanent? That's a really good question and probably a whole lot deeper than many may imagine. I look at it like the Freudian Defensive Mechanisms. Generally these are problem resolution skills and the older we get the more advanced these skills become. They begin with "ORAL RAGE" and ending in "ALTRUISM." The point is this. As we learn more adaptive ways of resolving conflicts we use them and rely less on juvenile ways of solving problems.
A child want's a cookie and so he says "Cookie." Mom says "No" and the child throws a fit, screaming and yelling for a cookie until someone gives in and gives it to him or her.
As adults there are a million ways we can get a cookie without resorting to screaming and yelling but still, at the bottom of the list, way down deep, is oral rage. The archetype would be two fathers trying to buy the last I-Phone for their child on Christmas eve, or perhaps, two women at a bargain basement sale fighting over the same pair of half price shoes. Oral rage, as basic as it is, still rests at the core of the human psyche,
My hypothesis would be "Once that religious crap is stuffed into your mind as a child, it never gets out." As you mature and learn you may never resort to it again but it is still waiting in the depths to take control.