Karl Giberson writes in the Huffington Post and on BioLogos in response to the claim often made by new atheist leaders that religious people “cram their beliefs down their children’s throats”:
This language evokes the harshest of images. What is a secular reader, unfamiliar with how religious children are actually raised, to think? They have never seen a Christmas pageant where dozens of happy children sing cute choruses under the direction of dedicated volunteer staff; they have not seen teenagers gathered in prayerful support around one of their friends whose little brother was just killed in a terrible accident; they have not seen older teens holding bake sales so they can raise enough money to spend two weeks in Haiti helping people in need. Instead, they must picture stern-faced parents dragging kids against their will to indoctrination sessions where they sit on hard wooden chairs until they affirm a set of beliefs in settings reminiscent of A Clockwork Orange. After years of such training, the once-open-minded children mature into narrow-minded adults who carry out the narrow-minded agendas of their parents — oppose healthcare, gay marriage, stem-cell research, Muslims, and anything else they can think of — and begin the process of having their own kids, with a new generation of throats down which more toxic ideas will be crammed.