Library Apologies

Dear fellow students tucked into your cubicles on the sixth floor of the library desperately trying to study for something,
I apologize if my attempts to muffle my chortling laughter were unsuccessful.  I was reading a book titled Forced into faith: How religion abuses children's rights (by Innaiah Narisetti, 2009) and I honestly could not help myself. It is hilarious! Seriously, if you are a sociologist of religion, or have any rational observations about religion, or know anything about religion and culture or the sociology of childhood or interpretive research... you would laugh too.  It basically puts forth a "radical humanist" (and this is the self-description on the back cover, I'm not making this judgment) perspective on children's forced indoctrination and subsequent abuses of children.  Let's begin with the fact that this is radical. As in, just as radical as a fundamentalist Christian position - which would be among the many religious perspectives the author attacks. That should give you a hint of how hilarious this is.
It basically adopts a "brainwashing"-like position wherein children are passive and forced to believe in X - and they will never escape from X.  And they will be abused because of X. Sometimes this is psychological abuse, usually manipulative. Sometimes it is physical abuse disguised as religious.
Now, I'm not saying that humans do not engage in abusive behaviours and sometimes cite religions as justification.  That's well known.  But I thought most reasonable (emphasis on reasonable) people understood about the role of culture, and the differences between belief systems and applications of belief systems, about politics, and about basic concepts of identity formation that do not involve "brainwashing".
Put simply, I laughed at the beginning because if one were to rationally follow through on the admonition of raising a child with ANY belief system, they would have no culture, no values (including no humanist values!), no worldviews.  And the critique in this book is that religions are dangerous because they "force" a worldview upon children, and THAT is abuse.
Like I said - hilarious!
But it gets better.
Yes, if you jump to  the wee little section in cults (and it's a small book so all the sections are short using exceptional examples to illustrate a point) there is more fun. (see pp 86-88)
First, it says cults abuse children.  A common enough assertion.  Then it says there are "several cults" currently worldwide.  Just "several"? A mere handful?? That's funny.  Now let's look at the list of twenty examples provided. I didn't bother writing them all down. Some are current NRMs.  But there is also listed "garbage eaters"*, "televangelists", "Jim Jones", and "Heaven's Gate".  The later two committed suicide many years ago; they are no longer a "threat".  Oh, and Heaven's Gate did not involve children.  I like "garbage eaters" the best.  Would the author conclude that all North American's are part of a cult - because you should look at the "garbage" we eat!  Or is the author referring to the alternative-lifestyle "dumpster divers"? Or homeless people living on the street?

Anyhow, I was spending some time at the library waiting for my supervisor to sign a form, decided to see what's new on the shelves related to children and religion (not much and I've read most of it already) and decided to browse this book just to see what it says.  Good times.
PS - it may not have sounded as funny to you. Maybe you just have to read it yourself. Or be me.

*UPDATE: I ran into a colleague on campus, who I was mentioning this too, and he recognized "Garbage eaters" because he'd happened across the name once.  So I looked up this one of THOUSANDS of "cult" groups. Turns out I wasn't entirely wrong about the dumpster diving. Apparently some members of a particular Christian group (also called the Brethren) are called "garbage eaters" by anti-cultists because they will engage in dumpster diving.  FYI, while dumpster diving technically involves "garbage", it is still perfectly edible food. Bruised fruit, day old bread, etc. Basically what won't "sell", but you'd still eat it if it was in your home already in that condition.