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Could religion be considered prosecutable child abuse?

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In The God Delusion, Dawkins cites a man with a rather interesting opinion. He states that he doesn't actually endorse this opinion, but he rather presents it as something to think about.

I can't remember the guy's name (and I don't have the book with me at the moment), but he believes that it should be illegal to teach religion to children who are too young to look at the arguments and make the decision for themselves. He considers it to be child abuse. He believe it should be illegal in church, school, and even at home, by the parents.

I certainly understand his argument and I detest the way that children are brainwashed into religion. But there's still something about his argument that doesn't sit right with me. Discuss.

I love Dawkins' proof A deity's omniscience/omnipotence, "If he know's what going to happen, then he can't change it, If he can change it, he didn't know" Excellent. Of course, you get the reply: "He knew that he would change his mind".

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I love Dawkins' proof A deity's omniscience/omnipotence, "If he know's what going to happen, then he can't change it, If he can change it, he didn't know" Excellent. Of course, you get the reply: "He knew that he would change his mind".

My understanding is that omniscience was a function of its omnipresence, if that were the case power and foreknowledge would not necessarily conflict. As well God is traditionally seen as "outside time".....

But when you start a concept with nonsense it can mutate with more nonsense upon attack. This is why I don't argue with Christians about theology.

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In your opinion, how should an Objectivist handle that topic when dealing with/teaching his children?
Parents should teach their children that many people believe in ghosts, evil spirits, Kant, the great pumpkin, god, the free lunch and the greatest common good, but that the fact that other people are confused about the difference between the real and the imaginary is not a reason that they should have such beliefs. Parents should teach their children why these beliefs are wrong.
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Since Man's a living entity with two basic attributes namely, body and mind, a child's rights are derived from its physical and mental needs respectively.

So just as a child's physical health can be endangered by the irrational actions of its parents, likewise its mental health can also be endangered by such actions.

In either case, if the state intervenes, it's penalizing the actions of the parents that adversely affect the child's well-being, and not the ideas that cause the parents to act irrationally in the first place.

So one could (plausibly) argue that if the child suffers severe psychological trauma as a result of the repeated attempts by overtly religious parents to intimidate it with scare stories about "Hell", "Eternal Damnation", etc. and the damage's (objectively) provable in a court of law (in which case, their actions would, in the mental realm, be the equivalent of not just depriving it of food but actively feeding it poison instead) then the government can take the child away from its parents and put it in a foster home or private orphanage (willing to take the child in) where it's not subject to such trauma.

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Parents should teach their children that many people believe in ghosts, evil spirits, Kant, the great pumpkin, god, the free lunch and the greatest common good, but that the fact that other people are confused about the difference between the real and the imaginary is not a reason that they should have such beliefs. Parents should teach their children why these beliefs are wrong.

Presumably, they should be taught these things once they are old enough to comprehend them. Teaching them that such things are wrong can be done from a very early age, but they will not understand why. In all likelihood, if they are taught these things at a sufficiently young age, they will never understand why, because they will accept them as articles of faith for their whole lives. In which case, we are no better than a religious nutjob.

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In all likelihood, if they are taught these things at a sufficiently young age, they will never understand why, because they will accept them as articles of faith for their whole lives. In which case, we are no better than a religious nutjob.
It is not the age of the child itself that is crucial, but the manner in which something is taught. When a kid is taught something, one should also explain how one knows this to be true. A young kid will be unable to fully understand the reasoning and the evidence. However, the kid is getting two things in the process: the implicit lesson that knowledge is based on reasoning and evidence, and some specific "pegs" of evidence that he can use to question a conclusion, sometime in the future.

Ideally, this approach is how everything should be taught. For instance, a kid should not be taught that the earth is round or that the sun does not go around the earth, without being given some explanation of how we know this.

In terms of timing of lessons, a young child would not come up with the notion of God, and in some ideal society, it might be part of a history lesson. However, in today's world, kids as young as first grade will ask each other about their religions. Relatives might talk to the kid about religion too. So, it makes sense to teach a kid about God pretty early. The first chat I had with my son was some time in pre-school, prompted by a teacher telling the class about God.

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In all likelihood, if they are taught these things at a sufficiently young age, they will never understand why, because they will accept them as articles of faith for their whole lives.
I think that's entirely wrong. It's irresponsible to leave your children untaught until they can both grasp the what and the why. Children do not need to flounder around without a moral or epistemological grounding until they can grasp the whys of life. It's actually okay to start by teaching the answer, and then teach the logical underpinnings as to why it is so.
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I didn't suggest that they should remain "untaught." Only that things should be taught at appropriate ages. No matter how much you disagree with the philosophy of Immanuel Kant, you should not teach your 4 year-old to cringe at the sound of his name. At some point (probably not until the teens), a child will develop the mental capacity to understand such things. Until a child is of sufficient age/maturity to understand a subject, I think it would be brainwashing to try and teach them your own views about it.

It's what happens with religion. I was taught, from day 1, to believe in the Judeo-Christian God. I was far, far too young to know what I thought about the proper basis for human morality, let alone the origin of life and the cosmos. Because I was indoctrinated at such an early age, it took an extraordinary amount of thought and willpower for me to break the spell. Even if you're convinced that your personal philosophy is 100% correct, teaching it to a child who is not mentally prepared to comprehend it will result in that child never really examining his own attitudes or learning his true reasons behind his beliefs.

Presumably, if you raise your child to think for himself and then--at an appropriate age--present him with the reasons behind your beliefs, he will be able to make up his own mind. For concrete, empirical facts, the standards are different for obvious reasons. By all means, teach your child that his heart pumps blood through his body. But I am strongly against the notion of indoctrinating 6 year-olds with abstract philosophical concepts that they are unprepared to comprehend.

Edited by Moose
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  • 4 years later...

*** Mod's note: Merged with an earlier thread on the same topic. - sN ***

I'd like to present this little anecdote:

 

A nine-year-old boy attends Catholic school and has since age five. He has been taught by a priest, and they have a close, trusting relationship. One day the priest "convinces" the boy that, in order to achieve a private Holy Communion, the boy will have to perform some sort of intimate sexual act on the priest. At age nine, the boy is just beginning to enter a pubescent stage at which he is no doubt confused and also curious about sexual activities. Having spent most of the childhood he can remember in the trusting company of the priest, he is confident that engaging in this private activity is an honest way to communicate with God.

 

The priest has perhaps coaxed the boy into the situation, but he has not used physical force or barred the boy from leaving. He has simply conditioned the boy over the years to trust him, and has justified the act through a perverse interpretation of an already perverted holy text.

 

I think most people would agree with me when I say that, even if the boy allows the priest to exploit him, that, regardless, a nine-year-old is incapable of consent. He is not at the level at which he can truly understand the gravity of the situation.

 

But the ramifications of this situation are greater. Even if the boy is not permanently physically scarred by the incident, the psychological effects of sexual exploitation in young children, particularly those that are repeated, can result in long-lasting trauma in one variation or another.

 

Why is it that you hear occasionally on the news that an adult in his/her 30s or 40s comes forward and accuses a priest from his/her childhood of sexual abuse? If it happened so long ago, why bring it up now?

 

The encounter may have made the child uncomfortable, even if he consented. So why would he do it? Because it is "God's will." He consents to the situation because he has been brainwashed into thinking that it is the right situation to make. For the same reason, he does not tell his parents or friends for fear of being banished to Hell for disobeying the God that speaks through the priest.

 

A child shouldn't have to be a victim of sexual abuse to be, regardless, a victim of religious abuse. If a father repeatedly warns his daughter that disobedience of his coveted holy text is an irrevocable ticket to eternal damnation, it's no different than if the father outright threatens to beat, rape, or murder the child if she does not comply. And yet, is this not what Catholics teach their children?

 

As a child raised Catholic, I was absolutely terrified when I came to terms with the fact that I was a homosexual. I had been taught that even having mere thoughts of a heretic nature was blasphemy. Not only had I original sin, but I was possessed with Satan's evil as well. What if I wasn't strong enough to fight against these tempting thoughts? Would I be damned? I wanted to kill myself.

 

I know another gay man who was born in Libya and spent most of his life in Egypt, raised by radical Islamists. He attempted suicide and is currently undergoing therapy.

 

To be honest, I see little difference between beating a child and conditioning a child into believing that self-torture is the moral, righteous course of action. A young child is mentally and ethically malleable--his moral basis defaults first on what his parents teach him. In some cultures, that teaching is inescapable. I am fortunate to have been born in the States, where I was exposed to secular education before the damage was too permanent.

 

I recently read in an issue of The Objective Standard a powerful argument against public education. To give the state the power of instituting compulsory and heavily regulated education is indeed dangerous--and integral in establishing a brainwashed public, as Nazi Germany was. I don't pretend to have my own solution. But does giving that power to parents--the power to cripple young, manipulable minds--much better? Society as a whole will advance, but no doubt some children--those with the same rights as any other--would be subject to more thoroughly psychological--perhaps philosophical--abuse than they are today. At least today, the fact that many children attend public, secular schools permits them a chance to get exposure to the world beyond their backwards, masochistic communities in which they are raised, before they are beyond help. One thing I can never be sure of is whether or not I would have been able to free myself from such a community were I raised in one without the help of public education--and I am mostly certain that I would never have read Atlas Shrugged were it not for the public high school library. I might not have even survived to high school.

 

Thoughts?

Edited by softwareNerd
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Your comparison between being sexually abused and being told that homosexuality is wrong is absurd. Your "anecdote" is a fabrication. There's nothing in religion to suggest that kids should have sex with priests. Pedophile priests do use the same tactics of most pedophiles (lies, threats, abuse of power, cover ups) to manipulate children into sex and keeping it a secret, but your version of how they do it (by telling them that this is God's will or they'll go to Hell) is obviously something you just came up with to help your rationalization, it's not based on accounts of actual events. The majority of the Catholic Church does in fact reject child abuse, and any priest trying to claim otherwise would be quickly exposed as a liar, even in the eyes of a child. Unless you're Louis CK (

), you can't just paint the institution of the Church as an establishment geared towards the sole purpose of raping children. It's not, it has much bigger ambitions than that.

I was also going to give some reasons as to why sexual abuse and being told that homosexuality is wrong are different. Then I had a "what the hell are you doing?" moment, when I realized that they have nothing in common. Why bother listing differences, when everything is different?

At least today, the fact that many children attend public, secular schools permits them a chance to get exposure to the world beyond their backwards, masochistic communities in which they are raised, before they are beyond help. One thing I can never be sure of is whether or not I would have been able to free myself from such a community were I raised in one without the help of public education--and I am mostly certain that I would never have read Atlas Shrugged were it not for the public high school library. I might not have even survived to high school.

Thoughts?

Just one: public education in the US is not mandatory. If you went to public school, that's only because your parents chose to send you there. They could've home schooled you or sent you to a private religious school instead.

So is the same counter-argument as always when people mention the benefits of a government entitlement program: There is no reason why schools need to be funded via forced taxation. If you strongly believe in establishing free of charge, secular schools, then you should pay for those schools yourself, voluntarily. And people like your parents would then face the same exact choice as they did: send their child to the free secular school, or pay for a private school/home schooling.

It wasn't the "taxpayer funded" aspect of your public school that convinced your parents to send you there, it was the "free of charge" part. Free of charge schools don't HAVE to be taxpayer funded, they can be voluntarily funded as well.

Edited by Nicky
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1. "Your comparison between being sexually abused and being told that homosexuality is wrong is absurd."

It's hardly a comparison. I was relating something that I experienced in which I thought religion was an injustice to me mentally. I do not claim to be sexually abused.

 

2. "Your 'anecdote' is a fabrication. There's nothing in religion to suggest that kids should have sex with priests."

An advantage of speaking philosophy is that you can invent hypothetical situations. The reason I didn't cite any news articles is because I know that this is not the common tactic of a child molester--that in no way implies that such a situation is absurd or impossible. The advantage of a molester over a malleable child is that he can make up whatever he wishes and can easily convince a child to interpret religion in whatever way he pleases. This is why I am more inclined to use the word "if" over the word "when."

 

3. "I was also going to give some reasons as to why sexual abuse and being told that homosexuality is wrong are different. ..."

I didn't imply that sexual abuse and being told homosexuality is wrong have anything in common. The point I was trying to get across is that being told that something is okay or not okay based on a fantasy book is detrimental to a person's health, especially at a young age.

 

4. I am not actually advocating the public school system, which I believe I mentioned. In fact, I also believe I mentioned that I have no solution. In the event that there hadn't been any public schools, my parents would have sent me to a Catholic school. This is simply what I think would have been the case. This does not mean I am for a tax-funded education program.

Edited by Miller
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In retrospect, I can see that I am doing a very poor job at making my argument, so let me start over.

 

If a man holds a gun to your head and orders you to do something, you have two options: (1) you can comply with his demands, or (2) you can risk being killed. You, the "Victim," perceive it as a life or death situation. This may not actually be the case--the gun could be unloaded, for example. The man with the gun, who I will call the "Instigator," may not even know that the gun is unloaded. It doesn't matter what he thinks he knows or believes. The Victim is being threatened, be the threat a guarantee of death or a bluff. It makes no difference because, without knowing whether the threat is real or not, you cannot know the best course of action.

 

If a policeman happens to drive by and notice, I believe that the Instigator ought to be arrested and charged with a crime, whether the gun was loaded or not. Whether he harmed the Victim or threatened to harm the Victim makes little difference--he compelled you to act by means of physical force. An unreal threat of force is like fraud, which is still immoral and ought to be illegal.

 

If a man tells his daughter that if she ever shows her skin in public, she will be damned to an eternity in Hell, the threat is not real--but if the daughter has been coaxed and conditioned and brainwashed into believing such a preposterous thing since infancy, then the threat is real to her--and, to the believer, this thought is more frightening than a gun to the head. When a child asks her parents about the world around her, naive or not, she expects honesty--and so a little girl is just as likely to believe in Heaven and Hell as she is to believe in Santa Claus--more so, because her parents more genuinely express their own faith in their daily lives.

 

It doesn't matter if the father claims to be God or just a humble interpreter of his holy text--to order someone to obey or suffer is a threat regardless of context. To go back to the first example, if the Instigator merely threatens you by saying that a sniper has you in his sights and will shoot if you do not comply and you have "reason" (whether that "reasoning" is objectively based or rooted in a religious upbringing) to believe this--then he is just as guilty as if he were holding the gun himself.

 

All religions are contradictory to reality--which means, all religions are anti-life, because survival requires the use of reason in one's environment.

If a man tells a child that he was born with original sin--or that he is the devil's seed because he can't help being homosexual--or that he must wholeheartedly believe every ridiculous, logic-defying, physically impossible, hypocritical story in a holy text--or that he must starve in order to feed his neighbors--or that he must fellate his priest in order to achieve a holy communion with God--or that he should castrate himself in order to be free of temptation--or that he should crash a plane into a building in order to go to Heaven--or that he must beat himself bloody to humiliate himself before his Lord--

it is child abuse.

Edited by Miller
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Can't it be argued that brainwashing children with religion is tantamount to using force to advance your religious ideas? Children will, after all, believe anything that adults tell them.

 

I'm not sure why you think it could be considered force to tell someone something. It's not force if a stranger walks up and tells you that you should accept Jesus or perish in judgment, is it? Even if you are very naive and believe everything you hear, it's still not force. Why would it be any different.

 

Now it is force for parents to make their children go to Sunday school, to make them do chores, to take away their toys or Internet access, or whatever. But children are a special case -- still under the care of their parents and without full property rights of some things, such as those toys and Internet they didn't work for or pay for in the first place. There is still a kind of harmful force that can't be done to children, but I don't think teaching them false stories and beliefs falls under that. 

 

The real force in this case would be the government telling people what they can and cannot teach or say to other people. How would you keep that from happening without the initiation of an unjust, non-retaliatory force?  

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...it is child abuse.

It's definitely irrational -- and therefore immoral -- to threaten kids with such consequences. The question is whether it crosses the line into being legal child-abuse: i.e. something that the government must step in and stop. As ordinarily practiced, it is pretty easy for a kid to realize that this is false -- probably around the time he is a young teen. Also, as ordinarily practiced, it leaves no longer term consequences. The government ought to stay out of the parent-child relationship unless the damage is serious, objectively clear, and not reversible on adulthood. Ideally, we don't want the government deciding on what ideology is right and wrong: except to the extent that an ideology is required to support individual rights.

Also: welcome to the forum.

Edited by softwareNerd
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Whether or not a rational government would be required to stop child abuse requires that the action(s) in question be objectively defined as abusive or harmful.

If parents try and instill in their children, their own religious beliefs are they purposely acting to do the child harm, or are they doing what they think is helpful? Intent has to enter in the determination of the abuse.

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1. "Your comparison between being sexually abused and being told that homosexuality is wrong is absurd."

It's hardly a comparison. I was relating something that I experienced in which I thought religion was an injustice to me mentally. I do not claim to be sexually abused.

 

2. "Your 'anecdote' is a fabrication. There's nothing in religion to suggest that kids should have sex with priests."

An advantage of speaking philosophy is that you can invent hypothetical situations. The reason I didn't cite any news articles is because I know that this is not the common tactic of a child molester--that in no way implies that such a situation is absurd or impossible. The advantage of a molester over a malleable child is that he can make up whatever he wishes and can easily convince a child to interpret religion in whatever way he pleases. This is why I am more inclined to use the word "if" over the word "when."

 

3. "I was also going to give some reasons as to why sexual abuse and being told that homosexuality is wrong are different. ..."

I didn't imply that sexual abuse and being told homosexuality is wrong have anything in common. The point I was trying to get across is that being told that something is okay or not okay based on a fantasy book is detrimental to a person's health, especially at a young age.

 

4. I am not actually advocating the public school system, which I believe I mentioned. In fact, I also believe I mentioned that I have no solution. In the event that there hadn't been any public schools, my parents would have sent me to a Catholic school. This is simply what I think would have been the case. This does not mean I am for a tax-funded education program.

Well than I'm at a loss as to why you mentioned child molestation in this thread.

Regarding public schools, I offered an alternative: free, secular schools funded by charity. Would your parents have picked a catholic school over a free, secular school funded by charity?

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I'm not sure why you think it could be considered force to tell someone something. It's not force if a stranger walks up and tells you that you should accept Jesus or perish in judgment, is it? Even if you are very naive and believe everything you hear, it's still not force. Why would it be any different.

 

Now it is force for parents to make their children go to Sunday school, to make them do chores, to take away their toys or Internet access, or whatever. But children are a special case -- still under the care of their parents and without full property rights of some things, such as those toys and Internet they didn't work for or pay for in the first place. There is still a kind of harmful force that can't be done to children, but I don't think teaching them false stories and beliefs falls under that. 

 

The real force in this case would be the government telling people what they can and cannot teach or say to other people. How would you keep that from happening without the initiation of an unjust, non-retaliatory force?  

 

If a stranger came up to me and told me I should accept Jesus or burn in Hell, I don't feel threatened. But if he approached my five-year-old child, I would be concerned.

 

It's definitely irrational -- and therefore immoral -- to threaten kids with such consequences. The question is whether it crosses the line into being legal child-abuse: i.e. something that the government must step in and stop. As ordinarily practiced, it is pretty easy for a kid to realize that this is false -- probably around the time he is a young teen. Also, as ordinarily practiced, it leaves no longer term consequences. The government ought to stay out of the parent-child relationship unless the damage is serious, objectively clear, and not reversible on adulthood. Ideally, we don't want the government deciding on what ideology is right and wrong: except to the extent that an ideology is required to support individual rights.

Also: welcome to the forum.

 

I think that when religion gets extreme enough to be popularly considered abusive, the government currently does intervene, and I think that this is the right course of action.

 

I think that religion commonly does leave "longer term consequences" for people, although most of the time, those consequences are not socially debilitating or overly psychologically dangerous, per se. I think any faith is somewhat harmful to the mind, but it wouldn't be justice for the government to prohibit it.

 

Whether or not a rational government would be required to stop child abuse requires that the action(s) in question be objectively defined as abusive or harmful.

If parents try and instill in their children, their own religious beliefs are they purposely acting to do the child harm, or are they doing what they think is helpful? Intent has to enter in the determination of the abuse.

 

To measure intent as the standard is like using Kant's categorical imperative. When I see this ( http://barenakedislam.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/ashura2.jpg ), regardless of whether the parents find it noble/holy, regardless of whether the parents are inflicting the wounds or the children have been taught to do it to themselves... I think it is wrong, and it is highly disturbing.

 

Such practice is physical abuse when applied to others--but a person is free to harm himself. The question is, if you convince your children that this is right, isn't it a form of PSYCHOLOGICAL abuse that manifests itself physically? Even self-inflicted, I would not want to see this sort of thing happening in any community in any part of the States (or the world, for that matter)--but is it not simply religious expression?

 

Well than I'm at a loss as to why you mentioned child molestation in this thread.

Regarding public schools, I offered an alternative: free, secular schools funded by charity. Would your parents have picked a catholic school over a free, secular school funded by charity?

 

My parents would've chosen a Catholic school because they're Catholic and they would've wanted me to be raised Catholic as well.

 

Sorry about the analogy--it was just something that occurred to me--a means of which one can delude children into thinking a criminal act is a holy one would be easy. In this case, the priest knows better--but even parents with good intentions can be doing much harm to children.

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Simply teaching a child religion is not "brain washing". By that definition, every child would be getting brain washed into everything they know. Children may not be fully rational, but they're also not blank sheets of paper any adult can write whatever they want on. They're not powerless creatures fully at the whim of anything adults say to them.

 

It's not the government's job to decide what children are taught. You are grasping at straws, constantly trying to compare teaching religion to some kind of obvious, horrible abuse, simply because there is no possible argument for banning teaching any set of ideas to one's own children.

 

Yes, teaching children the wrong things can be damaging, but it is not something those children can't correct, either right then and there or as they grow older.

 

The function of the government is to protect rights, not to provide quality control for parenting. Some people get to have better parents than others. That's just something that happens, it's not something for the government to fix.

 

My parents would've chosen a Catholic school because they're Catholic and they would've wanted me to be raised Catholic as well.

Your parents didn't choose a Catholic school. How can you say that "your parents would've chosen a Catholic school", when they did in fact have that option and didn't choose it.

Edited by Nicky
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Your parents didn't choose a Catholic school. How can you say that "your parents would've chosen a Catholic school", when they did in fact have that option and didn't choose it.

Because I was sent to Catholic school for two years, then my dad lost his job so they switched me to public school.

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I think that when religion gets extreme enough to be popularly considered abusive, the government currently does intervene, and I think that this is the right course of action.

 

So if the majority of Americans believe religion X is 'abusive,' the government should 'intervene'? Why does the majority get to decide? What do you mean by abusive? And in what ways should the government intervene?

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If a stranger came up to me and told me I should accept Jesus or burn in Hell, I don't feel threatened. But if he approached my five-year-old child, I would be concerned.

 

Your concern would be for their physical safety because a strange person approaches them instead of you and talks to them. That's something entirely different than what we are talking about here, and thus a false analogy and irrelevant conclusion.

Edited by secondhander
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