Religion and children

[citation needed] Many legal experts have argued that the government should create laws in the interests of the welfare of children, irrespective of the religion of their parents.

[6] Nicholas Humphrey has argued that children "have a human right not to have their minds crippled by exposure to other people's bad ideas," and should have the ability to question the religious views of their parents.

"Several authors have been critical of religious indoctrination of children, such as Nicholas Humphrey,[8] Daniel Dennett[9] and Richard Dawkins.

[10] Christopher Hitchens and Dawkins use the term child abuse to describe the harm that some religious upbringings inflict on children.

[11][12] A. C. Grayling has argued "we are all born atheists... and it takes a certain amount of work on the part of the adults in our community to persuade [children] differently.

scholars of Islam[14] have permitted the child marriage of older men to girls as young as 10 years of age if they have entered puberty.

[20] The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints eliminated underaged marriages in the 19th century, but several fundamentalist branches of Mormonism continue the practice.

Most of these cases involved religious parents relying on prayer to cure the child's disease, and withholding medical care.

Psychologist Paul Bloom sees religion as a by-product of children's instinctive tendency toward a dualistic view of the world, and a predisposition towards creationism.