I was raised a Jehovah's Witness, I hated it. I was always very science-minded, I always wanted to be a scientist and got an Associates degree in Math and Science. What the Jehovah's Witnesses taught me never made sense to me, it was not factual, it was not rational, it was not logical, it was not scientific. When I would get confused and ask hard questions, I was accused of being too intelligent for my own good and that I was trapped by my human thinking because I was so good at it. Relying on my own thinking was considered a sin, I needed to stop listening to myself and start listening to the organization. Jehovah's Witnesses suffer from schizophrenia three times more than the general population; this is likely a combination of the fact that schizophrenics are attracted to the organization since it is so esoteric and bizarre, and also the teachings cause schizophrenia. I was forced to deal with institutionalized mental illness and was abused when I got upset that nothing was making sense. I do believe learning Jehovah's Witness doctrine was bad for my mental health. I felt I was being hurt and harmed, I should have been able to escape, but I could not as this is not considered abuse in our culture today with its freedom of religion. Parents have full rights to impose their religion on their children in any way... so much to the point that if they are Eddy's Christian Scientists they can murder their children through medical neglect and get away with it!
There was another problem. At 12 years old I got interested in Witchcraft and secretly changed my religion to occultism. This was eventually found out and what happened was terrible. I was told I was demon-possessed and wasvseparated from all the other congregates and children who said my presence disturbed them so I had to sit in the back where I could not be seen. Witchcraft was my religious conviction at the time and I found the Jehovah's Witnesses to be immoral due to their condemnation of other religions, their homophobia, their misogyny, and more. I was terrified into dropping my religion for a few more years and temporarily returning, but as soon as I escaped at 16, when my non Jehovah's Witnesses father took me in, I reverted back to paganism. I should have been allowed to practice my chosen religion in peace, and I should not have been pressured into attending the meetings of people I found to be immoral. Children can take a stand for what they believe is right and they should not be forced to break their convictions.
Finally, I was also a homosexual, and being raised in an anti-gay environment was not good for me. We were taught that homosexuality was evil and that if we practiced it freely we may not get to paradise. Jehovah's Witness men and women would make snide remarks about homosexuals in front of me, I was an effeminate boy and everyone assumed I was gay, they did this to torment me, it was part of the culture. I should not have been subjected to this environment; also I should not have been forced to associate with these people because I had a stance against homophobia regardless and found them to be unethical to the point I could not tolerate them. Remaining around these people was damaging to me as a child and this damage has lingered into my adulthood.
Children can no longer be forced into brutish conditions by Abrahamics and backward Asiatic cults like Hinduism. Indeed we must seek to break the back of these traditions. Laws which allowed even young children, as soon as they have conviction, to choose their own religion would go very far in disturning these households and breaking down these religious structures. Parents who did not reply would have their children given the option to leave and join the state child welfare network. Parents would also be fined, publicly exposed, and if the abuse was severe then jailed. Their children's testimony of unfair treatment would be made public record for activists to use as justification for removing children from religious households they don't wish to be in and crack downs on causing religious trauma with stricter laws and punishments against it. We must break the back of traditional religion, child freedom is a threat to these superstitious institutions; we must give the child the freedom to choose what they believe is right in matters of faith.
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