The Bible encourages child abuse

Whoever spares the rod hates their children, but the one who loves their children is careful to discipline them. - Proverbs 13:24

Do not withhold discipline from a child; if you strike him with a rod, he will not die. If you strike him with the rod, you will save his soul from Sheol. -  Proverbs 23:13-14 

When it came to punishment, my parents used smacking and sometimes I would get a belt (or some other wooden implement) across the butt or legs. I would get annoyed when my mother took my wooden school ruler, whacked me over the backside with it and broke it in the process. Having a full-sized ruler at school was often a rare thing for me.

One of the scariest things my mother said, was ‘Where’s that strap?’  Once she said that you knew you were in for it.

Dad told me once that smacking and use of the belt, was a method he didn’t like to use because after the abuse he received from his own father he never wanted us to experience anything like that ourselves.

Ironically is was Mum’s parents, the loving and caring parents who favoured that type of punishment, particularly Grandpa. Thus, my mother followed suit, adamant that if you “spoiled the rod you spoiled the child.”

Sure, the bible doesn’t say it in those exact words, but it comes from the above two scriptures mentioned. Yet more wonderful biblical advice.

Grandpa was apparently very strict when Mum and her siblings were young. Although he was always kind to my sister Lee, and me, he would not tolerate bad behaviour, unlike Nana, who used to put up with quite a bit of bad behaviour. Lee and I sometimes took advantage of her tolerant nature, but only when our parents weren’t around.

I have never had a problem with my parent’s discipline methods, because I knew that deep down they loved me and it was not done out of anger or vindictiveness, but out of concern for our wellbeing.  I knew that striking out in anger was a far different thing than receiving physical discipline. There was no confusion in my mind. One was abuse, the other wasn’t.

When I look back at both sets of my grandparents, both committed Christians, which ones were the horrible ones? The gentle ones who used corporal punishment to correct their children? Or the ones who were cruel and harsh for no good reason? Can the ones who used objects to punish their children, really be considered guilty when the bible clearly encourages that type of discipline? Who is anyone to argue with God’s endorsed methods?

Believing the bible to be a moral guide, for serious infractions, I employed smacking with my own children and the occasional paddy whack on the backside with a wooden spoon. But they soon learned the value of money so loss of pocket money became a method of discipline instead.

A few years later physical discipline became illegal in New Zealand. 

These days I look at the bible and its commands to use physical punishment and I question if it really is God’s way or simply the ways of ignorant and violent man at the time.  Maybe it really is a bad thing, but when you’re a Christian, you don’t question it. If it really is a bad thing though, then the bible is completely wrong about it and in fact, it promotes child abuse. There’s no getting around that.

Of course, some Christians these days try to manipulate the whole meaning of “spare the rod, spoil the child.” They now try to make a metaphor for disciplining your child. However, it wasn’t seen that way in the past. In the 80s when caning was still permitted in New Zealand schools and teachers even had canes sitting in pots by their desk, I never once heard a sermon or anything preached about the rod being a metaphor for punishment and discipline. 

Reason 2: Atheists are not evil horrible people

Reason 4: If I had not been indoctrinated from birth I probably wouldn't have believed