Since early childhood, my husband (whose family was raising him to be a Christian) was deeply disturbed by this very metaphore: that God is the Shepherd and we are his sheep. He cites it as one of the earliest times he can remember that he began to have doubts about the religious stuff he was being taught.
His thinking was along the lines of: what does a shepherd do with his flock?
Well, he protects them from predators (not always well – just puts in the minimum effort for maximum result), but not because he loves the sheep. Rather, he makes a living out of treating sheep as a commodity, to be fleeced, milked, traded as ‘stuff’ and eaten. This, even as a child, he thought was very, very ugly….
Thunderf00t expresses similar thoughts on the “The Lord is my Shepherd’ metaphore:
Xanthippa's Chamberpot 
March 7, 2011 at 17:58
Hey, ask your husband if he was ever taught this children’s bedtime prayer:
Now I lay me down to sleep
I pray the Lord my soul to keep
If I should die before I wake
I pray the Lord my soul to take
It scared the crap out of me as a kid. I totally rejected it and wouldn’t repeat it. Makes me wonder when I see these videos of Muslim children repeating horrendous, hate-filled stuff. I guess if parents start early and force them to repeat such stuff it eventually brainwashes them — very sad.
I think all religions promote nonsensical dogma intended to keep “the flock” in line. I call myself a Christian, though I am a non-practicing one (I pray from time to time, but do so privately, and I only attend church for weddings or funerals). By some standards, I’m not a “true” Christian (I was even told that once).
I never thought much about Psalm 23 — I recall learning it. But, yes, it is a bit disturbing.
Xanthippa says:
Yes, he does!
And, he had a reaction much like yours.
I’ve never had a problem with ‘spirituality’ per se: what I have a problem with is the dogmatization of spirituality, commonly referred to as ‘religion’.
As a matter of fact, it really really offends me on so many levels that somebody would take the spriritual, ‘the sacred’ (quite literally) and tell others how they may and may not experience it.
To my mind, it is a form of mental abuse – as well as spiritual abuse – to try to tell anyone how they should experience the spiritual, what the rules are, which boundries they must fit within, and so on!
This is why I have such a deeply felt revulsion towards people who go into the business of administering religion – and why I consider parents who raise their children brainwashed into a particular religion to be commiting child abuse.
It is no co-incidence that the vast majority of people stay within their parents religion: it is a symptom of systematic brain washing from childhood. And brain-washing is child abuse.
Plus, it robs the child of the freedom of religion in the future: the shackles are mental, but they are there and the person lives in the prison of the specific religious dogma she/he was brainwashed into as a child. In other words, we are permitting parents to deprive their children of freedom of religion…
In my never-humble-opinion, that is wrong.
March 10, 2011 at 13:16
Oh geez, you’re taking a metaphor way too far. Maybe we could also say that Psalm 23 encourages unsanitary table manners when it says, “my cup runneth over”.
And every child is “brain-washed” in one way or another. It’s impossible to raise a blank slate. It’s not child abuse to impart values to your children; quite the opposite, in fact.
If group conformity is abuse, would it also be abusive for cultural groups to ostracize those who don’t eat the same foods, wear the same clothes, and live in the same fashion? As long as the groups are voluntary, I can’t see the problem here.
Yes, there’s plenty of truth in that religion is used to keep the “flock” submissive and pliant for the rulers – we can agree on that till the cows come home.
Xanthippa says:
The parents are teaching their children (as shown in the video) from a very early age that they are no better than livestock – that they are sheep and should never aspire to being anything else than sheep. That is not ‘imparting values to your child’!
And, yes, it is brain washing to teach kids, from the earliest childhood, that it is immoral to think for themselves and to accept religious dogma in place of true morality.
That is why I don’t have a problem with ‘spirituality’ per se – but with the dogmatization of morality which is called ‘religion’.
March 10, 2011 at 23:30
I understand that there is a spectrum of methods in which parents teach their kids, between permissive and authoritarian. But you can be an authoritarian (dogmatic) parent without being religious, and be a middle-of-the-road parent while being quite religious. But even in the absence of strict religious dogmatic infusion (which I believe is the exception, not the norm), most kids will still assume the religion of their parents – or something close to it. Just like most kids raised in culture X will end up accepting most of the habits and lifestyle of culture X. However, it’s wrong to force culture X down your kids’ throat.
Xanthippa says:
Yes.
March 13, 2011 at 07:42
I agree, teaching your kids they are the Lord’s flock is wrong and bad for their self-esteem. I’ve always preferred to call them the fruit of my loins.
Aren’t we getting a little paranoid here? “Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep” is terrifying? What’s next, the psychic assault of the Beatitudes?
Xanthippa says:
I don’t think it’s the ‘laying down to sleep’ bit that is scary: it is the bit that paints God as a soul-snatching demon that scares a lot of kids. And, we are talking the perceptions of kids here…
I recall one great-aunt telling me when I was about 2, while we were visiting her, that my guardian angel watches everything I do at all times and reports it to God. Now, at the time, I lived in a police state – and several of my ‘dissident’ relatives had 24-7 secret police surveilance on them: colloquially called ‘guardian angels’….
You can imagine what a 2-year-old’s analysis of this one was!