At the Wall Street Journal I wrote about religious child abuse.

For obvious reasons competent scientists never use the religious word "faith" but religions could not exist without it. A big part of religious brainwashing is making young victims think faith is a virtue as if believing in ridiculous fantasies that have no evidence is a good thing.

The indoctrination of young gullible children is necessary to prevent religions from going extinct. After centuries of practice this child abuse has become very successful. Only a small percentage of the victims are able to eventually figure out their brainwashers are insane.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/at-its-heart-science-is-faith-based-too-1457049114