In the name of vengeful gods.

[LiberalAndProud]

http://nospank.net/bottoms.pdf

Religion and Child Physical Abuse
Religious groups often play an active, positive role in prevention of child abuse and treatment of abuse victims. Yet, as Greven (1991) points out, encouragement for violent, physically abusive child-rearing techniques can be traced to Biblical passages such as, "He that spareth his rod hateth his son: but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes" and "Withhold no correction from the child: for if thou beatest him with the rod, he shall not die. Thou shalt beat him with the rod, and shalt deliver his soul from hell" (Proverbs 13:24 and 23:13-14, respectively). Directives such as these and belief in a vengeful God who would punish earthly pleasure with the ultimate torture of hell drive some parents to use corporal punishment to enforce parental authority and to prohibit supposed sinful behavior (Bottoms, Shaver, Goodman, & Qin, 1995; Ellison & Sherkat, 1993). Sin (e.g., disobedience) is considered the vehicle to hell, and parents may believe that it is better to inflict temporary pain than allow their children to burn in eternal hell. Some believers (and even mental health professionals; Friesen, 1992) even equate children's misbehavior with the actual activity of Satan or other evil spirits who literally possess the children and who must be exorcized by beatings. Thus, physical abuse is sometimes perpetrated by parents or by religious leaders or teachers who believe they are helping to deliver children from sin.

[font size="1"]Religion-related Child Physical Abuse:
Characteristics and Psychological Outcomes

Bette L. Bottoms
University of Illinois at Chicago

Michael Nielsen and Rebecca Murray
Georgia Southern University

Henrietta Filipas
University of Illinois at Chicago[/font]

Jesus wept.

[struggle4progress]

1. The emergence of spanking among a representative sample of children under 2 years of age ...

... in North Carolina

... To be eligible to participate in the study, a selected birth certificate had to be matched with a current telephone number of a North Carolina household. A child born between October 1, 2005 and July 21, 2007 needed to reside in the household. A referent child was selected at random. The mother or female guardian of the referent child had to speak English or Spanish and the interview was conducted in her preferred language. There was no attempt to verify birth certificate matching to minimize the threat of breach of confidentiality ...

The survey was conducted from October 1, 2007 to April 7, 2008 at the Survey Research Unit of the University of North Carolina. Blaise 4.6 (Statistics, Netherlands), a computer-assisted telephone interview software package by Statistics Netherlands, was used when administering the survey. A minimum of 12 call-back attempts were on a rotating schedule. Calls could be scheduled at the preference of the subject. Interviewers were trained according to standard procedures at the Survey Research Unit and the lead author about the contents and purpose of this survey ...

A large number of birth certificates (38,334) were back-matched for telephone numbers due to anticipated changes in address, phone number, and unlisted numbers. Forty-nine percent of names and addresses (18,789) were matched to a telephone number. Of these, 12,828 were entered into calling, 2884 subjects completed the interview, and 62 subjects partially completed the interview ...

... Spanking was inversely associated with maternal age. Increasing maternal age was associated with a decrease in the odds of spanking. For each year of age, mothers were at 2% lower odds of reporting spanking (p = 0.001). There was a significant relationship between spanking occurrence and maternal ethnicity. Mothers of Asian, Native American, and other ethnic groups participated in the survey in low numbers. Estimates of these associations with spanking are imprecise. Hispanic mothers had one-fourth the odds of spanking compared to white mothers (OR = 0.25; p < 0.001) and black mothers were also less likely to spank (OR = 0.60, p = 0.01) ...

http://www.frontiersin.org/child_and_neurodevelopmental_psychiatry/10.3389/fpsyt.2011.00036/full

[cbayer]

2. Is this someone's thesis or something?

Where in the world did you find this?

[LiberalAndProud]

3. It is a study, sourced and credited in the OP.

So what is the question again?