That isn’t entirely correct. It makes sense if you don’t believe those religions; but not if you do. Hence religious freedom (freedom of conscience) prohibits treating mere religious upbringing as abuse (it has to extend into actual abuse to do so; and what constitutes the difference enjoys an extensive case law in the US). Civil society requires the state not to suppress religious freedom. Ergo, you can’t have soldiers marauding cities snatching kids from religious families under a pretense of “preventing abuse.”

For example, one “could” say that forcing kids not to run into the street or go anywhere on the internet unsupervised is “abuse” by that same logic: after all, these are violations of autonomy, in the name of one’s “beliefs” about the world. But by that logic, parenting itself is entirely abusive and ought to be illegal, which of course is self-contradictory. The state is no more qualified to abusively violate kids’ autonomy than their parents are. The fact of the matter is, someone has to make decisions for kids and limit their autonomy until they are competent to take over themselves, and those decisions must follow from the guardians’ beliefs about the world (as there is no other basis on which to act than that).

So the only way we could justify the state intervening is when we can present physical evidence in court of actual (not hypothetical) abuse. Mere religious teachings don’t meet that epistemic standard. Certain teachings, and certain means of teaching, could, but that’s when we get to cases where the state does intervene. See The Child’s Religious Freedom, Religious Upbringing and the Prevention of Coercion in International and English Law and Religious Freedom v. Parental Responsibility Determinations. There are still ongoing debates about where the line should be drawn (e.g. is circumcision a violation of children’s rights or more comparable to vaccination or piercing an ear?). But it is not drawn at “mere religious teaching.”

That is not an accurate description of Eagleman’s theories. Nothing he found bears any relevance on competence to make decisions and act autonomously as adults.

Now I notice all the reasons I gave to believe children cannot consent apply to children forced to go to church, influenced to assent to religious propositions, and expected to “consent” to religious conversion. Raising the issue whether religious indoctrination of children may verge on child abuse.

American neuroscientist David Eagleman has demonstrated that (otherwise normal) young “adults” often have not yet developed feedback control mechanisms in the brain that normally prevents emotional overload, which like inebriation, limits the ability to think clearly.

“they are intimidated by adults” This is probably the main reason, because it represents the power difference between adults and children, and in this case, between men and young girls. All other things being equal (like status and wealth), the young girl is always at a power disadvantage. The catholic church hasn’t realised this yet, and still praises teenage Mary for being willing to bear the child of the Lord of the Universe, when really, what choice did she have? It’s immoral for even asking.

Yes. You pretty much answered your own question.

Consent requires a person to be informed and rational and fully capable of appreciating the consequences of the options before them, which requires knowledge and skills of the sort you list. Preteen children are generally not so qualified. Nor are people too inebriated to think clearly. Or who are mentally disabled. And so on.

Even thirteen-to-fifteen year olds are often not qualified on these measures; and pretty much never are cognitive skills tests tendered by sex traffickers to prospective targets, so “hypothetically competent” doesn’t cut it here, any more than merchants can sell “hypothetically not poisonous” food.