Devil's Advocate

[suspectclass]

I find it interesting that in response to my little poll so many people said that they would leave religion up to the discresion of their children. So this brings up the question of when people are capable of making significant decisions for themselves. When are you capable of choosing a faith? When are you capable of choosing to modify your body? Is it possible that there is worth in being rasied within a religious tradition for the sake of culture, ethics and tradition? Does the presence or absence of religious and/or spiritual belief add to or detract from the worth of the ethical code? If you make the choice not to raise your children with religion because you don't believe it, feeling that they will make the choice later, isn't it possible that you've already made the choice for them?

Comments

[24k.livejournal.com]

there is culture, ethics, and tradtion outside of religion as well. if i dont believe in any religion, how could i raise my child to be religious anyways? i should leave that up to an institution that i dont believe in?

Re:

[masscooper.livejournal.com]

No, I didn't say that.

But saying "I'll leave it up to my kids" isn't really a solution by itself. I'm just saying that everyone raises their children to believe in something, whether it's a Hebrew God, the Holy Trinity, Allah, the proletariate. Parents, I believe, have a responisbility to shape their childrens beliefs when they are young. Eventually the kids will choose for themselves anyway, but they're not going to be able to really make up their minds without something to ground it in--namely, how they were raised.