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

in response...

[looking-4-god.livejournal.com]

I think that if I have children, I will more than likely take them with me to church, enroll them in Sunday School or send them to a private Catholic school so that they are educated in what I was educated in - mostly for the sake of tradition (and what worked for me) - however, by the time they are about 13 or 14 - whenever confirmation comes - then, talk with them about what they have learned, and about choices. I would like to believe that I would not force them to become an adult in a church that they were not happy in. And, sometimes, knowing what it is like to be disgruntled with the church as a teenager myself, teens need a chance to explore what else is out there. Even if it means making the choice not to go to church. Spirituality is a very important pary of my life right now - and I am not currently a member of any Catholic Parish (though it is my religion affiliation by choice) and it is only through my life experiences (which is by no means over) that I would now like to find a church community to belong to. But, it has been a long road to even come to the point of wanting to belong to a church. And, I believe that any child or teen or adult needs to be able to come to believe with a full heart, and not solely by what someone else tells them. Hearing other people's experiences is great, but the only way anyone learns anything is jump in and explore and ask questions for him or herself. I would be just as happy if my child converted to a religion completely opposite to my own - as long as they are happy.

[hissyfit.livejournal.com]

i'm not going to let my kids make any major life changes until they thuroughly research what they're talking about doing and write me a paper on it. seriously.

[eveandodd.livejournal.com]

If you raise the children without religion, you make a choice for them.
If you raise the children with religion, you make a choide for them.

But you're the parent,and it's something that you have to do. What is it about the religion that you like? Has it been good for you, is it the ethics, is it an important part of your family heritidge?

I was raised with lame attempts at episcopalianism; the fam didn't get to me soon enough and it never stuck. I think the option of spirituality of some sort is still available to me from MANY more places than I would have sought it if I had a church stuck on me.

I wonder, how difficult would it be to *give up* a religion if you found that it didn't suit you? Maybe it's easier to see the light than it is to shut it off and look for a new one.

[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.

[artartart.livejournal.com]

My mother raised me Jewish. She taught me that God was everywhere and in everything, including all people, and that He knew everything, including what was in people's minds.

I used to lie in bed at night and think in the following train: "If God knows what I'm going to think, did he know I was going to think this? And did he know I was going to think that? And that? And at what time did he know? Did he always know? Can I think faster than God will know I'm going to think this? Or did he already know I would think that?" and so on ad nauseam.

Interestingly though, my mother also taught me that thoughts had no moral value. That I could think anything and there was no moral rightness or wrongness to thinking it. It's one of the few things my mother taught me about morality or religion that I still believe.

I think you're capable of choosing a faith or lack thereof as soon as you know it's an option. If you really wanted your kids to decide for themselves, the best idea would be to educate them about a lot of different faith systems, plus the idea of atheism, and talk to them about what they thought was most likely, and why, and what each belief would mean morally, etc.

Counterpoint. I remember coming to my mother at age 10 with my newly formed theory that the universe was ephemeral, and could be simply peeled away like an orange peel and nothing would be left. That is my example of how sometimes you can come to believe something even if nobody ever let you know it was an option.