by Elizabeth Vaughn

Created on: November 15, 2008

Hereditary religion suggests that children are actually born with religion, which is incorrect. Children have no belief structure quite like our religions until we have taught it to them. But, begging the actual meaning of the question of whether it is the parent's choice to bring their children into a particular religion or not, I must emphatically disagree.

The most obvious and typical reason for that line of thinking is because the parents are often not the only people in a child's life. Religion is taught even in public schools and day cares, beginning at very young ages. An example of this is my daughter, who is afraid of the devil and can paraphrase common scriptures, though I have not imposed any set religion upon her. She has grandparents, teachers, friends and extended family that also serve as mentors to her ever expanding mind. Every child has this, because that's how today's society has been structured at this time.

But, more importantly, I disagree with this 'hereditary religion' because as parents, we all want to share our knowledge with our children, even if that knowledge has absolutely no proof whatsoever. As parents, we live our lives through our own religious paradigm and set the example to our children even if we try not to. It's not so much that they happen to stumble upon you praying one day, or even that they decide they want to come with you to church, but much smaller details that we pay no attention to anymore. Such as 'God bless you' when someone sneezes or when celebrating the holidays. The biggest misconception of parents, however, is what they actually have taught the child by these minor and nearly automatic events.

When we say 'God bless you' to someone sneezing, we are doing so out of a habit from hundreds of years ago when people believed sneezing was the weakening of a man's body and that man had to be immediately blessed, lest a demon enter and possess him. But, our children do not know the back story on it, and if they did they would think it was even more strange. They see our natural responses being condemned by humanity, and a request from God to bless that action. An action we have no control over whatsoever. So, our children become confused at this action.

At Christmas we give gifts and tell our children they came from a large, old man in a red suit, but that the holiday was for baby Jesus. To them, an invisible man is giving them gifts for being good because 2000+ years ago, an important baby was born. Worse yet, most

• 1
• 2
• Next Page >>