by Joseph Whalen

Created on: January 14, 2009

Our religious beliefs are the fundamental source of our moral values and behaviors. Indeed religion has been the basis for the creation of civilization as we know it today. Our governments, legal systems and social behaviors have their roots in the predominant religion of our respective regions. Despite this underlying foundation of religious belief in our everyday life, organized religion itself is at one of its lowest points in recorded history. Attendance at various religious institutions is at abysmal levels and dropping annually. This is a clear sign that parents do have the power to end hereditary religion.

To a large extent hereditary religion stands against much of what most religions represent. Having another person, parent or otherwise impose their religious beliefs on you rather you accepting your beliefs is contrary to many religious teachings. Our beliefs make up our core, to have them instilled on us rather than embraced by us without choice hardly makes the faith imbued by these beliefs reality. Forcing someone to belief in a particular religion is no more effective than forbidding someone to believe in their religion of choice. This is a form of persecution that has been railed against by most western religions since their inception.

Many people fail to equate the pressures associated with hereditary religion with the persecution of Jews by the pagan of antiquity, or the Christians by the later Roman pagans. While there are obvious fundamental differences between the examples the underlying premise remains the same. Hereditary religious practices force children to be indoctrinated into a belief system they are incapable of understanding at such an young and unable to reject due to parental pressures. While we may not be throwing our children to the lions or enslaving them into perpetual bondage should they fail to embrace our own religious beliefs we are applying unreasonable pressures on them to meet our expectations.

There are clear arguments in favor of hereditary religious practices. The vast majority of world religions serve as an example of how to conduct oneself in a manner that is honorable and appropriate. We build our core set of morals from our religious beliefs and examples set by our religious leaders. In turn we learn how to interact within the bounds of acceptable behavior established by the society we live in, learning right from wrong. All of these things are a positive effect of hereditary religion, but do they justify the imposition

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