The Mr and I are taking a vacation to visit my grandparents up in Hagermen, Idaho. Its a small little town with less than 1,000 people. I love this town, but with all small towns its very religious. My grandparents are religious so we’ve been keeping quite with our own beliefs. Its a lot better than what i expected. I was honestly worried that they would pray at every meal and they would ask us to say a prayer and have to deal with that awkward situation. But there hasnt been any of that. Anyways this isnt the topic of this post…
On the 8 hour drive up to here we started listening to Richard Dawkins “The God Delusion”. I LOVE this book! Every single point he brings up makes total sense! The thing he says about kids is fantastic. He says kids should not be refered to as ‘a christian/mormon/jew/etc child’ they should be reffered to as ‘a child of christian/jew/etc parents’. Kids are to young to know what religion they choose to be. They should be able to choose what they believe in when they are old enough to understand whats happening. Religion uses the scare tactic with kids. It also allows adults to push the “dont you dare question adults/higher being” so a adult tells a child “you are christian and thats what you will be forever”. The child doesnt question and thats it. If they get older and no longer believe their religion its hard to accept breaking free from what they’ve been brought up in. No one tells the child “its ok the explore your options. Its ok the question your beliefs”.
To me this is sad. When we have kids, we will tell them its ok to believe in something different than what we believe. It allows the child to become who they want to be. It gives them the choice. By not forcing them into a religion allows them to actually be a child and to not grow up to fast.
If our child wants to go to church then we’ll take them. If they later decide that they do believe in a god then we will support them. Its just the same thing we would do if they come up and tell they are gay. We’ll still love and support them. There are much worse things they could tell us than their religious beliefs or their sexual preferance.
I do encourage everyone to read The God Delusion wheither they are atheist or religious. It will make you think about your beliefs. I doubt anyone who is religious will read this book,but i would hope that they would.
Color Me Atheist 