Serves me right for reading the Catholic Answers forums, but I came across a question posed to one of their “resident apologists” that dealt with a child (real or hypothetical wasn’t made clear) who didn’t believe in God. Read it for yourself here:
The response strikes me as absolutely ridiculous and a truly bull-headed way to deal with situations like this. Her argument seems to imply that minor children have no right to develop their own intellect if it’s in serious conflict with their parents’ beliefs. I wonder how she would react to parents who demanded that their child be an atheist in spite of the child’s independent thought and reading leading elsewhere.
Besides, how do you force internal assent to anything? A parent can only control external actions/behavior; they can make their child attend religious services, but they really can’t force belief. I was particularly offended by the apologist’s first statement: if your 12-year-old is exceptionally intelligent and sensitive, and arrives at a point where he/she cannot believe in God, then parents do have an obligation at least to listen carefully to his/her argument and perhaps make their own in response. Refusing even that much sounds like an excellent way to shut down communication altogether.
I’m not arguing that children should’t have discipline and boundaries–obviously, they need them–but I’m rather doubtful that discipline would have any positive effect in a case like this.
I was under the impression that in countries like the US, parents can (legally) force children to attend services or undergo religious education (or can forbid them from doing so), but I haven’t heard anything that would indicate that children lack a right to have their own conscience.
In every childs life comes a point when their parents faith stops being their faith and develop a faith of their own. But it can not be forced and if they do not develop their own faith they may have no faith.
I contend that every child who believes in God, has already been ‘forced’ into that choice.
‘Forced’ in quotes, because what the hell else are you going to do with a child? Throw it out in the woods and hope he figures out the world on his own?
That is, no one pops out of the womb ascribing to any set of beliefs or dogma. They have to be taught it – or forced to believe, if you will.
You probably could, but it would be down to planting evidence and censoring all evidence to the contrary. Sort of a Santa Claus approach writ large, and something I’d consider child abuse.
Realistically, 99% of everyone who is religious was “forced” to be religious, in the sense that they were raised to be religious from a time when their brain is built to accept everything which is taught by their parents implicitly.
And “99%” is not a statement of hyperbole. 99% of the time, your religion (or lack thereof) will be the same as your parents. So either Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Atheism, etc. are things which are passed on via genetics, or children are indoctrinated into the faith of their parents at an exceedingly high rate.
If this were true, where do athiests come from? At one point almost no-one was atheist. Now there are lots, even a majority of the 1st world outside the US.
60-70% is the rate if you consider changing denominations to be changing ones religion. The 99% figure considers all Christians to be Christians, all Hindus to be Hindus, etc.
Unfortunately, it looks like the Google Books link has since gone kaput. The following post contains the most quoted text from it:
I believe atheism is the default. Nobody pops out of the womb with any beliefs, especially abstract concepts like a Supreme Being. At no point would a young child look at the world around him and conclude that there’s some intelligence behind everything he sees. The idea would have to be planted in his mind by others . . . especially if he is raised by people with a religious agenda.
Ugh, these dumb ass religious forums and their “advice”. Here’s the thing: you make a child religious through fear or reward it is poor parenting. You are fooling your kid to be the way YOU want her/him. Continuing to do this is simply child abuse.
I am confident that if religion only pandered to adults over the age of 18, religion would’ve been an afterthought over 200 years ago. Just think if there were no baptisms, brises, confirmations, etc. for the “younger” sacraments. Exactly how many people over the age of 18 do you think you’d see at a mass? Answer = none.
Also, the “age of enlightenment”, which I believe varies, but I was told at 8 years of age is when a child can fully understand what a divine relationship entails. I think a lot of parents buy this buy-bull BS and force it all over the place as a type of insurance in case their kid tragically dies early.
And speaking of the age of enlightenment, isn’t the majority of people who have ever been born died BEFORE they reached the age of enlightenment in the first place? If thousands of kids died early over the centuries, didn’t get any heaven because they were too young, wouldn’t this drive intelligent parents into realizing that religion is mainly barbaric and frightening?
This is my take on it. The young person/soul desires to learn and searches for a authority figure in trying to understand what they see around them. A bond of trust is made and the young person/soul accepts the teachings of the one in authority, which helps give order to what they see around them. They allow another to define reality for them and then they live in it.
This is the basis for all earthly authority - submission and acceptance.
So yes i believe it is possible for a young person, or young soul, to be forced into believing in a god, or gods, or for that matter no god.
Kids learn to do whatever it takes to appease their parents (most of the time). I shuddered at the idea of making a kid go to mass every day and doubling up his religious training if he doesn’t believe. It’s twisted, and so very wrong.
I presume you could beat or torture someone until the beliefs have the patina of credibility.
Most parents don’t force their children however, they just tell them things that are not true and the children, being children, trust that their parents know what they’re talking about.
Or the parents make it so blindingly obvious that their continued love, affection, and tolerance for the child (and other people in their environment) are based conditionally on the professed beliefs of said child/people.
Faced with that sort of encouragement, it’s amazing how easy it is to simply fall in line so that you don’t have to deal with rejection from your family/home/community.
This confused me. The colon made me think that what came after it (the part I’ve bolded) was the apologist’s first statement; and I didn’t think it was at all offensive.
Upon clicking the link: yeah, the self-proclaimed apologist does come across as nutty. “March yourself right up to your room, young man, and don’t come down until you believe in God!”
Too true. I think my son believes in Thor based on what I’ve told him about thunder. What?! Why are a looking at me like that? Yes… I know… but I couldn’t have a control group as I only have one kid.
