Religion

Today I saw some kid, couldn't have been more than 5 years old, wearing a yarmulke and those tassels (I can't remember the name, something with a p?). That's one of the main problems I have with religion. I'm fine if someone's religious and all, but when you're 5 years old, how can you possibly know that you, as a person, believe in the religion. Of course, the kid's parents believe that Orthodox Judaism is the path to heaven, and they want to raise him to believe that also, but the kid should be able to figure that out on his own. Say he goes through life, and finds Buddhism appealing. Should he be forced to think that his parents are deliberately lying to him by saying Orthodox Judaism is the way to go?

That's one of the beauties of religion - that there are so many options. If you believe that the world was created by an all-powerful all-knowing emu, there's probably a religion for you to believe in. But this example is one of the ways that religion really goes awry. These parents are clearly loving, caring parents who want their son to go to heaven and believe that showing the top of your head is an affront to God. They're doing what they think is best for their son. Unfortunately, their son now might not get to make up his own mind about religion. He might be forced to believe something that really just doesn't feel right to him.

If I was God (ha, if) and I was making rules about religion, I would try to make it such that religion really didn't enter a child's life until he or she was about 13. Let the kid be raised secularly and make up his or her own mind. There will still be the massive influences of the parents. But at least the child won't feel forced to believe something without forming the ability to really rebel.

Then again, I'm probably just going to hell (I did just say I was God...), so who knows. Damn my secular upbringing!