India Jones
9:00-9:50

Children And Religion

With the increasing number of families turning to secular humanism as a replacement for religion, many questions arise when concerning raising a family. Should religion be a part of every child’s upbringing? Could the views of a secular humanistic family raise morally conscious adults? With the many questions that arise from the issue of secular humanism I look at the many reasons that bring people to the conclusion that this is right for them and their families. As Katharine Ozment, author of Losing our religion in the Boston magazine states in her article, many adult begin to drift away from the religion they were bought up to practice because they feel as if they were forced to believe something that their parents believed. When growing up it becomes easy to quit the rituals, stop celebrating the holidays, and to ignore the social preferences that go along with their previous religion.
Secular humanism gives those individuals who don’t fit into the major religions such as Christianity, Judaism, and Buddhism, a title. Even though the religions were created my different philosophers, with different mindsets and beliefs on how the world was created and works one thing that remains in common between them all is the morality and ethics. Secular humanist don’t believe in a afterlife, or salvation, which provide insight on what will happen to your body or soul after death when you live a fulfilling life according to your religion. It’s hard to believe that they have morals if they don’t concern themselves with how they live their lives based on the preconceptions of society. Secular Humanism doesn’t seem like a good replacement for religion for those reasons but when community service is brought into the argument it makes room for a difference of opinion.
If a secular humanist spends time doing charitable work such as feeding the homeless, or keeping the community clean which shows good character, its hard to say that they lack good moral teaching. People go to church to feel uplifted, and doing community service can give one the same feeling. To say that doing so is a replacement for church service seems right. In church lessons are learned through a priest reading passages out of the sacred readings of the religion. Through community service lessons are learned through action on your part, which almost makes it more personal.
The ideal way for me on how to teach a child about religion is to raise them up with a clear understanding on what their religious background is. If a child grows up without having an official position on religion then they will incorrectly learn how to morally carry themselves throughout life. The children’s peers become their teachers when the parents should be the ones to instruct morals. And example of this in Losing our religion is when at the thanksgiving table the child thanks Jesus when