By the time most people can critically read Genesis or the Quran, they've already been told since age four that it's the unquestionable word of God. Is teaching scripture as literal fact to small children a parent's sacred duty — or is it loading the dice before the kid can even play? Pick a side.
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Add your commentJewish education kind of bakes in the questioning — kids are taught to argue with the text, the Four Questions at Passover, the whole tradition of dispute. 'Believe it literally or you're out' is not the only religious model on offer.
Teaching a four-year-old that a talking snake and a global flood are literal history, then acting surprised they 'choose' the faith at eighteen, is like locking someone in a room and praising them for staying. The choice was made before they could speak.
Fair, but 'renovate later' assumes the early teaching didn't install a fear of renovating. For a lot of us it installed exactly that — guilt and dread at even asking the question. The walls had alarms on them.
By that logic teaching them ANY worldview before they can evaluate it is 'loading the dice'. You teach kids you love them, that cruelty is wrong, that their country has a history. Nobody waits for informed consent to pass on values. Faith is a value.
Raised young-earth creationist. Believed the universe was 6,000 years old until I was 19. Walking into a geology class and realizing my parents had taught me, with total love and total confidence, things that were simply false — that betrayal takes years to metabolize.
And the flip side: I was raised by militant atheists who mocked all faith, and that was ALSO indoctrination. 'Let them choose' usually means 'raise them in MY worldview and call it neutral'. There's no view-from-nowhere to raise a kid from.
That right there is more honest than most clergy. Faith that's never been allowed to be doubted isn't faith, it's programming that hasn't been tested yet.
Teach the kid the STORIES, absolutely. The flood, the exodus, the Buddha under the tree, the Greek gods — all of it, as the magnificent human heritage it is. Just don't tell them one shelf of the mythology section is the documentary and the rest is fiction.
Counterpoint from a believer: I'd rather give my child a coherent moral universe with meaning and belonging now, and let them renovate it later, than hand a four-year-old a shrug and 'figure it out yourself, kid'. Kids need walls before they can decide which to knock down.
Strong point. The honest version isn't 'teach them nothing', it's 'teach them how to think, expose them to the options, and admit out loud which parts are faith vs which parts are fact'. Most homes of every stripe skip that admission.
There's also the hell problem. Teaching a small child that doubt or the wrong belief leads to eternal torture isn't education, it's a threat aimed at a brain that can't yet weigh it. You don't 'freely choose' under threat of infinite punishment.
Difference: I can show the kid evidence for 'cruelty hurts people'. I can't show them evidence for 'a man rode a winged horse to heaven'. One is a value, one is a factual claim dressed as a value. Teaching the second as certain fact is the issue.
As a Muslim parent this thread is making me uncomfortable in a useful way. I do teach my kids the Quran is literally true. But I also want them to actually believe, not just inherit. If it can't survive their questions, was it ever really theirs?
The fear of letting kids question is itself the tell. If you were sure the evidence was on your side, you'd hand them the hardest objections yourself. Hiding the objections means you suspect the answers can't survive them.
The real experiment would be raising kids fully informed of all faiths and none, then seeing what they pick. We don't run it, because deep down everyone suspects their specific book wouldn't win a fair fight. That suspicion is the most honest thing in religion.
Teach them it's TRUE if you believe it's true — but teach them HOW you know, including the honest 'this part is faith, not proof'. The crime isn't passing on belief. It's passing on certainty you don't actually have and forbidding the questions.
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