Can Children Have Faith?

What I would like to discuss in this thread is children and faith and can they have it if they don't fully understand the concept?My personal point of view is that children born into a devout religious family are, more often than not, coerced/encouraged/expected to adopting the religious practices and belief structures of their parents. Due to the way children learn and develop they are, of course, hugely suggestible and will believe anything you tell them. Therefore it can be said that religious belief is random as it depends on accident of birth (I know there are many exceptions i.e. finding faith and religious conversions etc but I don’t think that many children arrive at religion through such routes). Therefore if children don’t have a choice over their religion how can they have faith in its true sense when all they are doing is what they have been instructed to do?This analogy may clarify my point - if you take a dog to an art gallery every day and hold it up in front numerous pieces of art it’s false to then claim your dog is an art enthusiast.

Thread moved here from the Proposed New Topics forum.

I was raised Catholic and we have a sacrament called Confirmation. This is, literally, confirming that you are a Catholic and is when you become an adult member in the church. It happened in 8th grade and at that time I think you are old enough to understand and question whether or not you want in. heh, maybe they have the most faith. But anyways, as you grow up I think you start to explore different religions and then you have the option of deciding what you think is most truthful. Of course, it could be ingrained into you so deeply that all choice is removed but it would be hard to tell.

I was wondering about this myself.Last evening I was talking to some friends about the various ways in which a person comes to Christ. Mine was relatively speaking a Damascus Road conversion but others stories indicate that conversion often occurs at a slower rate.They were telling me of their oldest child, now in his twenties and of his long term relationship with God. Years before when driving back home one stormy winters night, they came across a long section of road which was badly flooded. The car was full with their 4 young children, the youngest of which was only a few months old. Worriedly, the parents were praying aloud for safe passage through the flooded road.Successfully through the obstacle, they motored on. After a few miles from the back seat, their 4 year old son piped up."I was praying to God too"."What were you praying about Mark?" enquired his parents"I was praying that everybody else would safely get through too"Relationship with God is dependant on God instigating. Not us.

Children for the most part believe what they're told. Thats why children believe in monsters under the bed and Farther Xmass. They also have less experience to sort the plausable information from the implausable.Bring a child up to have faith in a god (or whatever) and the chances are improved that it will stick to that faith. Don't expose the child to a faith and the chances of it spontaneously generate a faith in a god are very slim indeed.I would agree that it is more or less random aside from the concept of implicit and explicit religiousity (a study reported in the Guardian last year, will try and dig it up. I think it was done by TV's Dr Robert Winston).

Why? it's not hard to tell at all otherwise why do the majority of religious people have the same religion as their parents?This message has been edited by whiskeyjack, 04-14-2006 01:10 PM

But he wouldn’t have been prying at all if he hadn’t overheard his parents and decided to copy them. In this example there’s nothing to suggest god has instigated anything - only shows how impressionable 4 year olds can be.

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I was raised Catholic and we have a sacrament called Confirmation. This is, literally, confirming that you are a Catholic and is when you become an adult member in the church. It happened in 8th grade and at that time I think you are old enough to understand and question whether or not you want in.

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Yeah, and how many 13 year olds are actually going to defy their parents wishes and reject the religion they were raised to believe in?How many of them really consider that an option, considering almost no kid ever does?It's a mostly meaningless "rite of passage" with little actual choice.(I was raised Catholic, too)

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They were telling me of their oldest child, now in his twenties and of his long term relationship with God. Years before when driving back home one stormy winters night, they came across a long section of road which was badly flooded. The car was full with their 4 young children, the youngest of which was only a few months old. Worriedly, the parents were praying aloud for safe passage through the flooded road.

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Successfully through the obstacle, they motored on. After a few miles from the back seat, their 4 year old son piped up.

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"I was praying to God too".

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"What were you praying about Mark?" enquired his parents

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"I was praying that everybody else would safely get through too"

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Relationship with God is dependant on God instigating. Not us.

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Er...the 4 year old was just doing what his parents has taught him he was supposed to do.That's what children do when they are young; their entire beings are honed to the task of absorbing their particular culture's rules of socially acceptable behavior in order to win approval and acceptance and love from their parents.

He wasn't copying them, he was showing them how lacking their prayers were. He was demonstrating Christianity to them.

See repsonse to WJ aboveThis message has been edited by iano, 14-Apr-2006 06:12 PM

I think it is ludicrous to suggest that a 4 year old decides to demonstrate Christianity to his parents because he finds their prayers are ”lacking.’

Your descriptions are absolutely apt. For many religious people, their beliefs are but accident and indoctrination. That, like political position, like social viewpoints depend solely on the amount and content of the information the person has been givenSome Churches go a step further with the rite of Confirmation but even those vary greatly. Well done Confirmation programs should encourage the child to question their beliefs rather than simply regurgitate dogma, but my experience has been that those are few and far between.The ideal would be to have a system where all of a childs core beliefs are severely challenged, with the true and complete faith that whatever the outcome, even if it leads to abandoning the original beliefs, is appropriate. A belief that has not been internally, personally challeged is a weak and shallow one.Too many religions fear challenge. We can see that right here at EvC where members have called for a movement to take Christian children out of public schools. That desire seems to be based on one simple fact. Those calling for such a separation realize that the information that becomes available outside a tightly controled indoctrination system will almost inevitably lead to the child realizing the shallowness of what they have been taught and abandoning it.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Ludicrous to you perhaps but then again, you might be coming from the angle that would exlude God from having any influence on proceedings.Another take on it would be the patent 'superiority' of little Marks prayer (in so far as it is more Jesus-like) was an indication to his parents that God was working in this little fellows life. God reassuring Christians that their son in not outside his sphere of attention.Whatever, I found it a remarkable prayer for a 4 year old

Actually, I found it remarkable too (assuming that the story is true and not coloured by the parents' preconceptions). While the parents' prayer was selfish, the little boy prayed for people he didn't even know.It just goes to show how impressionable young children are. In this case, the little boy had learned how he should pray - in spite of his parents, who apparently preached better than they practised.All too often it goes the other way - children learn our worst practices instead of our best.

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