How young is too young to know what you believe?

[Subhankar Zac]

I'd rather not teach my kids about any religion, and let them pick once they are of a proper age.
Also I hope to get them into a secular school with no religious enticement.

I felt an attraction towards Christianity since I was 7, mainly cuz I went to a Catholic school and polytheistic religion was a bit too complicated for me to comprehend.

But after converting to Christianity, I left it after 1.5 years because I felt the ideas are different from my beliefs about morality, soul and death.
I've equally searched Jainism, Wicca, Sufism, even Satanism and also lived as an atheist. I've always felt an incomplete sense before I came full circle back to the religion of my family which was Hinduism and also adopted a bit of Taoism and follow Mahayana Buddhism as well.

So, it's better for children to pick their beliefs at their own time. I'll surely have my kids teach meditation, Yoga, even chanting of Om and a little bit of Ayurvedic remedies. But not about Narayana, Shiva and Durga.

I guess I can teach him about Siddhartha Gautama and Mahavir Jain as great examples for non violence, love and vegetarianism and also Gandhi.

Most theistic religions are too complicated for children to understand without bias.

 

[arthra]

How young is too young to know what you believe?

Well in my case.. looking back on childhood memories there was always a spiritual aspect... Whether it was a dream or a wish I do not know but I knew the love of my Grandmother soon before she passed to the next world.

She held me in her arms and walked me around the cabin where the pines murmured and the birds sang and creek flowed.

A spiritual quality when I saw my Grandfather reading Tolstoy's War and Peace in his bed in that same cabin.

I would say over time in my teen years and up to my mid twenties I became more focused in my beliefs and found common cause with others.

 

[Subhankar Zac]

Bonus question! Why did I, or why would any young child, abandon the faith of their parents for something else? I've always wondered this, even I don't know why I left Christianity so early. Preschool seems a little young to be carving out your own way of life, any trained psychologists have any idea about this?

Because the minds of the parents and of their children are not the same.
And believing in the same religion ad their parents without seeing other religions out of fear or need to conform is not faith but internal bias

 

[Smart_Guy]

I dunno, maybe anytime before one becomes mentally mature? I mean, I don't think we can take a toddler's word in what they know to believe and if it is right

As for the parents, I think it is just a matter of thinking what's best for the child. They of course have to be normal, not screwed up families like gangsters or drug addicts, to consider them. Parents typically teach their children what they believe correct and good for them.

 

[ThePainefulTruth]

For all intents and purposes, I'm ignoring the law in this thread. Parents have control over what religious instruction and practice a child can engage with, but for the purposes of this thread I'm removing the hold that parents have over their children's religious lives.

How young is too young to know what you believe? I've heard people tell 14-15 year old Atheists that they are too young to understand whether they believe in god or not. I would disagree with this and say that although their beliefs may change throughout their lives, someone that age is perfectly capable of choosing their own religion and understanding it. But to what age do we accept this? I'll provide a personal example to get things going:

When I was a wee lovesong, about 5 or 6 years old, I felt a strong pull inside me to give up Christianity in favor of polytheism. I developed a pantheon loosely based off of the Egyptian gods I recently fell in love with and in my young mind I truly believed in these new gods. I developed some pretty elaborate rituals for a kid that young, one involved going outside on a specific night and dripping white and red candle wax onto a brown leaf and throwing it into the wind as I sang/chanted to the father god in my pantheon. Obviously my parents ended this whole ordeal after a while (I actually got a full year out of it, surprisingly), and little impressionable me went back to being a good Christian for a few more years, eventually leaving it again at age 11.

So, was I too young to actually believe in my new gods? Is any child that young capable of truly believing in and understanding their faith? Does your opinion differ for kids who follow what they're taught and ones who choose their own beliefs like I did? If this is too young, what is the age when a child can reasonably choose their own faith?

Bonus question! Why did I, or why would any young child, abandon the faith of their parents for something else? I've always wondered this, even I don't know why I left Christianity so early. Preschool seems a little young to be carving out your own way of life, any trained psychologists have any idea about this?

Excellent question, and I think the answer is one of the many gray areas between first acquiring the beginnings of self-awareness at around 2, to adulthood. If our ability to reason is stifled with indoctrination, it is a severe crippling of our ability to think and reason, but we can still pick up on the fact in other parts of our lives that cause and effect and reasoned derived Truth, are inexorably linked. I believe that should lead us to dump the indoctrination no matter how painful or frightening. Yes, some can still lead a somewhat rewarding, and less psychically troubling, compartmentalized life. Though, having been there, I knew I was doing it even though I couldn't put my finger on a name for it. And then there are those who either surrender to the conditioning, or rebel from it completely, with both ending up in the same place--Hell (figuratively speaking) in this life, or oblivion in the next.

So, there is no real definitive answer as to when or how, except to say, if someone hasn't gotten off of their *** yet, get crackin'. (Oo, did you see what I did there? ) As for your bonus question, I too remember being interested in this stuff and questioning things at a young age. But questioning doesn't do us much good until we have some idea of what to move toward, which didn't happen for me until I was around 20. Yeah, you can jump off the cliff into nothingness--but usually those people end up brain dead from their own nihilistic indoctrination, or with a needle in their arm.

 

[Sutekh]

For all intents and purposes, I'm ignoring the law in this thread. Parents have control over what religious instruction and practice a child can engage with, but for the purposes of this thread I'm removing the hold that parents have over their children's religious lives.

How young is too young to know what you believe? I've heard people tell 14-15 year old Atheists that they are too young to understand whether they believe in god or not. I would disagree with this and say that although their beliefs may change throughout their lives, someone that age is perfectly capable of choosing their own religion and understanding it. But to what age do we accept this? I'll provide a personal example to get things going:

When I was a wee lovesong, about 5 or 6 years old, I felt a strong pull inside me to give up Christianity in favor of polytheism. I developed a pantheon loosely based off of the Egyptian gods I recently fell in love with and in my young mind I truly believed in these new gods. I developed some pretty elaborate rituals for a kid that young, one involved going outside on a specific night and dripping white and red candle wax onto a brown leaf and throwing it into the wind as I sang/chanted to the father god in my pantheon. Obviously my parents ended this whole ordeal after a while (I actually got a full year out of it, surprisingly), and little impressionable me went back to being a good Christian for a few more years, eventually leaving it again at age 11.

So, was I too young to actually believe in my new gods? Is any child that young capable of truly believing in and understanding their faith? Does your opinion differ for kids who follow what they're taught and ones who choose their own beliefs like I did? If this is too young, what is the age when a child can reasonably choose their own faith?

Bonus question! Why did I, or why would any young child, abandon the faith of their parents for something else? I've always wondered this, even I don't know why I left Christianity so early. Preschool seems a little young to be carving out your own way of life, any trained psychologists have any idea about this?

Interesting question, when I was young at the time I was raised to be Christian however my dad was into the whole Mormon church. In the third grade I was sent to a fundamentalist Christian school, I never realized that I was abandoning Christianity at a younger age. I was then introduced to paganism by my dad, however I was never really into Wicca or the RHP as much. Over time I was active with the Mormon church for a short while, I decided to get out after that. When I started growing up in middle school to the 8th grade my beliefs started to change I started to become more of an atheist in my own perspective, my dad however became back As a christian. I was also formerly into the Norse religion when I was extremely younger. My dad however wanted to throw his beliefs on me by taking me to church etc. Over time I wanted to abandon my past indoctrination from Christianity and that of Mormonism. I never realized that I was connected within the antinomian path at a younger age, I rebelled from the mainstream society when I was very young. When I started to become an atheist, I never quite new a lot about satanism or the LHP as much back then. I did however formerly lead an online satanist group on a gaming website for a bit when I was a freshman in high school. I was with an online church of Satan back then, however it wasn't the actual church of Satan. When my parents found out the way my beliefs were changing, they simply refused to accept my belief system but to try to destroy it. I had to do my best to defend my belief system over time, I became extremely angry to put it bluntly. Over time however that all changed when my parents sent me to a psychologist and I had the chance to explain to myself and to clear the misconceptions. I was raised dysfunctionally by my parents. My beliefs started changing in my teenage years through the age of 14, 15, and 16. It was rather a painful moment for myself to finally explain to my parents about my new belief a dozen times.[emoji849]

 

[allison21]

For all intents and purposes, I'm ignoring the law in this thread. Parents have control over what religious instruction and practice a child can engage with, but for the purposes of this thread I'm removing the hold that parents have over their children's religious lives.

How young is too young to know what you believe? I've heard people tell 14-15 year old Atheists that they are too young to understand whether they believe in god or not. I would disagree with this and say that although their beliefs may change throughout their lives, someone that age is perfectly capable of choosing their own religion and understanding it. But to what age do we accept this? I'll provide a personal example to get things going:

When I was a wee lovesong, about 5 or 6 years old, I felt a strong pull inside me to give up Christianity in favor of polytheism. I developed a pantheon loosely based off of the Egyptian gods I recently fell in love with and in my young mind I truly believed in these new gods. I developed some pretty elaborate rituals for a kid that young, one involved going outside on a specific night and dripping white and red candle wax onto a brown leaf and throwing it into the wind as I sang/chanted to the father god in my pantheon. Obviously my parents ended this whole ordeal after a while (I actually got a full year out of it, surprisingly), and little impressionable me went back to being a good Christian for a few more years, eventually leaving it again at age 11.

So, was I too young to actually believe in my new gods? Is any child that young capable of truly believing in and understanding their faith? Does your opinion differ for kids who follow what they're taught and ones who choose their own beliefs like I did? If this is too young, what is the age when a child can reasonably choose their own faith?

Bonus question! Why did I, or why would any young child, abandon the faith of their parents for something else? I've always wondered this, even I don't know why I left Christianity so early. Preschool seems a little young to be carving out your own way of life, any trained psychologists have any idea about this?

I just realized now that while I did respond in this thread, I didn't actually answer the original question
I grew up in the same religion (and even specific church) that I am a part of today. When I was a child, I would go along to church and participate in Sunday School every week, and then became part of the youth group when I was old enough. During those years, I think it was more of a participation because it was what my parents did and what my parents believed, and also because I was pretty good friends with some of the other kids there. At that point I believed in God much like I believed in Santa Clause and the Tooth Fairy - I was told it was true, so I believed it was true. I personally didn't have any stand-out experiences with God, and the stories seemed rather bland.
However, when I was around 16, I started working at a religious camp during the summers. It was there where I really started believing for myself. I was able to look for God in places other than a church sanctuary, and was encouraged to come up with religious views and ideas of my own, not just repeat things that I had been told. I think that in any young person's life, it's crucial for them to be able to explore their own faith on their own, away from the influence or pressure of their parents and any other religious structures that they've already been indoctrinated with. I don't know if I would be a Christian today if I didn't work at camp for those 4 summers, but I'm glad I did.
So I guess what I'm trying to say is that a person can figure out what they believe in at any age, but it can sometimes be harder to transition the faith you were raised in from your parents' to your own.

 

[Kilgore Trout]

I think you have to be in your 20's to have a somewhat fully realized, examined, aware, honest, and meaningful belief about most things - religion included. Mileage may vary - some people are wise beyond their years - other people never come close to holding meaningfully examined beliefs.