Jerry Maguire and Joey Potter.
A married couple - for the sake of their privacy, let’s call them Jerry Maguire and Joey Potter - is getting a divorce. Apparently one of the prominent reasons for the divorce is that Joey doesn’t want their six year-old child to be raised in Jerry’s religion. His religion claims that seventy-five million years ago an extraterrestrial alien dictator murdered hundreds of billions of his people on this planet by blowing all (except a handful) of them up in volcanoes with nuclear bombs. The souls of these dead aliens attach themselves to modern humans and by paying the church lots of money you can potentially go through rituals to have them removed. Consequently, the almost unanimous consensus from the public is that it is a good thing that the girl will not be reared as part of this cult. However, surprisingly few people seem to have an issue with the fact that Joey is now going to indoctrinate their daughter in her religion. Her religion claims that the universe and everything in it was invented six thousand years ago by an omnipotent extraterrestrial dictator who later murdered all the people and animals on this planet (except a handful) by flooding the Earth with water. To this day, anyone in the cult who disobeys the alleged rules of the immortal dictator must go through rituals to have these faults removed, and the church has ‘collected’ so much money from its parishioners that it is the richest entity in the world. Does anybody else feel that there is something not quite right about this scenario?
Almost all parents raise their children to believe things that are not true. [Warning: life spoilers for people who are not yet ten years old...] Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy are not real. However, convincing children that these beings exist opens up the possibility for other ‘magic’ to be true. Hence, many people grow up believing in astrology, ghosts, curses, reincarnation, luck and superstitions, and continue to believe in these as adults. Many believe in prayer, at least one god and an afterlife which can be good, bad or indifferent.
In my opinion, it’s wrong for any parent to convince their children that any of the above is true. Children grow up believing that they are being constantly watched by divine beings, that they can change their life by worshipping or pleading to these beings and that after this life there will be another one of eternal reward or torment. This is utterly irresponsible, because it rears children who are not aware that their lives are in their own hands, that they need to take control of their lives and do so now - no magic gods are going to do things for you, no matter how much you beg or praise. Children need to know that they don’t need to be afraid of ghosts or demons or monsters or gods - they just need to be the best people they can be.
When Jerry and Joey’s daughter is old enough to make the informed decision herself, she should be free to choose to join a religion or cult if she wants to, but neither parent should be raising her as part of one. The same should apply for every other parent and child on the planet.
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Almost all parents raise their children to believe things that are not true. [Warning: life spoilers for people who are not yet ten years old...] Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy are not real. However, convincing children that these beings exist opens up the possibility for other ‘magic’ to be true. Hence, many people grow up believing in astrology, ghosts, curses, reincarnation, luck and superstitions, and continue to believe in these as adults. Many believe in prayer, at least one god and an afterlife which can be good, bad or indifferent.
In my opinion, it’s wrong for any parent to convince their children that any of the above is true. Children grow up believing that they are being constantly watched by divine beings, that they can change their life by worshipping or pleading to these beings and that after this life there will be another one of eternal reward or torment. This is utterly irresponsible, because it rears children who are not aware that their lives are in their own hands, that they need to take control of their lives and do so now - no magic gods are going to do things for you, no matter how much you beg or praise. Children need to know that they don’t need to be afraid of ghosts or demons or monsters or gods - they just need to be the best people they can be.
When Jerry and Joey’s daughter is old enough to make the informed decision herself, she should be free to choose to join a religion or cult if she wants to, but neither parent should be raising her as part of one. The same should apply for every other parent and child on the planet.
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