Religious affiliation: children should be allowed to decide for themselves?

 

 

Even if religion and belief in God is losing more and more importance in today's world and churches are becoming increasingly empty, baptism is still very widespread. Even if the parents themselves have little to do with the church, they usually have their child baptized according to their own denomination and thus determine the child's religious affiliation. But shouldn't a child have the right to decide for himself here?

Which purpose has the baptism actually?

With the baptism the entrance into the Christianity is carried out. The parents, as well as the fixed baptism godfathers, confess in the name of the child the faith in Jesus Christ and promise a Christian education of the baptized child. In the Protestant faith, the baptized person makes this profession of faith once again in the context of confirmation; in the Roman Catholic faith, a renewal of the baptismal promise is part of confirmation. But why do parents make the decision for a faith for their child? Does a child have to have the same faith as his or her parents??

The child should decide for himself

 

 

Instead of pushing the child into a belief system into which he or she may not even want to enter, it is better to rethink and find new ways of doing things. In our multicultural society the borders are becoming more and more blurred and with the different people you also come into contact with different cultures and beliefs. Who can take the liberty of saying my religion is right, yours is wrong?? It is called "faith", not "knowledge". Little religious can be scientifically proven tangibly. Behind every belief there are some good principles and ideas, here and there there are also points that are no longer up to date or with which you can't identify for individual reasons. On the whole, it is a highly interesting topic in any case.

School times differently: "Religious education?

Instead of putting a child in a religious education class that essentially only covers topics related to the religion assigned to him by his parents, why not introduce a "religious studies" class?. Here, a variety of different religions could be presented and explained to the child. Ultimately, the child could then decide for themselves at a later, more mature age whether or not to join a faith. What speaks against it? You don't register your child in the first years of its life in a party and tell it what it has to vote for.

Children believe what they are told

Small children can be made to believe almost anything, or don't you know any child who believes in the stork, the Easter bunny or Santa Claus?? This is how you can make a young child believe in God, Mohammed, Jehovah or Buddha, too. Children are so easily influenced and are not yet able to form their own opinions. Pigeonholing them from the outset, as you see fit, is not fair. One should rather show the child the variety of different religions and let them decide for themselves with an open mind.

Conclusion

Of course, you can also change your faith and convert to other religions in adulthood. But who benefits from following a faith for twenty years, with religious instruction and various church ceremonies, only to realize at an adult age: I believe in something completely different. Why not from the outset freedom of choice and a cosmopolitan education as in many other areas of life also?