The Not-so-elephant In The Room

[God of Mr. Hanky]

I don't have children yet, but when I do I fully intend on raising them within the faith, which is the same way my parents raised me. However, once they start growing up I would hope the do their own "soul searching" to see if this is really what they believe. And if not, I will love them and accept them regardless.

Do you understand what I am trying to say regarding a child's developing brain? If you raise your children to believe certain ideas from the time that they are first able to understand language, then they will believe those ideas for the same reasons that you do. Children don't develop their reasoning capacity until long after they have these ideas placed into their heads by parents and teachers. This means they (as with you) are unable to filter out ideas as either sensible or silly, therefore any ideas handed to them by an authority figure will mortar themselves in under the category "TRUE" until they begin to develop their reasoning skill at around the age of 7. Once an idea is implanted into one's head without the filtration of skillfully applied reason, getting it out can be very difficult - in fact, it can be so difficult that the ideas placed in your head under such conditions are still there! Therefore, if you really mean that as you said about letting them do their own "soul searching" and decide for themselves, then you should not teach them any religious ideas before the age of 7 - to do otherwise is cheating.