Child Stuck in battle of Parents Faiths

Joseph Reyes: courtesy PR News ChannelRichard Dawkins, the famous religion oppositionist, argues children are born free of religion and that it is their parents that force it on them, which is obviously true. Children are not born with cricifixes, knowledge of the Koran or anything else like that. The debate is approached in many ways by various religions. Muslims believe that all children are Muslim and are either led away from the true faith by infidels or choose poorly to reject the most violent faith in the world. Buddhists believe all souls are Buddhist, but being a Buddhist is a little less impactful on the Earth and the infidel.

So this brings me to Joseph Reyes and his daughter. Recently Joseph brought his daughter to a Catholic mass against the wishes of her Jewish mother. Joseph, who is divorced, says Catholicism is very important to him, although it wasn't when he converted to Judaism for marriage, but I digress. Obviously this guy is a manipulative and vindictive jerk, judging by the calls to local TV crews to film his holy transgression and his assertion that Catholicism is part of Judaism. But, his mother is obviously some over-possessive super-Jew, since she is so sure that Catholicism will cause her three-year-old daughter some kind of harm.

I agree with her, I believe the child growing up in a Catholic community will have a warped understanding of sexuality and morality and she will see Africans who get AIDS as obedient warriors of God but those who wear condoms, preventing the spread of disease as sinners as instructed by the Pope, so...

This is another of those great examples from real life where the religious are unable to step back and see the truth; that children are born free of religion, they learn faith from parents, who learned from their parents and their faith is entirely decided by geography. If the child were born in Iran she would wear the oppressive hijab and worship a long line of violent mysogynists, but she was born in the United States and is in turn being argued over by her bickering and faith challenged parents.

In the story I watched on Good Morning America, the only one who had no say was the daughter herself. And I think this plays to Richard Dawkins fight against child-faith, the child already has no say in her own faith, so what hope do any children have to think for themselves when their parents are so busy filling their heads with mysticism, which is often interlaced with prejudice, ignorance, anti-science and philosophies that harm the education of Americans. The petulant father has a website, another Christian using faith to raise money for his cause.

Something to ponder: did all the Asians, Africans and Natrive Americans that came before European exploration (Christian faith) go to Hell, despite having no opportunity for exposure to the One True Faith? If so, what a cruel God.