THE UNCONSCIOUS ADOPTION OF RELIGION BY SECOND GENERATIONS
Religious identity and thought have been studied by many disciplines with in the few elements learned in childhood that is the most commonly continued or retained into adulthood. Although religion and rituals may be consciously taught by the family and the community and are considered a major aspect of one’s identity and self, it is also believed that the child picks much of this religious shopping up unconsciously.
Religion is very personal – virtually from birth religious or ethical ideas are implanted in our mind by our parents and relatives. As a consequence, we usually follow the religious ideals of out parents and grand parents. Religion has become almost a matter of family tradition. What is the result of that process? That in many cases others have chosen out religion for us. It has simply been a matter of where we were born and when. Or, as historian 1Arnold Toynbee indicated, an individual’s adherence to a certain faith is often determined by “the geographical accident of the locality of his/her birth-place.” Is it reasonable to assume that the religion imposed at one’s birth is necessarily the whole truth? If you were born in Italy or South America, then without any choice, you were probably raised a Catholic, If you were born in India, then likely you automatically became a Hindu or, if from the Punjab, perhaps a Sikh. If your parents were from Pakistan, then you would obviously be Muslin. And if you were born in a Socialist country over the last few decades, you might have had no choice but to be raised an atheist.
Therefore, is the religion of one’s birth automatically the true one, approved by God? If that had been the concept followed over the millenniums, many among mankind would still be practicing primitive shamanism and ancient fertility cults, on the premise that ‘what was good enough for my ancestors in good enough for me.
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