"Imagine No Religion"

Today, a coworker told me that “children should be raised with religion, otherwise they will run wild”.  I am not fully sure what the hell that means, but it made me think of a conversation my son and I had last week.

I recently had the opportunity to speak with him about “Good Friday”.  He heard me say I had “Good Friday” off work.  I explained to him what the day represents by telling him there was this guy Jesus that believed in Peace and Love, but that the story goes, that some people hated that he was spreading the word about loving everyone and so they killed him.  He says, “Oh, so he was kind of like Martin Luther King Jr., because he died because he was teaching about loving everyone no matter what color or who they were”.  I agreed, “yes, they were very similar”. 

So, without raising my son in a religion, but being honest with him about what all different religions believe, he is able to see that sort of correlation.  I didn’t need him to fear hell for that, but he understands that you should love everyone.  He understands it doesn’t matter what color someone is, what they look like, what they wear, who they love, what they eat, or what religion (or lack thereof) they are.  He understands we all have feelings, feelings can be hurt, and it is nice to treat people nice (animals too).  What more can I ask?  Unfortunately a lot of current religions that I could have indoctrinated him in, even the Christianity I was raised with, wouldn’t be doing as good at teaching him the morals already instilled, since many of them are still against marriage equality and civil liberties for gay people.  I'll stick with John Lennon and continue to "imagine no religion".