I've been thinking about the idea of raising children in a bubble. It's come to my mind because of an assignment I have for a class called Christian Foundations. I have an essay due in about a month that is to deal with an issue that I struggle with or wonder about that is relevant to Christianity. What I wonder about is whether there's another bubble out there surrounding me.
The first one burst quite violently. Family, love, God, all viewed from a different perspective. Can you really say you know something if you have been prevented from (or prevented yourself) from viewing the possibilities? Some bubbles are inevitable, I think. There is a natural bubble burst when childhood transitions to adulthood. But I don't like the thought of building unnatural ones for my children. I think they should be taught to look beyond the inevitable ones, in hopes that they can see the world more clearly and not constantly fear that there's another one that they just can't see. Maybe this is not possible.
A friend asked me, when I was debating some doctrinal statement or something, "If you were born Muslim, would you still be Muslim?" I didn't know how to answer. Of course the Christian answer probably would have been that God would have saved me from believing a lie, so I'd have converted. But the real answer is different. Aren't there devout Muslims? Aren't there devout Christians? Aren't there devout Protestants? Aren't there devout Christian fundamentalists, each with their own reason for everyone else going to hell? Aren't you going to hell, according to most other devoutly religious people who happen to different than you? What made you born into X religion?
To my Christian friends, if you were born Muslim, would you still be Muslim? To those in other religions, what if you were born Fundamentalist Christian? Would you still be one?
This is going to my thesis question, I think.
I was born into a Christian family (fundy Lutherans) and converted to Judaism in my 20s. So I guess it's also possible to go the "wrong" direction, if that helps. I don't think that my decision was made under the influence of Satan, though. I still think I am worshiping G-d.
ReplyDeleteI am a long time follower of your writing -- since the blog before Generalismo. Based on what I read there, I think you lived in a particularly severe bubble, but I also think that most people in the US grow up in some kind of shelter, because that's possible here and it makes life easier. I like your point about not creating unnatural bubbles -- I said to my parents some time ago that the main thing would have been not to lie to me about G-d or claim things that are patently untrue. The transition to adulthood involves a departure from the bubble precisely because one's capacity to reason grows so much. It's possible to see some of the prejudices created in the bubble as loving fictions, I suppose (Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny), but it would be so much better if parents said, there's a lot we don't know, as opposed to setting up iron rules about how to understand matters that humans obviously don't have under their intellectual control.
In the end none of us can fully comprehend everything, particularly things we haven't seen. But I do hope that we can teach the generations that follow us not to be afraid of learning new things that may challenge and / or change their worldviews.