Photo by Shane Lin via Flickr.com; some rights reserved.
One of the YouTube channels I watch regularly is that of an atheist speaker, Seth Andrews, because he’s a calm and reasoned speaker on a topic that’s important to me, and he has a deep, mellow radio voice I could listen to for hours. Today, I found a speech of his on another channel and fell in love with this part of it: He mentioned how young people from religious families often email him to say they are having doubts about faith and they don’t know what to do. That puts him in an awkward position, he said, because he wants to be honest while also honoring their family’s boundaries. Here’s how he said he typically responds:
“You know, you are under the guardianship and authority of your mother and father, and they need to be respected. At the same time, even if you’re in church every day, use this time to get information, because good decisions come from good information. If you have to go to church, fine – learn the Bible. Learn what your church is teaching. Learn what other churches are teaching. Sponge up information as best you can. There will come a day when you are making life decisions on your own, and you will have then been able to use this time to develop the arsenal you need for battle. And then you can determine what you want to stand for, and what you accept as being based on the evidence, and what you accept as moral. And you can carve your own path. And until then, you know, you are a child under the authority of your mother and father. Respect them, be the best kid you can, and be a sponge.â€
That’s a good answer and a pretty fair one, don’t you think? It’s hard as a teen to accept counsel that tells you to be patient and pay attention rather than bowing up to parents and fighting them tooth and nail. But it’s good advice. My favorite part: “Good decisions come from good information.”
