Did You Inherit Your Religion?

The vast majority of people in the world automatically and unquestioningly inherit their religion from their parents. For something as important as religion, why are we so reluctant to shop around?

One Saturday morning I was sipping my coffee and reading the newspaper when the doorbell rang. This was an unusual occurrence as we lived in a somewhat isolated log cabin in the mountains outside Denver. At the door stood two attractive college-age girls who wanted to talk to me about becoming a Jehovah’s Witness.

Normally I would politely say, “No thanks” and return to my paper, but that morning I decided to engage with them. After hearing their initial pitch, I asked one of them, “Are your parents Jehovah’s Witnesses?”

“Our whole family is,” she replied.

“Do you think religion is an important thing for people to have in their lives?”

“Very,” she replied, and I agreed.

“How many other religions have you studied and investigated?”

“None.”

“Is a car an important thing in your life?” I asked.

“Well, yes, but not as important as religion.”

Again I agreed. “What kind of car do you drive?”

“A Toyota.”

“Is that what your parents drive?”

“No.”

“Why not?” I inquired.

“Because I like Toyotas better.” She was starting to get impatient but politely continued to humor me.

“How do you know?”

“Because I like the way my Toyota looks and drives, plus it was inexpensive and gets good gas mileage.”

I nodded toward my Toyota sitting in the driveway and agreed. “How did you know that about your car when you bought it?”

“I test drove different cars and talked to my friends about their cars.” she said, increasingly exasperated.

“So you checked out lots of different cars before deciding on your Toyota,” I gently summarized, “but your religion, which is much more important, you inherited from your parents without knowing anything about the alternatives?”

“Yeah,” she replied rather sheepishly, catching my drift.

“I’ll tell you what,” I said. “Spend the next five years investigating and the other great religions of the world and then if you still want to talk to me about becoming a Jehovah’s Witness, we’ll talk.”

The girls, realizing they had a hopeless case on their hands, thanked me for my time and left.

The vast majority of people worldwide inherit their religion—one of the most important things in their lives—unquestioningly from their parents, without ever investigating the alternatives. Many arrogantly believe that their religion is the only way to salvation and that the vast majority who don’t share their beliefs will go to hell. Some believe that other religions are heresy, and a few will even fight and die in the name of their religion.

However, most people are incurious about religion and simply want to be told what to believe without personal investigation. Such investigation is, after all, a huge task which most people are not cut out for. This is OK; there is nothing wrong with inheriting the religion of our parents. This is why the Dalai Lama encourages people to follow the religion of the culture in which they were raised, as opposed to proselytizing Buddhism.

It seems that those who do inherit their religion would acknowledge their limited understanding of other religions and adopt a posture of tolerance, not dogmatism, toward them. Sadly, it seems that the less one knows about other religions, the more likely s/he is to be intolerant of it, fueling the fires of fundamentalism. Yet Islam has just as much meaning and validity for those in the Middle East, and Hinduism has just as much meaning and validity for those in India, as Christianity does for those in the West.

Did you inherit your religion?