Schopenhauer's "The Horrors and Absurdities of Religion:" Some Thoughts

I should preface this by writing that I do indeed believe in God; it is religion I reject.
It's always seemed to me inconceivable that one's passage to heaven should depend on the religion one was born into. Isn't faith supposed to be an individual choice? How can it be considered as such if we're indoctrinated into one belief system at a time when our brains aren't fully developed enough to make metaphysical judgments of our own?

Philalethes "...the capacity for faith is at its highest in childhood."

Of course a child will adopt a faith if he or she has it recited to them daily! After the childhood indoctrination,

Philalethes "...hardly one in a thousand (people) will then possess the firmness of mind to seriously and honestly ask himself: is this true."

One could make a child believe anything. Schopenhauer poses the example of teaching a child that it was his or her religious duty to kill others as an "essential condition for salvation." I'm inclined to agree; it's the ultimate incentive. 

Philalethes "The power of religious dogmas imprinted to early years is such that are capable of stifling conscience and finally all pity and humanity."

We need to stop giving our children so quickly to religion. It's an absurd notion that, based on the location of ones birth, one is more likely to enter heaven. One should not be forced to adopt metaphysical views. It stifles the intellect and limits the imagination.

Philalethes "...an incubus on all intellectual endeavours."

This kind of birth based faith is so absurd, and so stifling, that all one of the faith need do to "verify" one's viewpoints is to determine that another viewpoint differs; one never pauses to objectively ask which is right and why. I think I'm making some ground; I realize I'm taking a good amount from Schopenhauer, but I think the fundamental issue with religion is that it teaches one to ask "what" without asking "why." It's separated the essential questions; the dichotomy is absurd! In Schopenhauer's work, Demopheles argues that religion is a way to control the masses; just because it is pragmatical however, doesn't make it right. In regards to its pragmatism, 

Nego consequitiom!

Philalethes "I cannot see why because other people are simple minded, I should respect a pact of lies."

The masses, Demopheles says, are incapable of answering "why," so religious allegory substitutes. The "what" is indeed there, but its justification is counterfeited. Are we incapable of answering "why," through reason though? One only need look at Ancient Greece to show we are not. When no "why" is supplied, humans are forced to use reason to answer it as an essential condition to survival. Religion destroys these inner promptings, however, by artificially creating a "why." Children need to be allowed to find reason and faith largely by themselves; familes and churches should be mere guides in faith, not instructors, especially in the early years. Humans are not innately incapable of answering "why;" religion renders us so. If we recognize the fact that faiths are largely based on where one is born, and not any voluntary choice, we can realize its detrimental effects to the rational center of the brain. Only by eliminating this emphasis on religion can we regain our reason and individually answer the metaphysical questions. Indeed it is time for mankind to

"...grow out of religion as out of its childhood clothes."

-L.C.