In the Beautiful Brains of Children: God vs. Einstein

Here's a short video of kids responding to the question, "What does God look like?" You can see from their responses that it's akin to asking the question "What color is a unicorn?"


(YouTube video link)

I find kids to be amazing and fascinating creatures of logic. They're so dang smart, it puts most adults to shame. I think the video above is amazingly telling of the abuse inherent in religious instruction. The kids at the beginning of the video are completely honest. When asked "What does God look like?" they respond that they don't know, or that they don't understand the question.

They have to be pressured to even answer such a nonsensical question. This is because children who are subjected to religious instruction are never asked whether or not God exists. They're told he does exist as an objective and solid fact. They're forcefully told it's true over and over again because there's not any way to arrive at belief in God through rational observation. Someone schooled in everything but religion does not arrive at a belief in gods on their own. It might sound strange to some of you to hear someone talk about religion as abuse inflicted on children, but it's hard for me to see it as anything else. Any system of belief that forces children to lie to attain the praise of their elders is corrupt.

In the video above, the children struggle to answer the question in the way that they figure the interviewer will want to hear. They often seem to be unsure of their statements, which they inflect as if they're questions. Several of the kids have goofy grins and look up and to the sides when ascribing fairly non-controversial physical traits (such as 'bearded' or 'tall') to this imaginary invisible being. Simple description of a real man they've seen before would never elicit such dodginess or evasion from kids. They'd just straightforwardly describe as much as they could remember about him.

Here's a video of kids explaining who Einstein is. Where they don't know, they just say so. None of them are embarrassed or shifty about their answers because they're based in reality. No goofy grins, no sidelong glances, no unexpressed uncertainties.


(YouTube video link)

These kids understand that the concept of describing a god is ridiculous. It's clear by their responses that they're made uncomfortable and embarrassed by the question. When asked to explain Einstein, it's a complete reversal. Weird...

As always, if you have a better explanation for this phenomenon than I do, hook me up with a comment!