Atheists don't think children are innately religious. They attribute the religiosity of children to indoctrination. Harvard child psychiatrist Robert Coles has investigated the religious life of children, and disagrees. Prof. Coles is by no stretch of the imagination a Christian Fundamentalist, so his conclusions aren't motivated by a Christian agenda:
http://being.publicradio.org/programs/2009/robert-coles/transcript.shtml
Ms. Tippett: I wonder if in your career you've encountered skeptics who wonder whether the children you speak with haven't somehow been trained to talk about God through their environment or through their families. But I think that in what I've read you also find that children who are living in very secular environments are making these same kinds of observations and asking questions which are essentially spiritual questions. Is that right?
ReplyDeleteDr. Coles: Yes. I think it's an aspect of their human nature. They may be brought up in a secular world but they have deep inner sides to them that are non-secular in nature, which have to do with eternal questions of what's right and what's wrong.