1. The Island Child
Imagine a child born alone on an island, untouched by human stories.
No priests, no prophets, no holy books.
Would this child invent your god?
And if that same child died without belief, would they go to Heaven?
That single question exposes a deep flaw in every religion that claims moral authority. If salvation or damnation depends on knowledge you can only receive through cultural accident, then divine justice is not justice at all. It is geography dressed as destiny.
2. The Geography of Belief
A glance at any world map tells the story.
Faith follows borders, not evidence.
- Christians fill the Americas and Europe.
- Muslims span the Middle East, North Africa, and large parts of Asia.
- Hindus dominate India.
- Buddhists are centred in East Asia.
- Secularism grows in northern Europe and much of the developed world.
The distribution of gods mirrors the distribution of empires, languages, and trade routes. Religion moves with armies, colonisers, and families, not with revelation.
Richard Dawkins captured it sharply:
“If you were born in Arkansas you are probably a Christian. If you were born in Afghanistan you are probably a Muslim. That should give you pause before you declare your faith a matter of evidence.”
Belief, in other words, is not chosen. It is assigned.
3. The Inheritance of Faith
Children believe what they are told long before they learn how to doubt.
Before they can read, they are taught to pray. Before they can reason, they are warned of sin.
“Give me the child until he is seven, and I will show you the man.” — attributed to St Ignatius of Loyola
Religion has always understood the psychology of early imprinting.
Christopher Hitchens wrote that “to terrify children with the image of hell before they can reason is a form of child abuse.”
He was not being rhetorical. Neurological studies show that moral intuition and critical thought develop gradually. To install fear and faith before that process completes is to hijack it.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali, raised in strict Islam, recalled:
“We learned about Hell before we learned to read. Fear came before knowledge.”
When belief precedes understanding, the mind confuses obedience with virtue.
4. The Child Who Never Heard of God
Now return to the island child.
Every major religion must explain what happens to that innocent soul.
If the child goes to Heaven, then faith is unnecessary and missionary work is redundant.
If the child goes to Hell, then god punishes ignorance – a cruelty no moral system could justify.
If god “makes exceptions”, then the rules of salvation collapse into arbitrary mercy.
Epicurus posed the same problem millennia ago:
“Is god willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.”
By extension, if god is both willing and able, no child should ever be born ignorant of him.
5. Faith by Exposure
Daniel Dennett described religion as a memeplex – a cluster of cultural habits that survive by replication.
It spreads by repetition, ritual, and reinforcement.
A child born into a Catholic family hears of baptism, sin, and saints.
A child born into Islam learns prayer, fasting, and submission.
The belief feels inevitable only because it is omnipresent.
Carl Sagan observed that “you can’t convince a table of ten people that the table is haunted unless they’ve already been told what haunting means.”
Religion provides the vocabulary of belief long before any evidence appears.
6. The Myth of Choice
Most believers claim they chose faith. Yet over 95 percent of people follow the dominant religion of their birthplace.
Choice implies alternatives. Indoctrination offers none.
Bertrand Russell wrote in Why I Am Not a Christian:
“If I had been born in India, I would have been taught to believe in different gods, and I should have believed in them just as strongly as the Christian believes in his.”
The believer calls this fate, the sociologist calls it conditioning.
7. The Machinery of Indoctrination
From baptism to bar mitzvah, confirmation to confession, the rituals of childhood are rehearsals in loyalty.
Schools funded by churches reinforce the narrative daily.
Missionaries frame foreign aid as divine charity.
Media and family gatherings echo the same hymns of certainty.
Sam Harris noted that “we teach our children to value evidence in every domain but the one that matters most.”
A scientific claim demands proof. A religious one demands faith—and the earlier it is taught, the less it is questioned.
8. The Moral Mirage
Religion often argues that without god, morality collapses. Yet the data show the opposite.
The least religious nations consistently report higher levels of equality, literacy, and social trust.
Moral behaviour thrives where empathy replaces fear.
Carl Sagan again:
“If we crave moral guidance, why not look to compassion rather than commandments?”
When a society educates instead of indoctrinates, goodness ceases to be a bribe for Heaven or a shield against Hell. It becomes simply human.
9. The Problem of Divine Justice
Return once more to the uncontacted child.
Religious doctrine must answer the impossible question:
How can eternal justice coexist with accidental birth?
If god values belief more than honesty, then deception is rewarded.
If he values honesty more than belief, then atheists are the faithful ones.
Voltaire mocked the contradiction:
“It is clear that the gods made men, but men made the gods in their own image.”
If the god you serve mirrors your passport, your culture, and your accent, the odds are you serve tradition, not truth.
10. The Courage to Doubt
Leaving faith behind is rarely rebellion; it is recovery.
The courage to question one’s inherited beliefs is the first act of intellectual adulthood.
Hitchens wrote:
“Faith is the surrender of the mind. It is the surrender of reason.”
But Russell offered the constructive alternative:
“Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric.”
To doubt is not arrogance. It is humility—the recognition that belief without evidence is not knowledge but submission.
11. Beyond Borders and Birthplaces
The accident of birth decides language, accent, and often destiny.
But belief should be the one thing that survives scrutiny, not geography.
Imagine a world where children are taught how to think, not what to think.
Where moral worth is measured by empathy, not adherence.
Where Heaven, if it exists at all, would never hinge on a child’s postcode.
Carl Sagan’s words close the circle:
“We are a way for the cosmos to know itself.”
No god requires worship for that to be true.
The wonder of existence belongs to everyone, believer or not.