Why I rejected religion and instead raised my son on Star Wars
by Vishen Lakhiani
May 4, 2014
I raised my son without religion. It was by design. I was raised a Hindu and my
wife was raised Orthodox and Lutheran. But both of us slowly outgrew religion
as we got older and instead adopted practices and beliefs consistent with our
experiences in the real world.
And so when Hayden was born we didn’t bother with religion at all. But we
aren’t against it either. Because religion does have many beautiful aspects.
And one of the biggest is that it teaches life lessons through stories.
Problem is, it also conditions people to take those stories too literally. This
leads to all sorts of dumb ideas that have held humanity backwards.
Crimes against apostasy, treating gay people like outcasts, violation of
women’s rights and even the act of not being able to enjoy a simple ham
sandwich.
Second, religion isn’t yet hackable.
I can’t take the best of Christianity and combine it with the best of Islam and
Hinduism. And to do so would cause awkward glares. There is much beauty in the
teachings of Christ, the Sufism of Islam, the Bhagavad Gita or the Buddhist
teachings of the Dalai Lama. Yet humanity has widely decided that religion
should be absolutist.
In short, pick one and stick to it for the rest of your life.
Or worse – pass it on to your children through early indoctrination so they
have to stick to one true path for the rest of their lives.
Then repeat for generations.
I want to break this pattern.
So to avoid this with my son I decided to not teach my son religion at all.
Hayden understands Newton’s Laws, the rotation of the planet, and gravity and
electricity. At 6 he talks about atoms, DNA replication, Elon Musk’s rockets
and admires Edison and the Mars Rover. Yet he has no idea what God is.
This is by design.
Simply because we, as a human race, don’t know what God is. And I refuse to
pick ONE definition.
Although I believe in God. I don’t think it’s write to teach this idea to a our
child until he’s old enough to ask the right questions. It’s a fine line
between education and indoctrination.
So I believe that the only way to teach religion is to teach ALL religions.
And I will.
But only when Hayden is older and can make his own conclusions.
But this left a dilemma. How then do I teach Hayden morality and lessons in
life?
I found the answer through Star Wars.
Recently Hayden and I sat through 12 hours and all 6 Star Wars movies. It’s
amazing how the mind of a 6 year old can get so engrossed with George Lucas’
fiction. But an unexpected benefit was the life lessons that I was able to
share with Hayden via Star Wars.
Here are the top 10 things that any parent can teach their child from Star Wars
1. Star Wars teaches you to Trust Yourself
Luke: All right, I’ll give it a try.
Yoda: No. Try not. Do… or do not. There is no try.
[Using the Force, Yoda effortlessly frees the X-Wing from the bog] Luke: I
don’t, I don’t believe it.
Yoda: That is why you fail.
The message here is to truly believe in yourself. Simplistic, I know. But Star
Wars weaves the message into the story of Luke in such a beautiful way. We take
Luke’s struggles and eventual success as parable for our own lives.
2. Star Wars teaches you to use the Power of Your Mind
Hayden was fascinated by the “Force”. I explained it to him in Yoda’s words:
“For my ally is the Force, and a powerful ally it is. Life creates it,
makes it grow. Its energy surrounds us and binds us. Luminous beings are we,
not this crude matter. You must feel the Force around you; here, between you,
me, the tree, the rock, everywhere, yes.” ~ Yoda
We used the metaphor of the force to teach Hayden mindfulness practices. I’d
get him to close his eyes, relax and meditate. Sure he couldn’t last 90 seconds
but its a start. But when Hayden fell ill, we used this same idea of the
‘force’ to teach him imagery therapy. He close his eyes and we’d ask him to
visualize his lungs getting better. Hayden would do this every night before
going to bed. There is a lot of evidence that imagery therapy accelerates
healing. And that visualisation can help with goal setting.
3. Star Wars teaches you that We are all Connected
This is very similar to Pantheism, what Richard Dawkins calls “Sexed up
Atheism”. It’s the idea that all life is one and we’re all connected and that
harming other lifeforms is not optimal.
This is a great way to teach a child the Golden Rule. That we should not harm
another because we’re all one. Even if you don’t buy the idea of oneness – at
least it trains a child to understand that all life is special. It’s a great
way to teach empathy and respect for the environment, plants and animals.
Yoda: Ohhh. Great warrior.
[laughs and shakes his head] Yoda: Wars not make one great.
4. Star Wars Teaches us to Trust our Intuition
I believe in human intuition – the idea that we can sometime’s ‘sense’ or
‘feel’ things outside normal physical lines of communication.
The theme of intuition reoccurs multiple times in Star Wars. When Luke loses
his hand and is clinging for his life outside a rafter on Cloud City, he uses
his intuition to let his sister Leia know that he’s in trouble.
Kristina and I teach Hayden to “feel from his heart”. When his mom is
traveling, I ask him to feel in his heart how mom is doing. Is she happy, or
sad. Does she miss him. It does not matter if he’s right or wrong. Because by
doing this exercise he’s learning empathy – an important skill.
5. Star Wars teaches you the Danger of Negative Emotions
I remind Hayden of this quote each time he loses his temper…
Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering. ~ Yoda
Science has shown that negative emotions like stress can harm performance and
cause negative side effects to the human body. Likewise, positive emotions like
joy have huge impact on sleep, performance, health and recovery. I found this
to be a good way to teach Hayden to identify good vs bad emotion and thus bring
himself out of negative states.
6. Star Wars teaches you that Women Kick Butt
Hayden’s at that age where he considers girl’s “icky”. He’s six and will grow
out of it. But I helped him he see just how awesome women could be by making
him a fan of Princess Leia. Who can forget that that scene where she strangles
Jabba the Hut while sporting a golden bikini?
Star Wars teaches you that women can be feminine and powerful and rule entire
kingdoms with finesse.
Princess Leia: I don’t know who you are or where you came from, but from
now on you’ll do as I tell you, okay?
7. Star Wars teaches you that Kids can do amazing things
Young Anakin Skywalker wins the pod racer competition. He also builds his own
robots. Ok true, he does grow up to be evil, but from a kid’s point of view I
think it’s awesome for Hayden to see another kid accomplish things once
reserved for adults.
“Size matters not. Look at me. Judge me by my size, do you? Hmm? Hmm. And
well you should not.” ~ Yoda
8. Star Wars teaches you to reject “Absolutism”.
We’re often conditioned to live in a world of black or white. You’re republican
or democrat. Hardcore conservative or a soft liberal. We connect blindly to our
countries, religions, political parties and cultural groups without releasing
that the most brilliant solutions to the world’s problems often lie in the
center – within the shades of grey.
“Only the Sith deal in absolutes.” ~ Obi Wan Kenobi
9. Star Wars teaches You to Always Be Growing and Learning
“We are never done with lessons. Not while we live.”Mace Windu
Nuff said.
10. Star Wars teaches you to Question Your Parents
Star Wars teaches you that you don’t have to follow your parents path.Luke
rejects his father’s pleas to join the Dark Side. He sets out on his own path.
I want my son to know that I may be his Dad, and I will give him advice and
guidance and be there for him. But I’m also human and may make mistakes or
offer dumb advice sometimes. I want him to question me respectfully.
So we both grow.
I did not write this article to slam organised religion.
It’s written as an ode to Star Wars. But I did also write it to publicly ask
questions that I feel should be asked.
1. Why do we insist on raising our kids with our religion? We don’t pass on to
our children the idea that they are Democrats or Republicans. We don’t force
our kids to take on our professions. Yet from an early age we indoctrinate them
with our religion.
2. Worse, we teach then absolutism by getting them to identify themselves with
one particular religion. Why can’t a child enjoy bible stories, celebrate
Diwali and Hanukkah, AND pray five times a day? Why can’t you be an evangelical
and gay? Or be a muslim but skip the fasting month of Ramadan? Be a Jew and
enjoy a good ham sandwich?
I believe in God and hope that my son does too. But it has to be HIS decision.
If I raised Hayden with an organised religion, I’d be exposing him to too much
risk:
The risk of getting identified with one branch of ideas, rather than seeing
the whole picture.
The risk of exposure to intolerance, guilt or fundamentalism.
The idea that he had to live his life, unquestionably based on the ideas
from a 1000 year old book.
The risk of feeling guilt, shame or fear if he broke any one of the
hundreds of ‘rules’ that often make no sense but are blindly followed
generation to generation.
For religion takes itself way to seriously.
And once you’ve been raised on religion, and had it drilled into you, all your
life from the time you learned to first speak to early adulthood – it’s really
hard to say
“It’s just a book”.
But with Star Wars, as Hayden gets older and realises that his Dad was just a
science-fiction geek, he’ll always be able to say…
“It’s just a movie”.
And this liberates him to forge his own life. His own beliefs and his own
identity.
Or in the wise words of Kahlil Gibran
Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts, For they have their own
thoughts.
You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
