For many years in my childhood I hated pumpkin and avocado. Something about their texture didn't sit right with me, I'm confident you were the same. And if someone asked if I'd hated those foods the answer would be a different kind of 'yes'; yes, I did, but now I love them.
Somewhere along the way in my life, perhaps my twelve year old self sat down with my five year old self and explained some new lessons about taste and food and nutrients, and my desires were changed. My childhood preferences couldn't persevere in their opinions any longer, they were subsumed into the greater landscape of my developing, desiring self.
And while I can stand here and affirm with all the gravity of an adult that I experientially know California's Disneyland firsthand, in reality I'm speaking with the voice of a three year old. Oh sure, I went there, it's the same me who is still alive today, but it's also the same me who later got schooled about flavor by a pre-teen with a developing palate.
But I'm not being ageist, not all past knowledge is inferior. A few years ago, through a strange series of events, I learnt the first fifty decimal places of the mathematical constant 'e'. Last time I checked I still knew about forty of them. Even though I keep getting older, there's isn't a danger of that data becoming out-dated (more likely it will be forgotten). Not all my thoughts and experiences from yesterday eventually expire.
Yet there is something concerning about the children we let run our lives. Knowing what foods we like and don't like, what bands we enjoy and don't enjoy, what places we have been and what places we want to go, even which people we have time for and who we'd rather not see. The 'you' who holds all these preferences is the same 'you' who once experienced all these things first hand, but you're letting some decisions be made by a five year old.
I find this particularly with religion and Christianity. There is a vast sea of people who have never properly considered it, or had some exposure at a young age and decided against it. And while I'm not saying that you can't be right about something from a young age, there is a sort of 'diminishing return' on certainty the further back in your life you go. If you love the colour blue because you always have, that's great; or if you have a special love for the holiday house you used to go to as a child, that's also fine. But it's peculiar if you trust the logical, mental, and analytical faculties of a six year old to decided if there is meaning in the universe, a creator, a conscious eternity, or any answers to the guilt you feel and your certain death.
It cuts both ways, those who do believe in a God can't just rest on some childhood certainty. You can't live your life simply based on the facts of a bible truth from a colouring-in sheet from kindergarten, no matter how well you stayed within the lines. Because while it's admirable to make your decisions based on first hand experience, it's worth making sure that the most important questions haven't been relegated to an infant, but are investigated and considered by a competent adult mind, like the one you use to read and evaluate this article.
Sam Manchester is currently a theology student with an inescapable sociology degree behind him. In an attempt to reconcile the two, he reflects and writes about their coalescence in everyday life.
Sam's archive of articles may be viewed at www.pressserviceinternational.org/sam-manchester.html