I was lying awake last night, still stewing over that e-mail from my cousin. So what if the author is an atheist and there are anti-religion themes in his books? Is your faith so tenuous that you can't read or watch something you disagree with for fear of losing your faith? Do you teach your kids to be Christians and the only way that you think they can hold onto that faith is if they're not exposed to other beliefs?

The child of my dad's religious neighbor (Jehovah's Witness) was over at his house the other day and my dad asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up. The child answered an engineer, but that it wasn't possible. My dad, encouragingly told him that it could, he could be anything. The kid explained that you have to go to college for that and he's not allowed to because there are people there who want to take him from his faith.

How scary is that? I know plenty of college educated people of faith. I'm not bashing faith. I'm bashing the need to stick your head in the sand in order to keep your faith, which, by definition, is not faith. Faith is in spite of the beliefs of others. It's a personal choice. Not to be made by the society you're in and therefore should not be able to be swayed by that society. As a parent, the main job is to expose your child to all possibilities and then teach them to think for themselves and make their own decisions about their personal beliefs.

I know someone whose son asked to research religions. He did and reported back about each religion. Now the entire family are Buddhists. Each family member made his or her own decision about faith. It just so happens that the family was united in its choice. Beautiful.

Find what works for you, be prepared to be tested, and don't limit your thinking once your decision is made. And by all means, don't judge others for the decisions they made.

OK, soapbox off.