Children judge religious and fictional stories differently. Nowadays children get a lot of religious information from social media, school, home, and church biblical teachings. Children who experience a holistic religious upbringing tend to believe religious stories as real while children brought up in non-religious backgrounds view religious stories as fantasies (Kotaman, 2021). As children continue to hear and read about religious stories, some will view religious protagonists as a fantasy while others will view it as reality.
Religion greatly affects how children perceive earthily things in terms of reality and pretend. Vaden and Whoolley (2011) asserted that children are skeptical in accepting whether Biblical stories are fantasy or real. Bible stories like Moses parting with the Red sea contradicts children's understanding of how real things happen in the modern world. Secular children always tend to critique God's solving of problems in the real world as compared to historical Biblical stories like when God provided 5000 fish to starving people. In their study, the authors hypothesized that children who are brought up in a religious setup tend to believe that physical violations are real and also expect God to play his role and provide solutions to harm and injury inflicted by enemies. On the other hand secular children term violations as fantasies and don't expect God to offer a remedy to the problem because they assert that God's solutions in the Bible are only fantasies. In their study, the authors found that 4-year old children be more extremely skeptical of Bible situations where God was involved to solve calamities. At age 6, the authors say that children who had heard religious versions on God-solving calamities were significantly in a position to accept the reality. The authors claimed that skepticism decreased with age as older children tend to incorporate more religious information from school, parents, and churches in the long run.
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Vaden and Whoolley (2011) also claim that children who regularly go to Sunday school classes tend to believe that some fantasy stories are real. For example, the case of Jonah in the Bible who escaped from the mouth of a whale. Secular children on the other hand find it difficult to believe that a man can escape from the mouth of a shark in the real world. These children always term these stories as fantasies and are not real. These non-religious children always believe that science is the correct thing that keeps human beings alive on this earth and term Biblical stories as fantasies. Regular church-going children tend to avoid evil things like stealing, cheating, and early sexual acts. These children agree that Biblical commandments are real and if humans go against them results in punishment from God. They believe that human's chronic infections like AIDS and suffering are a result of the sin they committed against the Biblical commandments. Secular children on the other hand are not influenced by religious teaching about sin. They believe that doing a sin and being punished by God is just fantasies.
Corriveau et al. (2103) in their first study claimed that children's upbringing was related to their overall judgment on the protagonist in fictional stories to be real, whereas secular children were likely to judge protagonists in fictional stories to be fantasies or untrue. In religious teachings, the authors say that Elisha in the bible meditated with God through prayer and God answered him by proving loaves to people who had nothing to eat. In fantasy teachings, children are taught that Elisha used his magic to multiply the bread and fed the hungry people. In the third scenario, in realistic teachings, children are taught that Elisha traveled to a town far from their village and he brought lots of bread to the hungry people. The authors affirm that children can be told fantasy stories of people they never met like great grandfathers and still find the characters to be fictional. Children tend to believe what they see than what they hear. When children watch movies of Jesus' crucifixion, they tend to believe more than stories of how Jesus suffered being narrated to them. In their study, the authors said that secular children believed little in God's powers when far impossible problems were solved by him, 26% of them categorized protagonists as pretend and untrue. For example, Bible stories of Jesus calming the storm are examples of unrealistic things that secular children believe in. We can also see resistance in secular children to believe in God's solution to modern problems. Church-going children always believe that God can end the COVID-19 pandemic through devotion and prayer from the church, while secular children term God's intervention in the pandemic as fantasy. Religious children also see the trueness of God's miracles in the Bible as true and they continue hoping that one day the miracles will be manifested in the real life. Religion on the other hand doesn't make non-religious children believe Bible miracles as true and can occur in the real-life
Religion also has a great effect on church-going children who tend to live peacefully amongst themselves and obey their parents as they believe that it's true when Moses was instructed by God to write the Ten Commandments (Corriveau et al., 2103). The children believe the 1 st commandment which says that children and parents must obey and respect themselves. From this, the children can respect parent's orders thereby avoiding cases of disobedience, bullying, violent crimes, drug abuse, and other crimes that are fueled due to lack of discipline amongst children. Secular children who don't believe in religious teachings tend to be ruder against their parents. They tend to believe more in technological advancements and science. They tend to be violent against themselves and always enhance violent crimes such as drug abuse, online bullying, engaging, and early sexual contact. The author's questioned 5-year and 6-year old children concerning protagonists in three embedded stories. In realistic stories that included ordinary events, all the children irrespective of upbringing and the school where they were going, claimed that the leading characters were real. But when the authors used religious stories where the events were seemed impossible like the raising of the dead by Jesus, church-going children classified the protagonists as real characters, whereas secular children termed that the protagonists were fantasies and untrue. Thus religion greatly influences how children perceive reality and fantasy in religious stories and fantasy stories. When children read stories about magical narrations, they are likely to conclude that the leading characters of the narration are make-believe, but when they read books that have nations of impossible events, they conclude that the protagonists are fictions or untrue. Religion has also affected how children conclude real-life events like Astronauts going to the moon. Religious children always are likely to believe that astronauts are real, whereas non-religious children always believe that these narratives are fantasies and can never happen.
Television stories like Mickey Mouse Adventures make children conclude that these are true or unreal characters. Church-going children are likely to conclude that Mickey Mouse is a real character while secular children term the protagonists as fantasies. It makes it easy for teachers to teach religious children compared to secular children. Secular children are likely to question teachers on the realness of scholarly characters who developed mathematics like Isaac Newton. Teachers always find it hard to convince them that the scholars developed calculus because these children term the stories as fantasies. The continued critique and questioning usually affects their school grades compared to church-going children. Religious children on the other hand are easy to convince because they usually believe that the protagonists who invented calculus scholarly work are real. Corriveau et al. (2013) agree that secular children make more references to impossibilities rather than reality. These children always term common government laws as superior to any other Supreme forces like God's powers while church-going children always obey the laws of God and the common laws.
Kotaman (2021) says that when religious children encounter problems in their lives, they tend to pray and seek God's solutions to the problem, whereas secular children solve their problems themselves or sought help from professionals that can solve the problem. From the study, we can assert that religion significantly affects children's perceptions of reality and fantasies. When a religious child becomes sick, he or she tends to pray rather than going to seek professional medical advice. This can have a negative outcome because some diseases like COVID-19 and Typhoid require medical solutions rather than only praying and waiting for God to heal the disease. If the child is alone, he or she might die of the disease because he or she believes that God can only provide a solution to the problem he has. Secular children go to the hospital when they feel sick. They believe that doctors can treat and offer a solution to their sickness. The author concludes that by the age of four, a child can make own perceptions concerning protagonist in fantasy or real stories. The reason for their belief in God is that religious children were taught that God can do anything, whereas secular children never received such teaching of God. Religion has continued to influence the way children think of babies being conceived. Religious children believe that children are given by God, although Biology teaches them that babies are born, they tend to term the stories as fantasies and unreal. Secular children on the other hand tend to believe Biology stories on how babies are true. The author's results on whether people can walk on water without a device depicted that religious children were the more respondents to agree while secular children said that nobody can walk on water without a device. The church-going children's judgments are purely based on Biblical stories where Peter was told by God to walk on top of the water. These children term the protagonist as real which made them agree to the author's question on whether a person can walk on water without a device. The author asked the children whether a person can fly without any device. The majority who agreed with the question were religious children whereas secular children said the question was a fantasy and cannot happen under any circumstances. From his empirical findings, the author attributed that religious children tend to pray to God to solve their extrinsic and intrinsic problems. When they are faced with writing and reading challenges, church-going children always pray to God to provide real-time solutions that can enable them to read and write proficiently.
Secular children on the other hand seek teacher guidance when they are faced with reading and writing problems. From these empirical findings, we can conclude that the modern child who regularly goes to church is likely to have lower-class grades because the child seeks God's guidance like praying to enhance his or her wring skills. Secular children on the other hand are likely to have higher class grades because they seek teacher guidance to enhance their reading and writing proficiency levels. I am not contradicting God's powers, but God said that we must assist ourselves first before he assists us. Religion has also made religious children believe that water can be turned into wine. In the Bible, Jesus turned water to wine in the Cana marriage. This has enabled religious children to conclude that the protagonists were real while secular children term the stories as fantasy. The author argues that church-going children always ask their parents why water cannot be turned into wine in the real world. As these children grow up, they tend to allocate their problems to religious solutions whereas secular children tend to solve them by themselves or seek guidance from their superiors. Valen and Whoolley (2011) argue that as religious children grow older they are likely to seek God's intervention to make real decisions in their lives. The authors say that parent's beliefs and close communication have no effect on how judge reality and fantasy in stories. Parents are always rare in discussing reality and fantasy aspects with their children. This leaves children to make their reality and fiction judgments based on events they encounter in their lives. The author's findings affirm that parents don't make strong efforts in convincing their children of reality and fictional protagonists in religious stories. The authors also maintained that Religious educational institutions also affect children in the way they judge reality and fantasy characters. These children tend to have greatly believed in religious stories. Biblical stories told at schools like the healing of blind man and the resurrection make children believe that those stores are real while children, who have not been exposed to religious educational content, are likely to conclude that religious stories are fantasies.
In conclusion, religion greatly influences how children distinguish between reality and fantasy. Religious children tend to conclude that protagonists in both religious and fantasy stories are real, whereas secular children disagree. Family relationship with God also has a great influence on a child on how he judges Biblical and fantasy protagonists. School education greatly influences children in the distinction between reality and fantasy. Children's upbringing also influences the way they will distinguish real and fictional characters in stories. Religious children also tend to seek God's intervention when they are faced with their extrinsic problems, whereas secular children seek help from their superiors when they are faced with similar problems. Religion has made children even seek prayers when they have ailments that can be diagnosed and treated by medical professionals.
References
Corriveau, K. H., Chen, E. E., & Harris, P. L. (2013). Judgments about Fact and Fiction by Children From Religious and Nonreligious Backgrounds. Cognitive Science. 39 (2015) 353–382. DOI: 10.1111/cogs.12138
Kotaman, H. (2021). Comparison of Impact of Secular and Religious Education on Children’s Factuality Judgements and Problem Solving Strategies. British Journal of Religious Education. DOI: 10.1080/01416200.2021.1879015. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1080/01416200.2021.1879015
Vaden, V. C., & Whoolley, J. D. (2011). Does God Make It Real? Children’s Belief in Religious Stories From the Judeo-Christian Tradition. Child Development. 82 (4) 1120–1135. DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-8624.2011.01589.x
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