Why Do People Have Different Religions?
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Hi, I'm Jane Lindholm, and you're listening to But Why, a podcast for curious kids from Vermont Public Radio.

On this show, we let you ask the questions and we help find the answers. This is our fifth episode, and I wanted to take a minute to thank each of you for listening and for sending us such wonderful questions. We've been getting queries from kids around the country, and your questions are awesome. We're hard at work getting to as many of them as we can, so I hope you'll be patient. And even if we don't get a chance to answer your question, I hope you'll keep listening, because I know that I am learning a ton, and I hope that you are too.

Before we get started today, I wanted to let all of the adults and parents listening know that the question we're tackling in this episode is about religion and why people have different religions. So you might want to give this episode a preview on your own. Later in the episode, we'll take a field trip and we're going to hear a lot of this animal. But first, here's the big question we're going to discuss.

My name is Angela. I am six years old. I am from Olathe, Kansas. My question is, why do people have different religions? That's an interesting question, and you might want to ask your parents or other family members about what kind of religion or faith traditions your family has and what they think about why different people have different religions.

For us to get some help with this, we called up Wendy Thomas-Russell. She wrote a book, mostly for parents, called Relax, It's Just God, How and Why to Talk to Your Kids About Religion When You're Not Religious. In doing her research, Wendy learned a lot about different religions and why people believe different things. Okay, let's hear Anjali's question one more time. Do people have different religions?

Okay, that is an excellent question. First, let's start with the word religion because that word can be pretty confusing. Religion is a collection of beliefs that people have about some really big questions.

Like how did the world come to be and how should people behave and what happens to us after we die? Those are big questions. And those are questions that just about everybody on the planet wants to know. And they are very, very hard, if not impossible, to answer on our own.

But people have always tried, and sometimes they've come up with answers, and sometimes when those answers have caught on, a religion is born. So now why are there so many religions? People have different religions for the same reason that people have different opinions and different tastes.

Because they were raised in different ways and in different places and in different families and at different times and with different brains. And all of these things have an incredible impact on what we believe to be true about the world.

And also, and this is really important, religion isn't just about beliefs. It isn't just about God or gods or heaven or angels. It's about friendship and community. And if you think about your school and all the things that make it great and all of the things that make you feel like you belong there, it's not just what the teachers are teaching. It's the activities and the people and the feelings.

So that's how it is with religion. Some people love their religion because it feels comfortable. It feels like home. Maybe you have a religion, but even if you don't, you've probably heard of some. Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, Islam, Buddhism, those are a few. I particularly like the name of the religion called Jainism, but sadly for me, it's not a faith that celebrates people named Jain.

Anyway, those are a couple, but there are a lot of religions in the world. There's something like 4,000 religions in existence today, even more.

And most of these religions, though not all, have certain things in common. Most religions have special rules and worship rituals and holidays. Sometimes they have special books that contain stories about their religions. Sometimes religions have special clothes and foods. And

And also, most religions involve some element or some belief in the supernatural. So God or gods, heaven, angels, things for which there may be no physical evidence for their existence, but that you take it on faith. And that means that most religions involve some element of faith.

If you don't know what supernatural means, think of the word superhero. A superhero is someone who does things that are physically impossible for humans to accomplish, like flying around with only a cape or lifting a train. Well, the supernatural is something that does not exist in nature. So gods or angels, those are considered supernatural because there's no scientific evidence for their existence.

So that's another thing that religions have in common. So what about when, you know, there are religions that say this God is the one true God and anybody who doesn't believe this is wrong? You know, what do you do about that if that is your religion and that's your belief is one thing, but if that's maybe your friend's belief?

Well, you know, one thing that all religions have in common is that they all believe themselves to be the true religion. And it's...

It would be a lot simpler if everyone would just agree to what is true, but that's just not the case. One thing that I like to think about is to think about three categories. One is fact, and one is fiction, and one is belief.

And if you think about a fact, that's something that is true, right? And a fiction is something that is not true. But a belief is something that some people think is true and other people think is not true. So belief is neither fact nor fiction. It's in a category all its own.

I think the most important thing to remember is that religion itself isn't good or bad. Some people do things for their religions, and they do good things for their religions. And some people do bad things for their religions. People do good and bad things for lots of other reasons too, but sometimes they do good and bad things for their religions.

And if you're mean to people just because they're different from you, that's bad. And hurting people is always wrong, whether or not religion is involved. It makes things tricky, though, doesn't it, when we don't all believe the same thing?

Wendy says that's a concern or a frustration that a lot of people have. A big question for kids is why can't people just agree? You know, what is so... My daughter, when she was six, she very much wanted everyone to agree. She once told me she wanted a policeman to climb to the top of this very tall ladder and speak into a megaphone and say, God is real or God is not real, and just tell everybody what...

What was going on? And so everyone would agree because she thought that would just be so much simpler and easier. And it would be. It would be. But when your parents have raised you to believe that certain answers are truth, and that's the way that makes the most sense to you, and that's the way that makes you feel good, it's very hard to change your mind. And most people don't want to.

An example that I would give is if you think about how hard it would be if you met someone who told you that lying is actually a good thing. You would say, no, it's not. No, that doesn't make any sense. My parents and teachers and friends and everybody I know have shown me, have told me that lying is wrong, that I should treat people the way I want to be treated. And then plus, lying just feels bad. It feels wrong.

So even if a thousand people told you that lying was a good thing, you probably still wouldn't believe it. And that's the way it is with religion. You're raised in a certain way and it's the way that makes the most sense to you. And, and you, it's hard to change. And by the way, Wendy says it's okay to know and believe things that are different from what your friends or other people in your life believe. I think,

I think it's quite fine, actually, that people believe different things. I think that it can be a very good thing. And I think that the better goal, if we have a goal, is to be...

understanding that it's not what people believe, but what they do in life that matters. And also, and I think this is important too, no one can or should have control over your mind. Your mind is yours and your thoughts and beliefs are valid, whatever they are. And it's okay to believe anything you want as long as it doesn't hurt people and as long as you don't feel forced into believing it.

So when someone pressures you by saying, I won't be your friend anymore, or you have to believe this, or something bad will happen to you, that's not okay. People can tell you what they believe, and you can tell them what you believe, and that's all great.

But you have no business telling each other what to believe. And I think that's a really important thing to know moving forward in your life. That was Wendy Thomas-Russell. She's an author who writes books for adults, including books on talking about religion as a family. You can find a link to more information on her and her books at butwhykids.org.

Thanks so much for your question, Anjali. And remember, if you have a question, there's an easy way to get it to us. Ask an adult to record you asking the question on a smartphone and then send the audio file to questions at butwhykids.org. Remember to tell us your first name, how old you are, and where you live. Coming up, a visit to a farm where we'll meet some new friends.

Now it's time for a field trip. This podcast comes to you from Vermont, where I live, and where spring has finally arrived. The grass is green and everyone is getting outside, finally, including a lot of farm animals. At Blue Ledge Farm in Salisbury, Vermont, the family that lives there milks goats and makes goat cheese. You probably know that baby goats are called kids. But there are also some human kids on this farm, so let's meet them.

Hi, I'm Olivia Bernhardt. I'm 13 years old. Hi, I'm Hayden Bernhardt, and I'm 11 years old. We live on a goat farm, and our parents make goat cheese.

My friends are always like, oh, it must be so fun having animals every day at your house. But over time, you get used to it, so it's not that big of a deal to you. Counting the adults and the baby goats, we have about 150, I think. There's alpine and la manchas. One of them has short ears, the other has long ears. Alpines have the long ears. Some of the older goats are in here, but not too many. Not as many as here.

So all of these goats are like four months old, five months old. They're a mixture of all alpines and the montes.

They come here, like, after they leave their mothers, then they come to the square. So for the first week, they stay with their mothers in the pen, and they have milk from the breast and then, or udders. And then at, like, a week old, we put them, like, into a pen with all the other, like, week olds, and then we get a bottle, and we feed them a bottle every morning and night. And then once they're, like, a month or two old, then we start using a bucket that has little, like,

plastic nipples on the end and then they suck the milk out that way. During every year I usually pick a favorite and they're usually like the black and white ones. The way that they like wrestle with each other is kind of funny how like they just want to get like their food but I mean yeah they're they're pretty cute. My favorite place is right here there's a good view of the mountains there's a good sunset at night

And the goats are like right here, so you can hear the noise from the goats. My favorite place on the farm, other than the basketball court, is probably out in the woods. I like it out there. Oh, and we have a tree house out in the woods. In the summer, my dad cuts hay and bales it, and then he brings it in, and we have to help load it onto the hay elevator to bring it up to the barn.

The reason Blue Ledge Farm has all of these goats is because they make goat's cheese there. Hayden and Livia do plenty of farm work, but it's their parents who actually do the milking. That's the sound of a milking machine, so the goats don't have to be milked by hand. Livia and Hayden's mom, Hannah Sessions, can fill us in on the details about milking goats and making goat cheese, which is sometimes called chevre.

Right now it's the summer time, the days are long, the goats have, they just had their babies between two and four months ago. So they're giving almost eight pounds a day right now. So that's almost a gallon a day per goat. One big difference between a goat and a cow is a goat has two teats and a cow has four. So the milking machine stimulates

what you would do if you were hand milking a goat. So you squeeze and then you let it go. You squeeze it and you let it go. The milk travels from the milking unit through a series of hoses and into a stainless steel pipeline which goes directly into the milk house.

This is our cheese cave and we're technically underground right now. And so it's naturally cool and naturally humid down here, just like you would find in your basement. And we have three aging rooms and they're each a different temperature and a different humidity because different cheese likes different temperature. So like I was describing before, when the milk leaves the goat and it goes through the pipes and into the milk tank,

When we're ready to make cheese, we hook up some other pipes and we pump the milk from the bulk tank into the cheese vat, which is just about eight feet away. So you take your milk and if you're going to make a fresh cheese, meaning a cheese that ages for less than two months, you need to pasteurize it, which means heating the milk up to a pretty high temperature. Cool it back down again and you add a bacteria and then a rennet.

And the rennet is the lining of an animal's stomach, and that coagulates the milk. And that's how you make cheese. If you've never tried goat cheese, I always have people start with a fresh chev because it's very mild. It doesn't have a real goaty flavor. You can spread it on crackers or have it on a salad. Our kids really love the fresh chev. All right, so I'm just going to walk the goats out.

You want to see a boomer? Very important. We always close the gates behind us with goats. Come on, girls. Let's go. Remember, chevre is the French word for goat's cheese. Have you ever tried it? I think it's delicious. One other thing before we leave the goats. You may have heard that goats will eat anything. When I was younger, I used to love a book called Gregory the Terrible Eater, all about a goat who wouldn't eat garbage and the other things that the rest of his family loved.

But the farmers at Blue Ledge Farm say goats don't deserve the reputation that they'll eat everything, including tin cans. Goats are actually very, very picky eaters. There's a reputation they have for eating tin cans and whatnot, but they're actually incredibly picky. If you notice in our barn, we have to build hay feeders that gets the hay up off the ground because they don't like to eat things once they've touched the ground. But they are curious and they'll nibble on your jacket and

and probably on a tin can, or maybe that's how they get that reputation. But when it actually comes to ingesting things, they're very picky. You just, like, throw something out, like, out there, and then for some reason they start chewing on it. It's not even, like, a food. They all huddle around there. Like, if my sweatshirt goes over a fence, they'll come over and start, like, nibbling on it.

Thanks to the family at Blue Ledge Farm for letting us come visit and for teaching us all about goats and cheesemaking. That's it for this episode. What do you want to know? Send your questions to questions at butwhykids.org. Remember, you can ask an adult to help you record a question on a smartphone and shoot the audio file our way.

We have questions coming in from Olathe, Kansas, Cleveland, Ohio, Austin, Texas, and lots of other places around the country. And we can't wait to hear what you come up with. In our next episode, we're going to answer a question from Madison in Edmonds, Washington about how to make paint. Watch out. We might get messy.

But Why is produced by me, Jane Lindholm, and by Melody Beaudet for Vermont Public Radio. Our theme music is by Luke Reynolds. We'll see you in two weeks. Until then, stay curious. From PR.