Are Children Born Natural Believers in God?

In "Children Are Born Believers in God, Academic Claims" The Daily Telegraph, Nov. 25, 2008, Dr. Justin Barrett notes;

The preponderance of scientific evidence for the past 10 years or so has shown that a lot more seems to be built into the natural development of children's minds than we once thought, including a predisposition to see the natural world as designed and purposeful and that some kind of intelligent being is behind that purpose.

I know I have personally witnessed this in children across the states. As a child we lived in a trailer park in WV where sadly many of the parents were anything but God fearing. Many of them would send their children out early in the morning on the summer days and not allow them back in the home until supper, not even to use the bathroom.

Other parents were too busy drinking or using drugs to consider their kids needs. I was blessed with a mother who worked hard for her family and while these children were my friends, it was usually my home or that of my grandmothers that provided the public restroom and lunches.

Yet these children believed in God! In fact they talked about him openly and rode a Sunday School van to the local church every week, without missing. At the time I looked at is as the way it was, and only attended those churches a couple times with them. They just seemed to know they needed to love God.

In my own experiences I started out as a mom that didn't bother to teach her children about God or his truth, yet they constantly asked about Him. I didn't own a Bible and their father wasn't attending church either, but my kids knew God was there and was rather determined to learn more about Him. So determined that my youngest, 3yrs at the time, insisted I go meet God so I can teach her about Him!

I see many children around me on a daily basis and I recognize one seemingly constant thing, the younger they are the more they know and love God. Could it be that we as parents are the ones that condition our children to NOT know Him? Think about it, if Dr. Justin Barrett noticed the scientific evidence that children have a predisposition to see the world as designed and purposeful, then what would cause these children to stop believing? Why do others continue to grow in their belief and love for God? Let's talk about that.