Age of conversion/changing your religion should be raised to 21

Undoubtedly, Islamic teaching has proven to be very attractive for the uninitiated (newbies/recent converts to Islam/born again Muslim). On the surface level, Islam is very appealing on history, rationality, practicality/implementation, universal value systems and the metaphysics is also not too crazy.

But that’s just the surface. Going into a deeper analysis of the faith, you’ll find many instances where Islam can also be proven to be theologically flawed just like any other religion. But no one (not many) goes deeper into that level where you start to critically examine the dogma. And perhaps that’s a major contributing factor of why you see so much of chaos, cruelty, corruption, low standard of living and ignorance among the Muslims.

I’m reading this heartbreaking story about a 17-year old German boy who converted to Islam without the knowledge of his family. He participates in the worthless war in Syria.

He’s dead now at the age of 19.

Karg says two young men with an "immigrant background" knocked on Alfons' mother's door to tell her of his death in Syria last summer. "When she opened up, they said: 'Congratulations, your son is now in paradise,' " he says. Karg adds they showed her a photograph of his bullet-ridden body and his goodbye letter, neither of which they let her keep for fear the police would use the items to track the young men down.

Most of these stories start with a secret conversion of a very young teen. He/she has to hide his religion because of the family dynamics that doesn’t allow the convert to be very open/frank with the parents.

He says Alfons grew more withdrawn after he secretly converted to Islam at age 17. The father says the lanky, insecure teen didn't grow a beard but cropped his blond hair short, stopped shaking hands with girls and women, and abandoned his apprenticeship. Karg says he found out about the conversion from his younger son, Leonard, who has a different mother. The boy caught his half-brother praying during a weekend visit. Leonard told Karg that Alfons' reaction was: "Don't tell Papa," just as he always hid things from his father.

The young convert who’s very idealistic and high for his new religion secretly visited places where he could be heavily indoctrinated (brainwashed). At this point, there’s no longer moderation or voice of reason or even adult supervision.

After that, when Alfons turned 18, he emptied his savings account and took a trip with two Turkish friends to Turkey. But before last Christmas, unbeknownst to his father, Alfon left for Turkey again. Karg says he heard through acquaintances that his eldest had called his mother and told her to give away his belongings."That was for me a crucial alarm bell," Karg says. "A young person, 18 years of age, buys himself a flat-screen TV and then we are suddenly allowed to throw away everything he has?"

In the past, I’ve been posting many blog posts questioning the wisdom of western countries that were conveniently turning blind eyes when their citizens travelled to fight in the Syrian war because of their mutual hatred of Assad regime. I’m seeing that both sides in this war as equally evil and no one should support one or the other.

These sorts of ‘incidents’ are happening rampantly in western countries. Even though it’s too late to do anything for Alfons, perhaps there’s still a chance to save many other youths just like him whose attraction to Islam are making them so vulnerable that at the end they become prey to those who wished to exploit them.

Preventing young Germans from heading to Syria or Iraq — whether they are the fewer than 10 percent who are converts like Alfons, or the rest who come from an immigrant background — is something German authorities say is a top priority. In nearby North Rhine Westphalia, the head of the state's domestic intelligence, Burkhard Freier, says his government has launched three pilot programs called "Signpost" to reach out to at-risk youth.

Sadly, the more I read testimonials of young recent converts to Islam who are dragged into this unnecessary war, the more I asked myself of why there’s no age for religious conversion/changing your religion? We set age limit for when someone can get a driver’s license, vote in election, legal age of drinking, join the military, get married or be held responsible for criminal acts.

Reference

http://www.npr.org/blogs/parallels/2014/12/03/368049116/from-german-teen-to-isis-jihadist-a-fathers-struggle-to-understand