Actually, when it comes to religion, I think that children are inculcated with religious views at such a young age that choosing something else is largely unthinkable. That's why most people remain in the faith that they had as children. there may be brief detours, but they almost always come back to their original worldview that was provided for them by their parents.
I totally agree, and I think it is very wrong. I was lucky (in a way) that I grew up as a good little Church of England boy (went to Sunday school - sang in the choir - all that stuff). I say lucky, because even though I was indoctrinated from a very early age, the C of E is a very lukewarm religion. Like the average Sunday morning congregation at the village church, was three very old ladies and a stray dog that had wandered in from the rain. I consider this an appropriate (and safe) level of religious fervour for a civilised society.
I continued to be suitably devout until about the age of six. It was at that age that I was expected to attend Sunday school, and the first nagging doubts reared their ugly heads when I was told various Biblical stories, including that of Noah and the flood. My faith was severely shaken when I was the only child to be 'sent down' from Sunday school with a note to my mother. It seems that I was being incorrigably disruptive in asking the humourless lady who took Sunday school, why the lions and tigers did not eat all the rabbits and hamsters and smaller creatures during the course of the sea voyage. I never received a satisfactory answer.
Organised religion (as opposed to personal beliefs) is a worry to me, and I have a great deal of trouble with many of its tenets. I remember being taken aside, with a small group of my fellow students, at the age of about 12, and told of the evils of masturbation by the school chaplain. (This was something most of us had only recently discovered, and we were quite put out to learn that it was prominant on the prohibited practices list.)
All organised religion seems to have a particular problem with sex. Christopher Hitchens describes organised religion as "Violent, irrational, intolerant, allied to racism, tribalism, and bigotry, invested in ignorance and hostile to free inquiry, contemptuous of women and coercive towards children ..."
What a pity our relationship with God (if we hold such beliefs) is under the stewardship of such organisations.