One of the upsides to the recent surge in atheism is that instead of just talking about evidences for/against God, we can expand the dialogue to include specific parts of atheism-culture. How to raise children without religion, for example.
Rational Moms is a group blog that plans to discuss raising babies without faith.
What sorts of issues come up? Well, what should you teach children about religion when you live in a very Christian area (where they will inevitably hear Bible stories)?
…Religious ideologies saturate our cultures, and as such, it is important that children recognize and understand this. Children must learn how to act ethically, and they have to learn about what religion is, but religion is certainly unnecessary for a person to have a strong ethical and moral foundation.
In the same vein, it is also important for children to develop critical-thinking skills. As such, it is the parent’s responsibility to maintain a safe distance for the child from religious indoctrination and to let the child know that there is no empirical evidence whatsoever for a deity’s existence. This means that people choose to believe in unfalsifiable concepts, like a god, for no other reason than that they want to.
But is that “too biased”? Not from my perspective. I have seen no evidence to the contrary. But I don’t want to be a perpetrator of what I’m trying to keep my daughter away from: indoctrinate her with personal bias. I want to eradicate personal bias if at all possible…
And, of course, no mention of atheist parenting is complete without reminding everyone that Dale McGowan‘s second book about the subject, Raising Freethinkers: A Practical Guide for Parenting Beyond Belief, is available for pre-order on Amazon.
Hopefully, the rational moms will compile a recipe list soon.
I don’t what to do with my current stockpile of infants.
It’s Moving Day for the Friendly ..."
It’s Moving Day for the Friendly ..."
It’s Moving Day for the Friendly ..."
It’s Moving Day for the Friendly ..."