Handling Children Who Are Not Atheists

Well, my daughter is only three, so I can’t speak to your questions. But the book looks really interesting. Thanks!

I’ve taken my children to a Unitarian Universalist church since they were small. They have learned about many religions (Humanism included) and I feel it’s all been for the good. I encourage my children to ask questions and to expect answers to their questions.

My 15yo flip flops back and forth between calling himself a Christian (mainly peer pressure, I think) and calling himself an Agnostic. Either way I will support his decision. My 11yo says that he only believes in the Greek gods, and I support that too.

My partner and I always talk about the possibility of adoption after we finally graduate college. We’re both atheist, and gay, and you can imagine that even though we’re both still college students, the idea of raising children in a loving community that won’t judge our child for being raised by gay atheists is hard to come by. Even more worrying is that our child will find religion and reject us later in life.

I suppose that’s just a risk you take? We both agreed indoctrination of any kind isn’t a preferred way to raise a child, nor does it work. So of course it’s easy for this author to be able to accept his daughter’s uptake of religion–him and his wife are still married and following God’s plan in a similar manner.

@Wendy – my younger sister is a natural skeptic and freethinker, and she goes to the Catholic youthgroups simply because her friends do as well. I keep telling myself that when she leaves high school she’ll leave religion too.

Our child went to Catholic pre-school for two years. He is now 5 and still loves telling his school friends all about God. My husband I deeply regret sending him to school there, we are still trying to figure out the best way to deal with this. We are both Athiest. I don’t have a problem with him learning about religion and will accept his choice. Today he is going with his Grandmother to her church, which is Uunitarian universalist. I think that will be a good thing for him to hear/learn about other ideas since he has only been exposed to one thing. This book may be very helpful for us!

Religious culture has no compunction against coming after children, trying to expose them to their belief system and indoctrinate them.

Early on we need to explain to our children that adults don’t always know what is true and sometimes believe in things for cultural reasons.  Expose them to a wide variety of different belief systems and talk how people do so many different things – open the dialog for questions about how we know which things are true and which are just part of culture.

I never tried to teach my child what to believe but how to ask questions, how to find answers, how to think about problems, and how to recognize fallacious or false arguments.

This is an issue I have already started to think about. I’m atheist (I was brought up CoE so believing in god was optional – cake or death as Eddie Izzard says) and my wife Unitarian (brought up Lutheran but still likes to think there is a god). We have twin daughters that are now 6 months old. We have already agreed that they can believe what they want and that “Mummy believes in a god but Daddy doesn’t”. I also think that things like the basic holiday festivities like Christmas are so secular that there is no harm in Father Christmas or chocolate Easter eggs (I’m a HUGE fan of Cadbury eggs). Why are they any different to say Halloween which of course also started as a religious “holiday”? (A social christian as Dawkins puts it.) I think a parent does have responsibility to teach their kids about religions and to try to guide them away from bad habits in just the same way one would about say smoking. But once they are old enough to make their own choices ultimately it’s up to them. That’s not to say you can’t express an opinion to them though.

I think it can be summed up like this :- I see no difference between religious belief and say political belief in that my kids can believe what they want but I am free to tell them I think they’re wrong (and why) for believing in it.

shark

This seems like it will be a wonderful book. I wish everyone would take the time to read it. I’ve always been in the pursuit of knowledge even when i still believed in god as a child. I knew something wasn’t right with the whole idea of the bible and all the crazy fairy tales it told. I really really wish more kids wold open up and ask questions, get involved in different things and have the experience to say whether or not they want to practice one religion or none.

…. Shark.

Okay, I’m not a parent, I’m 18 and throwing off the last of my muslim indoctrination. I realise I’m not the best qualified to give advice, but if I could have chosen how I was brought up…

I would have wanted to learn about religion, not to learn religion. I would have liked to have been given a translated Koran, not been taught to read Arabic letters without any meaning attached. This was probably a factor in my breaking free from Islam – all of it was just something that never had any significance whatsoever.

That said, if I had been Christian and otherwise everything was the same…I don’t think I would have wanted to have gone to a church. I would want to learn about Christianity in an objective, factual manner just like anything else.

Wendy – church as a whole, with all its preaching and brainwashing and authoritariansim may not be the best thing to do. Of course there is nothing wrong with teaching your kid about religion, but leaving them open to brainwashing is not part of that.

Maybe if you told your daughter “This is what some of those people actually believe” and point out some of the more ridiculous aspects of said beliefs, it’ll help to “deprogram” as you say.

My nine year old is very interested in Christianity. I think she likes the idea of an afterlife. She is currently reading the Bible and asking lots of questions about it, and we talk about it. She is quite aware that I am not religious and I have no intention of being so. She also likes a lot of Buddhist ideas (from her aunt’s influence) and she is interested in why Judaism was frowned upon during the Holocaust. She has said many times that she would like to study history when she is older, and having a stable view of religion is helpful for that. I think I would be doing her a disservice if I tried to stop her exploration. I think having a good understanding of many religions allows a child to choose if they wish, and reject if they don’t. I just fill in the gaps and holes of religion with truth and respect.

All 3 of my kids became atheists, but when they expressed an interest in going to church with friends, they went. I hate it when parents try to make their kids into carbon copies of them–that’s not good parenting. If I’d ended up with a fanatical Christian, we’d have found a way to talk.

I don’t have children yet, but I was raised in a secular family. My parents never commented on religion either way, and I never started believing in any deities. Indeed, I spent most of my childhood simply assuming that other people were also atheists, although I didn’t know there was a word for it. I just considered it being normal. I was never interested in religion in anything other than a sociological way, so I can’t speak to the seduction of religion that some children of atheists might be attracted to, but I plan on keeping my children’s early childhoods as secular as possible. Inevitably, they will hear about the biblical deity from their friends or from television or books or movies, and at at that point, I will begin to teach them about both modern and ancient religions.

I want my children to know about all world religions and mythological traditions. I want them to know about all the deities that humanity has invented. I want them to know about polytheism, animism, and deism. I don’t want them thinking that Western monotheism (and the biblical deity) is somehow unique or special or more likely to be true than other beliefs from other cultures. If they express interest, then I am not opposed to taking them to experience a wide variety of religious services at the appropriate age.

Gordon, if I deny church from her, I’m no better than my parents who forced me to go until I left the house. They HAS to be a middle ground. I just try to deprogram her as best I can when she gets home.

Wendy, are you joking? This is your child. You get to make the decisions about what she’s exposed to. You sent her to an indoctrination center and then you’re surprised when she comes home indoctrinated? If you’re wondering how to counteract it, stop letting her go to indoctrination sessions at her friend’s church! Teach her about all the gods and goddesses that humanity has believed in since the beginning of time, and tell her that there’s no reason to believe that one of them is true while the others aren’t. Comparative religion and differing god-concepts should (hopefully) counteract some of the damaging information she’s already received.

My only worry about letting kids go to church is summed up in this joke, which I will now tell badly:

Two kids make a cake together. One kid says to the other, “We have both made this cake together, so we should share the cake 50/50.”

The other child replies, “No, you get no cake. It all goes to me.”

The first says, “That’s not fair!” to which the second responds, “Tough.”

“Lets… get an adult,” the first suggests. “A grown up would know what to do.”

They go to their mother, who listens to their points of view, and then pontificates: “One of you wants to share the cake evenly. The other wants to take all of the cake for himself. Its best if you compromise. Give him 75% of the cake.”

If the moral position is to tell the child what you believe, but let him know that its ok to listen to other people and even believe them instead, then it seems like you should only let your child go to a church that believes in the same rules.

Gaybio,

We’re both atheist, and gay, and you can imagine that even though we’re both still college students, the idea of raising children in a loving community that won’t judge our child for being raised by gay atheists is hard to come by. Even more worrying is that our child will find religion and reject us later in life.

Come to the San Francisco Bay Area! I was raised by two secular moms and didn’t have any problems growing up as an atheist here. Of course, there’s homophobia no matter where you live, but this is definitely one of the most accepting places in the country. There are plenty of same-sex families, too, so your children will have a supportive peer group. Oh, and if it helps, I know many grown children of lesbian moms and gay dads, and I don’t know of anyone who was raised in an out-and-proud home and later went on to find religion and reject their family of origin. If you raise children in a diverse, loving, supportive environment, I can’t imagine that conservative, homophobic churches will have any appeal to them. Even if they are attracted to religion later in life, there are plenty of accepting faiths to choose from.

My parents are doing plenty to introduce my kids to religion. And my older daughter (4) loves going to church with them. So far the reason we don’t go to church hasn’t exactly come up. We’ll see what happens down the road. If they end up religious… well, I think it’s fairly unlikely but it’s not like I’ll disown them or anything! 🙂 I think this book would be interesting to read as my kids get older though – shark

We are both (parents) atheists, but after moving to a very conservative town in the Midwest we felt it would be beneficial to let my son get more experience with religion than we could provide. We also chose the UU church. It feels like cheating because he is presented with a multitude of faiths, as well as humanism and just plain atheism, all in one place.
It turns out we rather enjoy the social aspects and learning about all the other religions too. If he did decide to choose a faith like the ones we see represented there I could totally handle that. It might result in a little teasing, but no more than dying his hair red would. If he decided to become deeply involved in a very orthodox church and was underage we would intervene.
On a side note; for someone brought up in an Assemblies of God church there is a bit of perverse pleasure in hearing about Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, Greek gods et. al right alongside Christian Mythology (in those terms) at church.

I write about this topic quite a bit, as I’m a father with an 8 year old son and a 6 year old daughter.

This is what I tell them: God is an imaginary friend many people have. Those people do not know God is not real. Do not tell them or they may get very angry.

Exposing your kids to God at a young age is like exposing them to lead paint chips – a needless risk.

@andrew, I kinda like that…and I my house has lead pain. oops. At least we don’t have god. 😀

I don’t really have anything to add to the discussion, except to say the excerpt from that book you quoted is absolutely dreadful! The man has no voice of his own. That third paragraph in particular is quite bad. He’s simply stating quote after quote, rapid fire, without a good lead-in for each quote.

“Leave your thoughts in the comments and one random reader will win a free copy of Mikicic’s book”

are you teasing us Hemant?

did you forget to add the usual “only US citizens are eligible” disclaimer or are you finally offering something open to all of us? 🙂

(Hemant says: I’m not sure! It’s more expensive to ship out of the country so the default is the US, but leave Shark in the comment and if you win, we’ll try to get you the book!)

Since my recent realization that I no longer believed, I’ve had many discussions of this sort with my still-believing wife. We have four kids, the oldest being ten. I’m a fan of the idea that my kids should be religiously literate — about many different belief systems — and my wife agrees.

This book does look interesting. I’m sure many will find it helpful. Shark.

too late…
I didn’t deconvert until after raising three kids within evangelical Christianity. One repudiated it as a teenager. For another it’s a non-issue. And the third is still outwardly drinking the Kool-Aid. My problem is that grandpa (the closet atheist) is watched like a hawk when interacting with grandkids lest he cast doubt on anything they’re being told. But that’s unnecessary since I would never betray my children’s trust by contradicting their parenting. The course of action I take with grandkids is to use every opportunity to teach and drill the skills of critical thinking. There are lots of opportunities for this with schoolwork, books, media and current events. I believe that if they learn critical thinking, it’s only a matter of time before they apply that skill to religion. Moreover critical thinking cannot be criticized by family members because to do so would be to expose religion’s major weakness – lack of credible evidence.

Wendy,

@ Anna yes I am her parent. I am NOT her dictator. She lives IN TEXAS. She’s already exposed to religion. For me to forbid it would do nothing but make her want to go. If we were back home in California, it wouldn’t be an issue. In Texas???? Whole ‘nother issue.

But this is a six-year-old child. I’m confused why you think you would be a dictator if you refused to allow your six-year-old to be indoctrinated. There’s a difference between normal exposure and outright indoctrination. In Texas, I know it’s impossible to prevent your child from being exposed to religious ideas, but you do not have to let her be indoctrinated by a group of adults whose sole mission is to present their religious ideas as fact. The power is yours. You’re not a dictator by denying your child’s requests to go to church. You’re her parent. It’s up to you to decide what is appropriate and what isn’t. She’s six. Why are you abdicating your responsibility for her upbringing? If she wants to hang out with her friend, what’s wrong with playdates? What’s wrong with getting together on weekends? What’s wrong with other organized activities, like Girl Scouts or dance class or soccer?

She’s your child and it’s ultimately your choice, but I think it’s absolutely insane to complain about having to deprogram her and counteract the indoctrination when you are sending her into the lion’s den to begin with. You don’t have to do that. It may be Texas, but you still have freedom of religion. You are in charge of deciding what is appropriate for your daughter. Do you think Hindu and Muslim and Jewish parents in your small town allow their children to go to Christian churches? I bet they don’t, and you shouldn’t feel forced to do so either.

Steve,

There is a story of a daughter of lesbians falling in with the Quiverfull cult of all things:

Yikes! I hadn’t heard that story before. Thank goodness she found her way out of it. It sounds like it was fear of death that first started her on her journey. I’ve actually always been interested in the Quiverfull movement from a sociological standpoint, but my reaction to the teachings is complete shock and horror. I’ve never understood the emotional appeal of Christianity, but I suppose that paralyzing fear of mortality is one way to get started down that road.

I think that Patrick makes a great point.

I have seen MANY atheists who want to give their children a NEUTRAL view of religion (“I won’t tell them my own opinion, lest I bias them, so instead I’ll just educate them about what people believe”).

Then the kids get exposed to religion which does NOT present a balanced view, but instead presents the kids with a scam that has been honed for centuries to prey on unprepared minds. Even adults can fall prey to cults, why would we expect a kid to be immune?

Atheist parents can debate whether to ‘forbid’ their kids from going to church/temple/mosque, but a more basic problem is that many atheist parents fail to tell their kids why religions are phony, scams, silly, unbelievable, etc. Then tell kids to see if the evidence supports one conclusion or another.

..shark

I’ve seen Unitarian Universalism come up a number of times on this thread; I, too, was a UU for several years.

In parts of the U.S. in which the general religious milieu is both conservative and pervasive, the local UU church can be the most skeptical, secular community in existence—and even in less god-soaked parts of the country, there are atheist-friendly UU congregations to be found.

All that said, I would strongly caution atheist parents who hope to raise confident, skeptical kids that UUism is not always a great idea. Within the national UU power structure, as well as within a very large number of local congregations, there is a frighteningly large amount of hatred directed toward overt atheism, as well as a whole lot of uncritical favoritism toward (generally liberal, if not hippy-dippy) forms of religion. The Richard Dawkinses, Christopher Hitchenses and Sam Harrises of the world—as well as the many thousands of us who broadly agree with them—are attacked unmercifully from hundreds of UU pulpits on a very regular basis.

Children in UU religious education are frequently given a picture of human religion that is skewed heavily toward favorable pictures of major religions, at the cost of ignoring nonbelief entirely, treating it as an “or you could reject all of these nice Neighboring Faiths” afterthought, or attacking it as another evil form of fundamentalism. The very notion of criticizing religion—except for fundamentalism—is overwhelmingly treated as a form of bigotry.

The religious privilege that keeps religion in power in the United States is alive and well within the Unitarian Universalist Association. If you’re going to send your kids to UU R.E., I would urge you to keep a very careful eye on what they are being taught. All too possibly, the church is telling them horrendous things about you and about anyone else who is so benighted as to reject religion entirely.

Looking at the religious aspects of many intergroup conflicts, at the violence carried out by zealots in the name of religion, some people conclude that the world would be safer “religion-free.” They may even try living this way themselves. But too often they only practice a form of self-delusion. Nature abhors a vacuum and so does the human spirit. As C.S. Lewis said, the opposite of a belief in God is not a belief in nothing; it is a belief in anything. Sweep the demon of religion out the door and, like the story in the Gospels, you may only succeed in making room for an evil spirit worse than the first—this one accompanied by seven friends (Luke 11:24-26; Matt. 12:43-45). Zealous atheism can perform this role of demonic pseudoreligion.

[….]

One cost of avoiding religion altogether may be spiritual isolation. Too often today couples are already socially isolated. … Having raised their children in a spiritual vacuum, apart from any religious discussion or community, committed secularists are sometimes shocked when their offspring suddenly join a high-demand cult or follow a seductive guru. Nature abhors a vacuum, and so does the human spirit. The lure of the various isms, though hardly unknown to religious people, may be even more intense for those who avoid religion.

– UU Rev. and national UU Association President (1993-2001) John A. Buehrens, in A Chosen Faith, published by the UUA’s Beacon Press and billed as “the classic introduction to Unitarian Universalism”

Life is a miracle that can’t be explained without explaining it away. Our most profound encounters lead inexorably from the rational to the transrational realm.

Many leading scientists are far ahead of us in this regard. Some recent discoveries in physics and cosmology make no apparent sense according to known canons of rationality. Probing the mysteries of the universe and the mind, researchers on the cutting edge of knowledge find themselves moving freely between the rational and transrational realms. Where does that leave the poor camp followers, who believe in science but don’t embrace mystery? Having traded God for truth, they are left with neither.

– Rev. Forrest Church, “Universalism: A Theology for the 21st Century,” UU World national magazine, November/December 2001)

Who are these people who still think that it’s special and unique to reject traditional images of the Deity? Are they the same guys who sit with me at weddings and let drop the bomb that they respect what I do [as a UU minster] but, rilly, they’re “spiritual but not religious??” “That’s fascinating and special, dear,” I tell them. “But I’d love it so much if we could conclude this conversation right this minute and you’d go fetch me another cocktail.”

[…]

For an atheist to expect CHURCHES to pander to the a-theistic search for truth and meaning is like hiring a dental hygenist with no arms to do your cleaning, and expecting her to do a good job of it.

– UU Rev. Victoria “Peacebang” Weinstein, nationally published and prize-winning UU minister

It’s tough.
When my family left Christianity (Southern, Baptist style), I swore I’d never let my kids to go any church again.
We’re still holding to that. . sort of. My daughter was invited to AWANA here in our new town. I let her go. She knows what her Daddy and I . . .er, don’t believe (we’re atheists), and at 10, she’s claiming to be one too. (Though, as the poster above said, I have some concerns about that.) She came back, completely underwhelmed (she had very fond memories of her excellent AWANA program in our previous city. She had no interest in talking about Jesus or God or anything.
I will encourage her to turn down visits to church, as her Daddy and I do because week after week of “visiting” is indoctrination, and a kid can’t avoid that. I became a Christian as a kid by being taken to church by unbelieving parents. Weird.
Shark

I’m all for aggressive indoctrination of critical thinking. No matter what kind of doublespeak you want to put to it, “Faith” is believing something because you want to and not because it is true or real. Taking something on faith is closing your mind to every other possibility. I think it’s never too early to teach your kids HOW TO THINK, if not what to think. But there’s also plenty of atheist what-to-think you are perfectly justified and even obligated to tell them because they are REAL WORLD VERIFIABLE FACTS AND SCIENTIFIC PRINCIPLES and should be told to your kids as such. You don’t say “Some people have the opinion that putting your hand on the stove will burn you”, you tell them that it will! You can also tell them that evolution is real and their church-going friend who says it isn’t is full of shit. AND YOU SHOULD! The religious have no respect for free will or a fair decision making process – they want to rope your kids in any way they can. Give your kids the tools they need to be smart about this, just like you would about drugs and sex.

Well, Wendy, it’s your choice. It doesn’t seem like I can say anything on the subject to convince you. Since you seem bent on having your daughter attend this particular Christian church, I would hope you consider taking your daughter to other religious services to counteract the indoctrination she is receiving. I know it’s a small town, but there must be some non-Christian residents. In addition, books can be an excellent way to introduce other ways of thinking. At the very least, you should let her know that you think gods and goddesses are imaginary and that it’s okay not to believe what the adults are telling her at church.

I want to adopt when I’m around 30 years old (I’m 18 right now) and I plan to tell them my worldview, tell them that other people believe in different worldviews than I and to challenge their critical thinking skills.

Shark.

I’ve never done the thing that could result in children, but I’d really like to read the book anyway. Looks really interesting to me.

Shark.

I now have a fundie daughter, and it saddens me. There really is no communication anymore.

shark

Looks like an excellent book. I will amazon it if I don’t win a copy here. Shark.

My take on parenting without a god was to try and interest my daughters in seeing nature as far more amazing than any myth. I suppose Bill Nye was my inspiration for that. No need to address, much less denigrate religion as an explanation for the world.

We live in the US bible belt, so socially, religion is always popping up. My best suggestion for them was to stay in the closet about being a non-theist. It is hard enough being a kid without being labeled “different”.

So they sang in church choirs, went Christmas caroling and participated in other activities that would be described as sectarian.

I suppose the theme I kept returning to was to value good friends and cut them some slack if they are caught up in religion. Their parents are probably behind most of the negative aspects of religion. It turned out that some of their friends’ religious beliefs were about a molecule deep. College wiped that away.

Anyway, my two daughters that are in college and are critical thinkers. They also have religious and non-religious friends so that is about the best outcome I could have asked for.

My 12 year old is a much more vocal atheist than I am. That being said, I know kids often rebel against their parents. My husband and I joke about it often, and we hope if she needs to rebel, that she’ll just smoke pot and not become a baptist.

shark

When I was 10, we had a next door neighbor who believed that invisible Jesus watched everything she did and spent all her time obsessing about what he would do about it. At the same time, my mother believed that invisible FBI video cameras watched everything she did and spent all her time obsessing about what they would do about it. My mother was labeled “paranoid schizophrenic” for her behavior and the lady next door was labeled “a good christian woman” for her behavior.

I believe that as humans it is our duty to teach children factual and correct information to the best of our ability, as well as teaching them to think critically for themselves. It’s not enough to say “I’ve taught my child to think” and trust that they will figure out that religion is nonsense for themself. We need to teach them that religion is factually incorrect, and how and why it is harmful to believe in it.

It’s a dangerous thing to just turn a child, even a child who believes they are an atheist, over to a church and trust that the child will be fine. I remember at age 12 I agreed to go “out to dinner” with a friend and his family, fundamentalist christians. They lied to me and to my father about their intent: they took me to church for an all evening high pressure conversion session. I was a highly precocious 12 year old with an IQ of 179 and extraordinarily strong sense of self and of reality. (This is not my own assessment, this was the assessment of court appointed psychiatrists from my parents’ divorce at that age.) And yet still I found it to be a very stressful experience and had a very difficult time standing up to a minister who had no problem with putting me on the spot in front of an entire congregation including my friends and denouncing me and my atheism as immoral.

Christians will do anything to convert your child to their beliefs, to inflict upon your child their irrationality, their sexism, their homophobia, their self loathing, and so on. And if you voluntarily turn your child over to them for this indoctrination, your child will likely see it as an endorsement, or at least passive approval. Handing your child over to a church for religious education is setting your child up for a lifetime of the sort of BS and suffering that religion inflicts on people across the world.

So no, I do NOT approve of atheists who let their kids go to church if they want to. Your parents made you go to church and you didn’t like it and so you don’t want to be like them? Tough. Your job as a parent is not to make your kids like your decisions. Your job is to make the best decisions for your kids that you can based on the information you have to work with. If your parents made you go to church, it’s because they believed it was the best thing for you. They were wrong, but it was based on their incorrect view of the world, that praying to the sky bully is more important than sanity. As an atheist you damned well know that religion is wrong and harmful, so you should be making the obvious choice for your child: to keep them out of it.

Wendy,

It sounds like you’ve done everything but actually gone to the church with your daughter. If that’s the case, I’d say that would be the next logical step.

I am an “atheist” parent in that I have chosen to not indoctrinate my child into a religion. Because I have chosen *not* to indoctrinate him, does that mean I have indoctrinated him into atheism? I don’t think so, but there are those who would argue (vehemently) that I am no different than the religious parent.

Of course, I beg to differ. I am not telling my child to believe something unbelievable simply because some other people told me it was believable and, therefore, I (and he) must believe it. I am not telling my child that if he questions me, and my belief (or lack thereof, obviously), he will spend eternity being miserable.

In fact, I am not telling my child how he should live his life at all, because, quite frankly, I don’t have ANY answers, and I am merely feeling my way along, like all of the rest of us.

What I *am* doing, though, is encouraging my child to question everything. Including me. And come to his own conclusions. If those conclusions lead him to religion, well, I will make a real attempt at respecting that(which isn’t to say understanding it). The important part is, of course, that he got there on his own. Without my influence. Or in spite of it. Either way.

My 11 year-old son is surrounded socially by Christianity (We live in East Texas.) He is well aware that his Mom believes in God (in a deist sort of way) while his father does not. While we used to attend church on a semi-regular basis we rarely do so presently. I am not opposed to him investigating religion, and my wife and I try to honestly answer any and all questions he throws our way. If asked directly he says he leans towards my viewpoint, but he’s intelligent enough to fake luke-warm Christianity in social situations (at school, etc.) because of where we live.

Shark!

If my husband and I have children, they will be exposed to religion. He’s an atheist too, but his family ranges from very Christian to crazy fundie Christian. We’re not going to cut his family from our lives, so there’s bound to be church in the lives of our offspring. All we can do is try to give some balance.

We’ll teach our children about critical thinking, about using logic and reason to analyse what people say to them and encourage them to always ask questions. We’ll teach them about other religions–other Christian denominations as well as non-Christian beliefs. We’ll explain social and psychological causes and effects of religion, we’ll teach them the places where religion and reality don’t match up. In an age-appropriate way, of course.

At the same time, we won’t lie to them. Not about Jesus, or Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy. They won’t have a deprived childhood, they’ll just be aware that all of those presents came from mum and dad, not some fat guy in a suit who broke into our house while we slept. Because the last thing I want is to train my children to think I’m a liar. When it comes time to tell them their beloved Nannie’s god is imaginary, that could backfire in all sorts of ways.

After all that, if they choose to be religious it’ll be disappointing but I won’t stop them.

I have an 11y/o going thru a “God crisis” now. when he asks any questions that are biblical in nature I often answer with ” Well, according to the bible…” then if he asks what I believe, I tell him honestly. We often has such discussions during dinner when his siblings (ages 6,4,and 20 months) are present. I have bought him a bible for him to read on his own so that he can make up his own mind. I try very hard not to push my beliefs on my kids and I hope they have the sense to make up their own minds,and I support any choice they make.

I think that we need to be realistic here. Yeah, it’s great to say that we’d just teach our children how to think and let them think for themselves, but that’s not how children see the world. They absorb whatever it is they come in contact with and make that their identity. They aren’t capable of doing a point by point analysis of every concept. Even adults let emotion control their opinions on a regular basis, so why should be expect differently of kids? I think we should raise them as we see fit, but trust them to make their own decisions when they get older.

Because Wendy lives in a very religious area, she can’t totally stop her young daughter from going to these religious events if her friends are going. That would only make the daughter want to go more. But Wendy needs to make sure that her influence as a parent is stronger than the influence of the church because her daughter is not old enough to think for herself yet.

Nathan,

I don’t think I need to remind this crowd that the greatest predictive factor for religious belief is the belief of the parents… whenever an atheist suggests that Christians are brainwashing or indoctrinating their children by passing on their beliefs, I’m going to point them to this thread.

There’s a big difference. Christians seek to indoctrinate their children. They present their religious beliefs as fact. Other beliefs (or nonbelief) are not presented as an option. On the other hand, most atheists seek to prevent their children from being indoctrinated. If I could raise my children without ever once having to mention gods or goddesses, I’d jump at the chance. Unfortunately, that’s not the kind of society we live in. Due to the extreme religiosity in the United States, I’m forced to deal with the subject and counteract cultural assumptions of the biblical deity and its accompanying mythology.

Give your kid a science book E.g. How things work or books about animals. Take them to zoos and museums. Show them how almost every question they ask has a answer based on the natural. That is the greatest sheild you can give a child against religion without trying to brainwash them.

I would just caution all would-be future parents that it’s not going to be as easy as you want to guide your children in any particular way. Sure, you can be a good example and teach them how to think, but you never know what they’re going to latch onto and find out works for them. To complicate matters, it’s hard to predict how your the beliefs of your spouse/partner might change over the years. It’s just part of the adventure of parenthood – raising your kids right in a world chock full of contradictory influences.

Personally, I’m hoping that my spouse’s increasing embrace of religion over the years (and attempts to church-ify the kids) eventually turn out to be the perfect vaccination against superstition as I remind them to think critically.

At the risk of giving away my age…
*knock knock*
land shark

I am 12, a self-proclaimed atheist, having been brought up catholic. I love to debate about these things with religious people, and see their viewpoints, and I would be glad if my school had a class that educated people on others’ beliefs. I don’t think it’s my parents’ fault I don’t know (since it’s not what they believe and I haven’t actually told them I am anything but a catholic), but the community. I don’t want to have to go looking for education. I want to be able to find it easily.

I grew up in a pretty relaxed mormon household. I think my parents were just doing what they thought was best. I can remember questioning early on and didn’t really buy it. So when I had my daughter in a fairly rural community in NC and I was concerned about sending her to public school. I enrolled her in a catholic school, I really liked the statues of Mary. I thought of it as a vaccination and way to bring up the topic of religion. When she asked about the differences between Catholic and Presbyterian, I offered the following explanation:

“Religion is a lot like breakfast cereal. Some people like corn flakes, others like fruit loops, etc., But it is all cereal”

At the beginning of each day, the pupils would recite the lords prayer and the pledge of allegiance. After the first year I really paid attention to what my daughter was reciting and it went like this:

“our father, who does art in heaven, shallow be thy name, thy kingdom come, my will be done…..” I loved her for that. 

After 5 years of this school, I put her in a charter school which I have been very pleased with. Our time at St. Mary’s was fruitful. I got the opportunity to chat with her about xtianity. When she brought up Adam and Eve in the garden of eden, I acted like it was the first time I had ever heard the story. “What? Talking snakes? Are you for real? Well, I don’t believe talking snakes. So, God waved a magic wand and Adam appeared and then he made Eve from Adam’s rib? Ewww. That’s gross.” Made for some funny conversations.

Now at 14, she has xtian friends, she has attended churches and finds them very boring. I think my total disregard for God and church has rubbed off on her and it is a non-issue. I am verbal on pointing out the absurdity of certain claims of religion and religious intolerance around the globe. 

Hopefully, her skepticism will maintain. I just keep my fingers crossed that she doesn’t come home one day and proclaim that she is “born again”.