Your children and your views

midlandsmissus

Hello,

I think that the majority of the people on this board have become atheists as either adults or teenagers. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.(which i'm sure you will!) Therefore I think I might have a unique viewpoint of what it's like to be an atheist as a child in ireland.

I grew up with very vehement atheist parents, whom of course decided I was to be atheist aswell. They renounced mass, religion, basically everything to do with god. This was at a time when catholics were an extremely high majority. In fact I only met one other non-catholic person in all my school years.

I never ever got bullied by other kids about it, but I still definitely felt really left out at times. I was the only one in my class at primary school who didnt have communion or confirmation, and that was awful!
I remember saying to my mum once, 'I know you dont believe in it, but you should have made me catholic anyway if I'm in a place where every other person is catholic'.
Anyway after primary school it wasnt such a big deal, and I got out of religion in secondary which was great! Wooo.

So my point really here is: Christian, Muslim, atheist, whatever, people are always going to want their children to be the same as they are, even though it might not be neccessarily right for the child.

My mum pressed her views onto me as much as any religious person does.

As a christian now I think, 'if i have a child is it right for me to make my child a christian, shouldn't i let them make their own journey themselves.'.

As atheists do you think you will make your children atheists?
I know there is more of a mix in schools these days than when I was young, so social factors probably wouldnt be as relevant.

Would you be upset if your child turned out to be a christian?

My mum used to say to me when I was young, 'be whatever you want when you grow up', now im a christian she gives me all the old atheist arguments and im like 'I thought you said you wanted me to make my own choice as an adult' and she was like 'oh yeah yeah', but of course what she really wanted was me to make the same choice as her.

It is all too easy to press our views on children, and something we all maybe need to think about? what do you think? In regards to your parents and yourself? and in regards to what you might do with your own children?

pH

midlandsmissus wrote: »

I think that the majority of the people on this board have become atheists as either adults or teenagers. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.(which i'm sure you will!) Therefore I think I might have a unique viewpoint of what it's like to be an atheist as a child in ireland.

Rare, but not unique. I have never been baptised, as both my parents were de facto atheists. I attended Catholic national schools followed by a Protestant secondary school.

I grew up with very vehement atheist parents, whom of course decided I was to be atheist aswell. They renounced mass, religion, basically everything to do with god. This was at a time when catholics were an extremely high majority. In fact I only met one other non-catholic person in all my school years.

I just don't remember religion being important to them. In fact I don't think I ever remember my father speaking about it.

I never ever got bullied by other kids about it, but I still definitely felt really left out at times. I was the only one in my class at primary school who didnt have communion or confirmation, and that was awful!

I remember being more bewildered by the whole thing, I wasn't sure what was happening (1st communion & 1st confession). But because of choice of schools I had to go through a Catholic class doing confirmation in 6th class, followed by the Protestants doing the same thing again in 1st year.

I remember saying to my mum once, 'I know you dont believe in it, but you should have made me catholic anyway if I'm in a place where every other person is catholic'.

My sister rebelled in her early teens and started attending Mass with her friends. Even took communion (she wasn't baptised .... oooh the scandal of it!)

So my point really here is: Christian, Muslim, atheist, whatever, people are always going to want their children to be the same as they are, even though it might not be neccessarily right for the child.

Agreed.

My mum pressed her views onto me as much as any religious person does.

I don't agree, there are some very strenuous forms of "pressing views" onto children, memorisation of large passages of religious texts, repeating mantras for hours, making them take part in daily rituals etc.

What you're probably saying "she pressed her views on me as much as the fairly moderate couldn't care much religious person does.

It is all too easy to press our views on children, and something we all maybe need to think about? what do you think? In regards to your parents and yourself? and in regards to what you might do with your own children?

It's really hard to see what the alternative is. Give a 6 year old a menu of the world's religion and get them to pick one? Pick one that you like? What happens if they want to become a Sikh and grow their hair, or a Scientologist. Probably best wait til they're 18 and let them make their mind up as an adult.

Dades

There's only one reason (apathy aside) why an atheist would allow their child to be turned into a catholic at school - social acceptance. Either of the child with its peers, or of the parents with theirs. It's not a compelling reason, imo.

midlandsmissus wrote:

Would you be upset if your child turned out to be a christian?

I possibly would if she was raised without a faith. I'd wonder what was missing in her life that she needed religion.

robindch

midlandsmissus wrote: »

As atheists do you think you will make your children atheists?

Well, my two year old was born an atheist and remains one to this day -- don't imagine it changing any time soon

midlandsmissus wrote: »

I know there is more of a mix in schools these days than when I was young, so social factors probably wouldn't be as relevant.

All going well, mine will be going to an Educate Together school, so with a bit of luck, she shouldn't receive any indoctrination during her education, and that's a major factor in protecting her from religion until she's old enough to protect herself. And as you say, there's far less social pressure to conform to religious notions these days, so that's something that's in her favor too.

midlandsmissus wrote: »

Would you be upset if your child turned out to be a christian?

I think I'd view it rather as though she'd caught a long-term, non-fatal disease -- something that you don't want to see her catch, but something that you can't do much about either. I could only imagine myself being upset if she decided to become active in religious sales -- frankly, something equivalent to Typhoid Mary.

But I'm hoping that her education will be good enough, and her family supportive enough, and her curiosity big enough, so that she never really feels the need to acquire any of it.

brianthebard

OP the biggest problem you outlined as an atheist growing up was being left out of religious rites of passage-it wasn't your parents opinions that was at fault but the education system which refuses to be secularised. If we had a secular education system then issues like the ones you outlined in school wouldn't happen any more.

philologos

brianthebard wrote: »

OP the biggest problem you outlined as an atheist growing up was being left out of religious rites of passage-it wasn't your parents opinions that was at fault but the education system which refuses to be secularised. If we had a secular education system then issues like the ones you outlined in school wouldn't happen any more.

How possibly is that the case? She has put forward the case that her parents even felt distant towards her acceptance of the Christian faith, and it sounds like they still feel uncomfortable about it. The view of some of the posters equating Christianity to a disease is also quite unsettling here, it seems as if people want to put up walls in terms of accepting the religion of others.

robindch

Jakkass wrote: »

The view of some of the posters equating Christianity to a disease is also quite unsettling here, it seems as if people want to put up walls in terms of accepting the religion of others.

Well, I don't accept that your religion is true any more than you accept that my views on your religion are accurate. Let's agree that while we have dim views of each others viewpoints, we do accept each other's right to have them

And it's nothing specific to christianity either, but really any religion, from the benign, cappucino-flavoured, dusty-organ-on-a-sunday-morning CofE which really wouldn't worry me much at all, right through to the nastier religions like scientology or the world's Jim-Jones style outfits about which we probably do share an opinion.

philologos

I don't consider atheism a disease, I consider it a choice based on freedom of conscience. Misguided, I may consider it but it's a free choice to be made. Disease indicates that there is something wrong with us for using the choice we have been given.

mark.leonard

midlandsmissus wrote: »

Would you be upset if your child turned out to be a christian?

Yes. It would be further proof, if needed, that there is no god.

Dades

I wouldn't go as far as call it a disease myself! Just something I wouldn't want my kids to have.

mark.leonard wrote: »

Yes. It would be further proof, if needed, that there is no god.

I don't get that one, tbh.

robindch

Jakkass wrote: »

Disease indicates that there is something wrong with us for using the choice we have been given.

It's a disease in the sense of the kind of mind-virus that I've posted about before. Something that one catches, perhaps a bit like a cold, has a greater or lesser degree of difficulty in shaking off.

But good heavens, no, there's nothing "wrong" in any sense with people who've caught a religious mind-virus, any more than there's something wrong with somebody who's caught the soccer bug, for example. It's just something that almost inevitably happens to many people and they're emphatically not lesser or damaged people on account of it.

Now, having acquired a religion, it's certainly possible to inflict damage upon oneself in applying the religion, but that's a topic for a different thread, I think.

ChocolateSauce

My mother was raised by agnostic parents and became an atheist herself around 14. Although she is only slightly less militant than I, she was very careful not to indoctrinate me into atheism. She never brought up the subject and only discussed it when I asked. Being educated in a school where fundamentalist fanatics (I went to a protestant primary school because my mother didn't want me to feel left out of communion and confirmation) were regularly invited to preach to us as young as 4, I technically believed in god, but I was well aware at the time that it didn't make much sense. Of course, at that age I wasn't yet aware that the universe was supposed to make sense, so when I asked my mother was god real, she told me the truth: That it was an unknowable question.

She explained to me at the age of 4 what "unfalsifiable" meant, and said that while she strongly believed it was a load of rubbish, she couldn't prove it and told me to think about it for myself. I continued to believe in god, even though I felt strongly that it didn't make sense, for the same reasons I thought santa was real (I know it's cliché by now, but bear with me). At age 8, I was told that make believe creatures were false, and I literally consigned god to oblivion with the rest of them (this of course led to many questions like how did we get here, and this sparked my already strong interest in science, which has led me to where I am today).

So what will I do with my children? I've often wondered. Although my mother is actually more atheistic than me, which is really saying something, I dislike religion far more than her, partly, I believe, because I was raised in Ireland, whereas she was raised in San Francisco in the late 50's (yes, she was a hippie) and went to all-secular schools, but also because she's got a more gentle and forgiving temperament than I do.

What I would not do, is tell my kids there is no god. I would probably tell them that organised religion is myth, but the more abstract concepts of god like pantheism and deism, and other spiritualistic beliefs I would not dismiss out of hand, and instead I'd teach them about what those people believe and about what I believe, and invite them to make up their own minds. I cannot but admit that I find the monotheisms in particular so silly, and the Bible and Koran so fabricated that I believe the chances of them being true are zero, and since humanistic morals are totally independent of these books, their "guidelines" are not needed.

Tbh, a more pressing question I've often wondered is should I lie to my children and tell them santa is real? I actually haven't decided yet and find this a graver question than the one of religion. Should I deliberately mislead my child into believing something which is patently untrue? And for what? The promise of presents? As a child I didn't care whence my presents came, just so long as I got them. Any opinions on this one?

And the short answer to one question is yes, I'd be disappointed if my child became a Christian. Considering they'd be born atheist, I'd consider it a regressive step both as an individual and for humanity in general.

philologos

robindch wrote: »

It's a disease in the sense of the kind of mind-virus that I've posted about before. Something that one catches, perhaps a bit like a cold, has a greater or lesser degree of difficulty in shaking off.

But good heavens, no, there's nothing "wrong" in any sense with people who've caught a religious mind-virus, any more than there's something wrong with somebody who's caught the soccer bug, for example. It's just something that almost inevitably happens to many people and they're emphatically not lesser or damaged people on account of it.

Now, having acquired a religion, it's certainly possible to inflict damage upon oneself in applying the religion, but that's a topic for a different thread, I think.

Hang on here though, how is theism any more of a disease than atheism and what clarification do you have that theism is indeed a disease? I don't think this is a reasonable comment to say that atheists are somehow healthier than the religious population of the world at large. It's a dangerous assertion to make.

As for inflicting damage by applying the religion, one could argue clearly the same about atheism. Quite a prime example would be the school shooting in Finland which was motivated by the ideology of Social Darwinism. Tragic. People in general can cause damage irrespective of atheism or theism.

Dades

ChocolateSauce wrote: »

What I would not do, is tell my kids there is no god. I would probably tell them that organised religion is myth, but the more abstract concepts of god like pantheism and deism, and other spiritualistic beliefs I would not dismiss out of hand, and instead I'd teach them about what those people believe and about what I believe, and invite them to make up their own minds. I cannot but admit that I find the monotheisms in particular so silly, and the Bible and Koran so fabricated that I believe the chances of them being true are zero, and since humanistic morals are totally independent of these books, their "guidelines" are not needed.

This is almost exactly what I intend to do, and why I'd do it.

ChocolateSauce

Dades wrote: »

This is almost exactly what I intend to do, and why I'd do it.

Great minds think alike! :P

Galvasean

If/when I have kids I'm just gonna raise them without any religious influence (as atheists I suppose), but at the same time trying not to be too militant about it. If in later (ie: when they're old enough to make an informed choice/decision) they become religious for whatever reason who am I to stand in their way? (just so long as they don't join a dangerous heavan's gate style cult)

brianthebard

Jakkass wrote: »

How possibly is that the case?

Because the school system is based on Catholicism and therefore excluding non Catholics? That's how. I thought I made it clear that I was referring to the school situation, was it not clear enough for you?

The Mad Hatter

Chocolate Sauce, that was an excellent post.

aidan24326

midlandsmissus wrote: »

As a christian now I think, 'if i have a child is it right for me to make my child a christian, shouldn't i let them make their own journey themselves.'

Yes you should. Best not to push anything on them, let them figure it out for themselves in time. A young child doesn't really understand the implications of it all.

As atheists do you think you will make your children atheists?

Nothing will be pushed on them, no. But remember we're all born without any religion so it's the default position anyway.

Would you be upset if your child turned out to be a christian?

Not upset, but maybe a little disappointed that they felt the need to turn to myth and superstition having been raised without it (at least insofar as that's possible, children can't be shielded from all of it unfortunately)

It is all too easy to press our views on children, and something we all maybe need to think about? what do you think? In regards to your parents and yourself? and in regards to what you might do with your own children?

My parents, though not fundy religious by any means, do sort of push it on me at times, and I was effectively bullied into going to mass on Christmas Day, something I consider really stupid. Not that going to mass bothers me, but I fail to see the logic in coercing someone into going when you know they don't believe in it.

Jakkass wrote: »

Hang on here though, how is theism any more of a disease than atheism and what clarification do you have that theism is indeed a disease?

Because we're all born atheist, and remain so unless introduced to religion by parents, teachers etc.

Handsome Bob

It's a difficult situation. As someone has already mentioned, it'd be some task to sit down a child and go through the pro's and con's of every religion and let them decide for themselves.

I think I would just teach my (potential:pac:) kids to just keep an open mind about things, to respect the opinions of others, but to defend yourself and others when being harassed with certain bigoted notions (such as racism or homosexuality). I think if I achieve that, then I would have confidence in my children to make an informed decision on religion.

Galvasean

LZ5by5 wrote: »

It's a difficult situation. As someone has already mentioned, it'd be some task to sit down a child and go through the pro's and con's of every religion and let them decide for themselves.

Another problem with that is that kids are not good at choosing what's in their best interests. Let them choose what they want to eat and they'll end up eating sweets instead of good food. Let them choose whether or not they want to go to school and they won't bother etc.

Húrin

aidan24326 wrote: »

Nothing will be pushed on them, no. But remember we're all born without any religion so it's the default position anyway.

....

Because we're all born atheist, and remain so unless introduced to religion by parents, teachers etc.

There is a large and obvious difference between the atheism of a newborn baby and your atheism. I don't agree that we remain atheistic without introduction to religion. A lot of people seem to feel intuitively that God exists. I agree that is not a religion in itself, which does indeed require teaching. As does naturalism, evolution, and all the atheist arguments against theism.

Húrin

LZ5by5 wrote: »

It's a difficult situation. As someone has already mentioned, it'd be some task to sit down a child and go through the pro's and con's of every religion and let them decide for themselves.

That's the same as indoctrination because you are establishing a standard by which pros and cons can be measured.

Handsome Bob

Húrin wrote: »

That's the same as indoctrination because you are establishing a standard by which pros and cons can be measured.

Let me rephrase. In a nutshell, it would be difficult to sit a child down and give them an in depth objective lesson in religion. It'd be a lot to take in for an adult alone! Apologies for the mix up.

I would like to think that I can give an objective view.

Húrin

LZ5by5 wrote: »

I would like to think that I can give an objective view.

I doubt it - we all have cognitive bias. If I were to attempt to present the religions "objectively" I would in a likelihood describe Christianity in the most positive light. Probably better to see how the religions themselves explain their message.

mayordenis

If at 7 years old somehow my child finds him/herself in a catholic or in anyway religious school and they want a communion then so be it.

Handsome Bob

Húrin wrote: »

I doubt it - we all have cognitive bias. If I were to attempt to present the religions "objectively" I would in a likelihood describe Christianity in the most positive light. Probably better to see how the religions themselves explain their message.

I don't know, I mean anyone who sees my usual posts knows that I can hold both the religious and the non-religious up on certain statements. I haven't got the interest to paint any specific religion or atheistic attitude in a positive or negative light. As a said, I'd primarily like to teach my child to be open minded. In that sense, I'd think that would be a good foundation for a child to make up its' own mind on religion.

Húrin

LZ5by5 wrote: »

I don't know, I mean anyone who sees my usual posts knows that I can hold both the religious and the non-religious up on certain statements.

Well so can I, but that doesn't mean I am without bias.

I haven't got the interest to paint any specific religion or atheistic attitude in a positive or negative light. As a said, I'd primarily like to teach my child to be open minded. In that sense, I'd think that would be a good foundation for a child to make up its' own mind on religion.

I agree with this. Understanding rather than judging is the way to go.

Galvasean

mayordenis wrote: »

If at 7 years old somehow my child finds him/herself in a catholic or in anyway religious school and they want a communion then so be it.

At seven I'd question his/her motives ie: money

Handsome Bob

Húrin wrote: »

Well so can I, but that doesn't mean I am without bias.

I get what you mean. I'd be biased alright, biased towards getting across an objective view.:pac::pac::pac:

Húrin wrote: »

I agree with this. Understanding rather than judging is the way to go.

It saddens me that so many people can't seem to grasp this.

midlandsmissus

Galvasean wrote: »

Another problem with that is that kids are not good at choosing what's in their best interests. Let them choose what they want to eat and they'll end up eating sweets instead of good food. Let them choose whether or not they want to go to school and they won't bother etc.

Exactly when I was a child I wanted to be catholic just because everyone else was. Thanks for all the contributions, interesting reading.