Advice for family ganging up on black sheep atheists?

Galvasean

pauldla wrote: »

I was reading a post elsewhere about a Christian woman telling her friend that she was going to stop reading the Bible to her young daughter: the girl, it seems, was getting the 'wrong' idea from some of the stories (i.e. God as a nasty, vindictive piece of work), so the mother had decided to just concentrate on prayer and song for a while. Chanting is better than thinking, eh?

I never encountered the nasty stuff until I got my hands on an actual Bible. It was some culture shock alright. "Woah, this is the same guy we've been singing about for years!!??!"

LittleBook

Birroc wrote: »

"you are using your children to push your views/anger with the church"

recedite wrote: »

I'm just saying its better to persuade kids about these things rather than to just impose your own views

I genuinely never understood this impression some people seem to have of atheism. Surely pushing and persuasion only come into play if someone has a doctrine they want to instil/teach. We simply had an absence of religion in our house.

Reading this thread makes me so glad my daughter was lucky enough to grow up (for the most part) in a secular country. She didn't even know she was an "atheist" until she started attending an Irish school and her religion teacher informed her of this.

Come to think of it, I doubt she even knows the French word for "atheist"! :pac:

kylith

Galvasean wrote: »

I never encountered the nasty stuff until I got my hands on an actual Bible. It was some culture shock alright. "Woah, this is the same guy we've been singing about for years!!??!"

Oh yeah, they keep very quiet about what a pair of dickheads Jesus and Yahweh were. In a way I kind of wish my parents still tried to push me toward religion, then I could have the readings at my wedding be the passages where rules for selling your children are set out, and the second reading the one about Jesus damning the tree for not bearing fruit out of season, and the gospel could be the one about lusting after her hung-like-horses lovers. I'd save the child-eating bears story for any baptisms.

The bible, it's a barrel of laughs.

Bannasidhe

LittleBook wrote: »

I genuinely never understood this impression some people seem to have of atheism. Surely pushing and persuasion only come into play if someone has a doctrine they want to instil/teach. We simply had an absence of religion in our house.

Reading this thread makes me so glad my daughter was lucky enough to grow up (for the most part) in a secular country. She didn't even know she was an "atheist" until she started attending an Irish school and her religion teacher informed her of this.

Come to think of it, I doubt she even knows the French word for "atheist"! :pac:

My granddaughter first encountered this concept of a 'God' when she began school. Being an inquisitiveness kind of child (and stunningly literal minded) she asked questions of the adults in her life.

Everyone was asked the same question. 'Do you believe in God and why/why not?'
She was like a dog with a bone with this issue!

She later complained that the only people who actually answered her questions were the people who don't believe. That they explained why they didn't believe and also told her something about what people with different beliefs believe, plus - and she thought this was important - when they didn't know the answer they said so. For example:
'Nana - what is heaven?'
'Heaven is where some people believe we go after we die if we have followed the rules of God.'
'Do you believe in Heaven?'
'No. I also don't believe in God remember.'
'So where do you think we go when we die?'
'I don't know. Different people say different things but the reality is no-one really knows what happens after we die and people who say they do are only saying what they have been told happens.'
'So no-one has died and come back and told us what happens next.'
'Some people believe Jesus kinda did.'
'Are these the same people who say Jesus is God?'
'Yup.'
'hmmmmmmmmm....but they don't really know do they? They are just saying they know....'
'Yup.'

The religious adults either dismissed her as too young to understand - which made her wonder why she was old enough to be taught about this stuff if she was too young to understand it - or gave her what she considered very unsatisfactory responses:
'Do you believe in God?'
'Yes.'
'Why?'
'Because.'
' Because what?'
'Because God made us all.'
'How do we know?'
'Because it says so in the Bible.'
'Who wrote the Bible?'
'God.'
'How do we know?'
'Because it says so.'
'Where does it say that?'
'In the Bible.'
'Did God actually really write the Bible?'
'No, he told people what to write.'
'So people wrote the Bible?'
'Yes, but they were told what to write by God.'
'How do we know that?'
'Because it says so in the Bible.'
'They could have been lying when they said God told them to write it...grown-ups lie. Are there books that say there is no God?'
'The people who wrote the Bible were not liars. The people who write books saying there is no God are the liars!'
'Well, is there any proof there is a God apart from the Bible?'
'The world is proof. God made the world'
'How do you know that?'
'It says it in the Bible.'
'Are there any dinosaurs in the Bible?'
'No.'
'Then who made the dinosaurs?'
'Stop bothering me!'

After about 3 months of this she concluded she didn't believe in God. She spoke to atheists, agnostics, á la carte Catholics, opus dei Catholics, Anglicans, Buddhists and Wiccans - then decided for herself. Which is exactly the way it should be. She may change her mind as she gets older, but as long as she keeps asking questions, weighing the responses and then drawing her own conclusions based on what she has learnt - that is the important thing.

Sarky

My nephew ended up being baptised for the sake of a day out and easy school access, but I hope he turns out like that kid.

Bannasidhe

Sarky wrote: »

My nephew ended up being baptised for the sake of a day out and easy school access, but I hope he turns out like that kid.

You won't when I start PM'ing you her questions about Marine Biology.

I have already had to recruit a geologist and if anyone knows an expert in climatology I would like to make their acquaintance quite soon.

Beruthiel

Bannasidhe wrote: »

I have already had to recruit a geologist and if anyone knows an expert in climatology I would like to make their acquaintance quite soon.

If she keeps this up, she'll be graduating college by the time she's 15.

Bannasidhe

Beruthiel wrote: »

If she keeps this up, she'll be graduating college by the time she's 15.

Fortunately I will be unable to be one of her lecturers as I have a 'familial interest.'

mistress_gi

If it were me I would say they are getting all the information about religion at home but you would like your children to be given a choice to do religious or not when they are older and are able to make that decision by themselves, from my experience this always works with the most religious person. How do I know? My aunt is a catholic nun in one of those new catholic movements and I've been the only one that has been able to talk to her about anything in these last few years!

Sarky

Bannasidhe wrote: »

Fortunately I will be unable to be one of her lecturers as I have a 'familial interest.'

That just means she'll bug you outside of office hours. :pac:

eviltwin

My youngest is the only child in the entire extended family not to be bapthised. He's 3 now and even my so called educated, non church going cousins find it shocking.

My 15 year old is - family pressure and I have regretted it every day since :mad: - but has never been to mass, doesn't believe in God and refuses to be a part of her school's religious celebrations ( catholic secondary school ). It feels like we constantly have to justify it to people.

Catholics Schools Week is coming up later this month so she won't be involved in any of the masses etc so I'm expecting a round of calls from members of the family about what terrible parents we are and what a terrible child she is blah de blah.

Its not easy but I'm glad we have stuck to our guns and I hope in years to come families like ours are not so unusual.

Bannasidhe

Sarky wrote: »

That just means she'll bug you outside of office hours. :pac:

I am gently trying to push her in the direction of the sciences...if all goes according to plan unless she wants to discuss the Natural Philosophers of the 16th/17th centuries I should be safe...:cool:







She will torment me :eek:

mistress_gi

Good for you! I think one should be able to decided whether to be baptised or not, I actually think that if you decide to go for it it would be much more meaningful.

recedite

Baptism is when the parents make a decision of what they think is best, on behalf of their baby. I respect that.

Confirmation is supposed to be when a child grows up, thinks about it for themselves, and confirms that decision. That would be meaningful.
I have no respect for the way young kids are pushed into that by their school. It should be something they decide to go with in their own sweet time, or not at all. Problem is, from the school patron's perspective, "not at all" is just too likely an outcome in that scenario.

swampgas

pauldla wrote: »

I was reading a post elsewhere about a Christian woman telling her friend that she was going to stop reading the Bible to her young daughter: the girl, it seems, was getting the 'wrong' idea from some of the stories (i.e. God as a nasty, vindictive piece of work), so the mother had decided to just concentrate on prayer and song for a while.

And weirdly, the woman herself didn't seem to have any similar misgivings. This is what makes religion so damned effective - grown adults will rationalise away the most appalling stuff in the Bible.

If only they could "open their hearts" and "see with the eyes of a child", they might be saved :pac:

Hotblack Desiato

recedite wrote: »

Baptism is when the parents make a decision of what they think is best, on behalf of their baby. I respect that.

Even if the reason they think it best is to keep the grandparents happy, or provide the extended family with an excuse for a booze-up, or because it's what 'everyone' does, or because of worries over a school place? I can understand the last one (although don't agree with it, and the system won't change if people continue to do this) but not the others.

recedite

Well, not much "respect" for those reasons. Its still the parents choice though, at that early stage.

Penn

recedite wrote: »

Baptism is when the parents make a decision of what they think is best, on behalf of their baby. I respect that.

Confirmation is supposed to be when a child grows up, thinks about it for themselves, and confirms that decision. That would be meaningful.
I have no respect for the way young kids are pushed into that by their school. It should be something they decide to go with in their own sweet time, or not at all. Problem is, from the school patron's perspective, "not at all" is just too likely an outcome in that scenario.

Too true. Confirmation at 11-13 is pointless because at that age, you're still just going to do it because you're told to do it, rather than wanting to do it yourself. It's part of school and you just accept that. And at that age, you're not really old enough to make that decision yourself. It's the same as communion in the fact that most children will mostly be thinking of getting to dress up, get money from relatives and get to go for a meal afterwards.

If confirmation was changed so it could only happen after you turned 18, f*ck all people would do it.

Kiwi in IE

This carry on sounds horrendous! I have to give it to my partner's Catholic family. They cope with me very well. My partner was raised RCC but can't stand it. I am from a 'heathen' (secular) country and we are living in sin. I complain most days about the state of the education system, abortion, obsession with marriage etc, and ridicule the time it took for divorce/contraception to be legalised frequently. They take it all in their stride. I have made it clear our son will not be participating in rituals such as communion/confirmation. All the schools in our area are religious and they even coped when I mentioned I would prefer he went to a Protestant school over Catholic, as I find their views slightly less offensive! I refer to them as my 'in laws' and tell them our relationship is defined by ourselves and has nothing to do with the state, and even less so the church. Our four year is being taught the difference between beliefs and facts. I am a Catholic family's worst nightmare for a daughter in law, but they put up with me and my ranting, and are very good to me. I guess I got very lucky there!

Kiwi in IE

I don't expect an 8 year old to fully understand why all their classmates are having a party with presents etc and they are not. It looks like we are going to go with the local Catholic school, as most of his friends from Montessori are going there, and the Protestant one is further away. I find Protestantism very slightly less insane in the fact they don't believe in transubstantiation, crying statues etc and they seem less sexist overall.

The school have told me that if I 'object' to religion class he can go to another class and do something else. I don't think it is fair to insist he be separated from his class for what is apparently about 10% of class time. I have decided to leave him in the classes and dispute whatever he is told that we don't like at an age appropriate level. I really don't care if he goes to class and says "my mummy says Jesus was an ordinary man and not the son of God"! I hope he will be the type of child who does exactly that.

The situation is just ridiculous. I am sceptical of any school that teaches complete nonsense as fact along alongside the basics of education. I am still not entirely sure how to manage all the issues that will arise from being forced to go to a religious school. It seems cruel to immediately set a child up to be significantly different from others!

With communion I am going to plan a family holiday to disneyland to coincide with that week. By confirmation time hopefully he won't want to do it anyway. Family and friends who are Catholic or lapsed advise me mostly to just 'go along with it' and 'everyone does it'. I try to explain it to them by asking them to imagine that they have no choice to send their child anywhere to be educated but a Muslim school. I feel pretty much how most Catholic people would feel if put in that situation.

Hotblack Desiato

Kiwi in IE wrote: »

Family and friends who are Catholic or lapsed advise me mostly to just 'go along with it' and 'everyone does it'.

I find that sort of unthinking eagerness to conform for the sake of conformity to be frankly disturbing.

Religions exploit this aspect of human nature for all they're worth.

Kiwi in IE

I completely agree Ninja, but you also have to draw a line somewhere to ensure your beliefs (or lack of in our case), do not negatively impact your child's experience of school. I would dearly love my son to attend Educate Together to the point I would commit to the hour round trip twice a day for the next eight years, if that were the only consideration. However I feel it is unfair to insist he go to school so far outside his own community, where his friends will be a half hour drive away, and an hour is added on to every school day for the sake of my own beliefs. The only acceptable answer is for the government to stop the Catholic church controlling 90% of state funded schools!

Kiwi in IE

The education issues infuriates me to the point I have briefly reconsidered returning to NZ because of it. That is not very realistic in the short term now we own property here however. I have to accept the fact my little boy is going to receive some level of attempted indoctrination.

Gbear

Kiwi in IE wrote: »

The education issues infuriates me to the point I have briefly reconsidered returning to NZ because of it. That is not very realistic in the short term now we own property here however. I have to accept the fact my little boy is going to receive some level of attempted indoctrination.

If people my age are anything to go on then it'll be like water off a ducks back.

By the time your son is leaving school the irish education system could be totally different but people definitely will be.

Catholicism is holding out in mostly mild forms of cultural Catholicism but even that's wilting. It'll be more or less extinct in Ireland in 20 years.

Kiwi in IE

I think you are right Gbear. There appears to be a divide between those who are 50+ and younger generations, on religious matters. From personal observation it seems many in my own age group (30's), keep up a facade of occasional mass attendance, baptism, communions etc, out of respect for the beliefs of their devout parents more than anything else. I agree that once those in that age group currently are gone, Ireland's levels of religious observance will reflect that of similar countries. In any given population there are about 20 odd percent who will be devout to one religion or another, that seems the natural levels for societies where there is no state religious observance. The rest of the population will then vary from non practising to athiest.

In fact I think that is quite likely to be a reasonably accurate reflection of religion in Ireland currently, but for whatever reason the non practising, and even some non believing, continue to tick RCC on census forms because they were baptised. And because they mostly have to send their kids to RCC schools, they put them through the ritualistic nonsense and call them Catholic too. This is turn gives the RCC power, as 'Ireland is 90% Catholic' and therefore wants the majority of schools to be Catholic, and are against abortion etc.

I don't actually think there are any more excessively religious people here than there are in NZ! The frustrating thing about it though, is that the laws and relationship between church and state here don't reflect that.

Kiwi in IE

I read a letter in one of the papers the other day (don't ask for a reference as I'd have to trawl through the recycle bin). The person was arguing that abortion should not even be considered in Ireland, as it is a "90% census proven Catholic country", and the RCC is strongly opposed to abortion. For that to be true, 9 of every 10 here would need to be against abortion for religious reasons only. I think not!

Kiwi in IE

My comment the other day over in the abortion thread comparing state religious observance here to that of Iran was a bit OTT, I admit, but Ireland needs to wake up! You are normal Western European people living in a First World country! It is time the powers that be were forced to reflect that. They currently get away with conducting state affairs like they are representing a country made up of 90% religious fanatics. If I didn't have high hopes for the potential of this country to shirk the religious hangover, I would have gone home long ago! Just a shame the school problem couldn't have been solved by september!

Gbear

Kiwi in IE wrote: »

My comment the other day over in the abortion thread comparing state religious observance here to that of Iran was a bit OTT, I admit, but Ireland needs to wake up! You are normal Western European people living in a First World country! It is time the powers that be were forced to reflect that. They currently get away with conducting state affairs like they are representing a country made up of 90% religious fanatics. If I didn't have high hopes for the potential of this country to shirk the religious hangover, I would have gone home long ago! Just a shame the school problem couldn't have been solved by september!

Apathy probably isn't a solely Irish trait but it certainly has an impact here.

The fact of the matter is that the vast majority of people aren't very religious. Considering that religion is bull****, it would be very unlikely for their children to be more religious, especially considering that knowledge is getting easier and easier to disseminate.
Lack of effort is really what's holding us back. Most people don't care and have enough other **** to be dealing with in their life.

Even in extreme cases like creationism in the US, they're fighting a losing battle. You can't beat facts forever.

Sometimes I get flustered and animated at the stupidity of religious impositions but I take great solace in the knowledge that religion is ultimately doomed to fail.
The ultimate victory of fairness, logic, etc is, imo, completely assured. I just want to be around to see as much of it as possible.

Banbh

I have a little trick that might be helpful to Birroc. Whenever I encounter someone who is offensive or negative towards me I mentally take a step backwards. Similarly, when I meet someone positive and friendly, I take a mental step forward.

We advise our kids to do the same so they sometimes come home from school and tell us about some bully and say ''it's a two-steps backwards situation".

This mental exercise has the effect of inuring (it's a word) you against their offensiveness.

Kiwi in IE

ninja900 wrote: »

It's maddening isn't it.

Our 4.5 year old daughter is getting this in school too. She recently asked when was her mammy going to heaven :rolleyes: cue fobbing her off with that it wouldn't be for years and years and years.

Next time the subject of heaven or god comes up I'm going to just tell her I don't believe in it.

I have had this sort of thing with my 4.5 year old as well. He randomly announced one day, after hearing it from a religious relative, "We all love Jesus". I nearly fell off my chair. When I calmed down enough to respond rationally I asked "Who loves Jesus darling?". His response was "Everybody, everyone does". At this point I told him that is not true, that only some people who follow particular religion say they love Jesus. I also said that Mummy does not love Jesus, as Jesus was a man who lived a long, long time ago, that I didn't know him and you can't truly love someone until you know them. Really! What do you say?

Bannasidhe

Kiwi in IE wrote: »

I have had this sort of thing with my 4.5 year old as well. He randomly announced one day, after hearing it from a religious relative, "We all love Jesus". I nearly fell off my chair. When I calmed down enough to respond rationally I asked "Who loves Jesus darling?". His response was "Everybody, everyone does". At this point I told him that is not true, that only some people who follow particular religion say they love Jesus. I also said that Mummy does not love Jesus, as Jesus was a man who lived a long, long time ago, that I didn't know him and you can't truly love someone until you know them. Really! What do you say?

My 3 year old grandson told me that 'BabyJesus died for me because I was bold' - he heard this in pre-school...am hoping my blood pressure returns to normal soon. :mad:

Kiwi in IE

Bannasidhe wrote: »

My 3 year old grandson told me that 'BabyJesus died for me because I was bold' - he heard this in pre-school...am hoping my blood pressure returns to normal soon. :mad:

Hahaha! I'm really sorry I'm not laughing at you Bannasidhe, I'm just delighted it isn't just me!

Kiwi in IE

I probably would have written a formal complaint to the preschool on that one!

Bannasidhe

Kiwi in IE wrote: »

I probably would have written a formal complaint to the preschool on that one!

I imagine their father has judging by the vein that started throbbing in his forehead when he heard that statement.

emuhead

I officially defected from the Catholic Church and occassionally get some good natured jibes from (lapsed Catholic) siblings about not being eligible to be a godparent. My mother, who is really the only devout Catholic in our family, is actually the most gracious about my defection and attendance at a different Christian Church.

In my experience, I've found that if you keep your explanations brief and low key, people take it seriously and don't badger you. I don't try to argue with people or attack their beliefs.

OP, I think there will be more and more families in your situation in the future.