Question for Atheists/Agnostics with Kids

[Tyche]

I didn't quantify it as 90% religious, however, saying that 95% of the US is religous is also incorrect. It's actually closer to 80%

[Intense]

Ive been thinking about this topic for awhile, and still cant seem to organize my thoughts enough to make a valid or even interesting point. So I'll just start type and see where it goes.

I generally would consider myself to be of the Christian faith, however I dont see myself as a "religious" person and I typically only go to church every few months. I can relate a lot to Elesirdurs sentiments about going to a church so many times a week (See, someone actually did read you tl;dr post ;3 ).

That being said, I was once very involved in going a lot and being active. But eventually I started questioning everything "Why is this so.." Why is that so...". A lot of people I was friends with at the time either werent interested/comfortable/capable in discussing such things or were shocked that I had so little "faith" and only offered "Ill pray for you" as a reply. As a result, I was shunned/looked down upon by quite a few of them.

Being treated like this has almost completely turned me off from wanting to be a part of a church or hang out with religious types. Since I stopped hanging around them; I am on the outside looking in, and I can definately see how close minded and judgemental a lot can be.

When I have children, I dont think I will want them to be raised going to Sunday School and Winter Camps. If Christianity or any other religion/non-religion is what they will eventually choose, thats great and Ill be proud and happy for them knowing that this was the decision that they came up with on their own without my thoughts. BUT, I definately agree with Kaylia in instilling values of living in a society. That is really important to me.

[Venture]

Edit: And to venture, whom posted as I was posting this: I would disagree with your labeling Atheism as a set of beleifs. Atheism is a disbeleif in theist dogma. As an atheist, you have no set "beleifs" or tenants you must follow. There are no rules, no historic rituals, no meetings on sundays, no offerings. I dont get a tax writeoff for being athiest, and I dont have a T-Shirt asking "what would the Nothing do". Dont be so hasty in tossing atheism into the same crowd as religion, it is very insulting.

Athiest are not here arguing "athiest" principles, we are arguing principle of science, logic, and free thought. Its a common tactic to attempt to classify it as just another "set of beliefs", which implys some amount of faith.

Well, i'm not looking to flame on Atheism by saying this, but taking a stance in disbelieving or believing in anything that hasn't been fully explained is still a faction of beliefs. Noone knows with scientific certainty whether or not God does exist, so believing in a religious dogma is beliefs that God exists, while thinking God does not exist is belief that God doesn't exist, and you are intellectually right. Until someone proves with absolute, concrete scientific proof that there is or isn't a God, having a solid opinion in any direction is a belief. That's why I say I don't want them to be Atheist, because it would imply they already made up their minds on the matter of God's existence or non-existance, or that God isn't just a name for a more omnipotent universal force.

[Neosutra]

Edit: And to venture, whom posted as I was posting this: I would disagree with your labeling Atheism as a set of beleifs. Atheism is a disbeleif in theist dogma. As an atheist, you have no set "beleifs" or tenants you must follow. There are no rules, no historic rituals, no meetings on sundays, no offerings. I dont get a tax writeoff for being athiest, and I dont have a T-Shirt asking "what would the Nothing do". Dont be so hasty in tossing atheism into the same crowd as religion, it is very insulting.

Athiest are not here arguing "athiest" principles, we are arguing principle of science, logic, and free thought. Its a common tactic to attempt to classify it as just another "set of beliefs", which implys some amount of faith.

Well, i'm not looking to flame on Atheism by saying this, but taking a stance in disbelieving or believing in anything that hasn't been fully explained is still a faction of beliefs. Noone knows with scientific certainty whether or not God does exist, so believing in a religious dogma is beliefs that God exists, while thinking God does not exist is belief that God doesn't exist, and you are intellectually right. Until someone proves with absolute, concrete scientific proof that there is or isn't a God, having a solid opinion in any direction is a belief. That's why I say I don't want them to be Atheist, because it would imply they already made up their minds on the matter of God's existence or non-existance, or that God isn't just a name for a more omnipotent universal force.

No.

We dont just "beleive" there isnt a god. There is no "faith" in it at all. Given any scientific peer reviewed evidence to the contrary, athiests would no longer be athiests. This however, is not the case. There are no set of beleifs to adhere to. The fatal flaw in your logic is that your saying "the god theory has some legitity because you cant prove it wrong", which is completely and horrifically incorrect. It is NOT the responsibility of the rest of mankind to validate every theory tossed out of the asses of any new cult fanatic. It is the responsibility of the religious to give evidence to their theories, and since there is NO evidence WHAT SO EVER, it doesnt even count as a classifed theory. Thus its not something we have "beleifs" against, due to not even having merit as an equal theory.

Thats like classifying you as a "round earther", just because you "believe" the earth is round. Ensuring that you live your life intelligently and use scientific principles to determine what is true/false doesnt adhere you to a set of "beleifs", it simply labels you as a logical person whom has expressed a desire to view the world as such.

[Kuya]

Ugh.

A person who believes the earth is round, because that's what he wants to believe is also wrong if he does not present forth evidence, or cite it. However since proof that the earth is in fact round is easily accesible, your argument is moot.

While on the other hand, saying god does not exist implies one has tested the theory/belief false, or found some knowledgeble source that asserts this. Not to mention, Science never sides with absoluts.

You are in fact right, that it is the responsiblity of the party presenting the claim to prove it. However, that does not mean they are wrong if they do not present forth evidence.

edit: to tie both paragraph 1 and 3 together, if those who claimed the earth was round were wrong, simply because they did not have enough evidence, and only a theory, then that itself would have been a mistake on our part.

[Neosutra]

Ugh.

A person who believes the earth is round, because that's what he wants to believe is also wrong if he does not present forth evidence, or cite it. However since proof that the earth is in fact round is easily accesible, your argument is moot.

While on the other hand, saying god does not exist implies one has tested the theory/belief false, or found some knowledgeble source that asserts this. Not to mention, Science never sides with absoluts.

You are in fact right, that it is the responsiblity of the party presenting the claim to prove it. However, that does not mean they are wrong if they do not present forth evidence.

No, it doesnt absolutely mean that are 100% wrong, but w/o evidence to back up their theory, I have NO obligation to even view it as a theory, let alone a bad theory with logical flaws. And atheism doesnt neccesarily state that "god does not exist" with 100% affirmation, it (as i stated previously), is a statement of disagreement with all theist dogma, which is indeed provable, since theist dogma base their religion on historic/metaphysical evidence that is easily debunked.

I dont have to prove to you that there isnt an invisible giant pink elephant in the room next to me, just to be able to say "there is no giant pink elephant", because the complete lack of evidence for a theory (and i stress COMPLETE lack of evidence) is evidence enough for any logical person to declare it as a fallacy. Your stretching the limits of logical deduction to try and include religious tenants that dont even follow the rules.

[Maguspk]

Thanks for fucking the thread up so quick, oh well at least it was interesting for awhile.

[ozz]

Our mother is one of the few exceedingly intelligent people to ever marry into our father's family tree, so she not only raised us both to be either atheist or agnostic, but she constantly pressures us to raise our kids faithless. She's worried, and so am I and my brother and my sister-in-law, that all she contributed to improving the family line will be for naught if her kids, or our kids don't break the blue-collar yolk that rules our father's family lines. Neither me or my brother have really hit on our intellectual potential yet, and there's hope that if we pick the right wives, we might finally have a family line that works at NASA instead of building boats and digging ditches. We don't want kids that have faith. We want them to question everything, have a desire to tear things apart, then try to put them back together or improve their design.

I know it's fucked up to tell your kids what they shouldn't believe in, but if we have to be the asshole generation who forces our system on our kids to finally get offspring with the mental wiring to go to Harvard, MIT or Yale, it'll be worth it in the end.

you're a moron,i hope you figure that out when you reach enlightenment

[archibaldcrane]

I have a similar story to Mizango's, although...somehow not quite so awful.

I was raised catholic by a catholic father and methodist mother - mass every sunday, etc. My best friend as a child was raised by uber-religious "free evangelist" parents - Jesus shit all over their house, etc.

When his grandfather fell asleep at the wheel and ran their motor home off the road while Kevin happened to be standing up in the back, putting him into a coma for 3 days and then dying (on my 11th birthday) I hadn't really questioned what little I'd picked up in church at the time.

When I heard the pastor (or whatever he's called) of their church at his wake, speaking to the parishioners in another room about how he'd spoken to god while Kevin was in his coma, and asked god to spare Kevin, and god told him that "it was Kevin's time to come be with him", I was sitting in the corner of this funeral home just shaking my head "no...no...no".

That pretty much did it as far as religion went for me.

As far as your kids go - I don't know where you live, but going to public school religion was -never- an issue between kids growing up, in Wisconsin anyway. Don't let your fears about how he'll assimilate into school culture with kids who are religious sway your decision - it seems like a non-factor to me.

[Siniroth]

I don't have kids, nor do I intend to have any until at least after University/College when I have a job that can fully support them, but I agree with allowing the children to determine their own beliefs, and not pressing them one way or the other. If they ask about it, I will give them my view of it (Agnostic), and if they want to learn other ways, provide them with means to learn those ways... I'm not sure if I would send them to a catholic or a public school though.

[Maguspk]

If you don't care either way and your wife cares, let her pass on her beliefs. Raising the child is a joint effort and the worse thing you can do is give him conflicting views, especially coming from both his parents. It's probably best if you just talk it over with your wife on whether it matters, in which case you should go with whoever thinks it more pertinent.

[quannum]

Raising the child is a joint effort and the best thing you can do is give him conflicting views, especially coming from both his parents.

fixed.

Let the lil bugger figure it out for themself, kids are smart.

[Siniroth]

^too true, I know kids with more sense/intelligence than most adults I know -_-

[Kuya]

If you don't care either way and your wife cares, let her pass on her beliefs. Raising the child is a joint effort and the worse thing you can do is give him conflicting views, especially coming from both his parents. It's probably best if you just talk it over with your wife on whether it matters, in which case you should go with whoever thinks it more pertinent.

Kind of counter productive, don't you think? You're willing to let him choose whatever she/he wants, she doesn't. There is much than just conflict here, there's a person forcing something that isn't necesarily correct.

[Jefe]

No, it doesnt absolutely mean that are 100% wrong, but w/o evidence to back up their theory, I have NO obligation to even view it as a theory, let alone a bad theory with logical flaws. And atheism doesnt neccesarily state that "god does not exist" with 100% affirmation, it (as i stated previously), is a statement of disagreement with all theist dogma, which is indeed provable, since theist dogma base their religion on historic/metaphysical evidence that is easily debunked.

I dont have to prove to you that there isnt an invisible giant pink elephant in the room next to me, just to be able to say "there is no giant pink elephant", because the complete lack of evidence for a theory (and i stress COMPLETE lack of evidence) is evidence enough for any logical person to declare it as a fallacy. Your stretching the limits of logical deduction to try and include religious tenants that dont even follow the rules.

Lawl... Religion is simply the way a person relates him/herself to what they consider the most important or what they consider "Ultimate Reality." Your problem is trying to find logic in a religious experience/feeling/belief, etc. Religion is a form of experience which is kinda difficult to explain, it is a matter of feeling (emotion), rather than intellectual knowledge (your approach) . Anyways, I think it's up to the individual to discover in nature, or through human experience some clear grounds for whether they can accept religion from an intellectual point of view.

Gf and I believe in a supreme being, I am Catholic but she ain't. If we were to have kids, we'd raise them to believe in the existence of a superior force or whatchumacallit. Later on when they grow up, then they can choose whether to believe or not. It'd be cool if the follow the good ol proverb "Do good and avoid evil."

[Demosthenes11]

Don't want out kids to be flat-out Atheist, because Atheism is a form of belief as well. If anything, i'd hope that our kids don't feel the need to apply titles to themselves to justify their place amongst religion. Honestly, I hope they at least think about it, so they can understand why people feel the compulsion to choose for or against a God, but not to choose faith because their faith helps them to place understanding in things they can't figure out for themselves.

If one of their friends dies in a car accident, I wouldn't want them to think: "It was their time." or "It was God's will". I'd want them to come to terms to the factors that made the accident happen, and why their friend dies i.e. no seatbelt, spinal compression, ejected from car etc. So they can learn from their friend's accident, appreciate their friend's contribution's to their and other lives, and be able to understand how it happened so they can move on with their lives.

Will also have to accept the terms that raising any kid to not easily place faith is going to be hard raising a kid, because if you raise a kid to question everything, they're likely to be rebellious in their youths until they mature mentally to fully understand the purposes behind every action. Don't expect to have a smooth relationship with them, and when they're about 25 years old, and have matured mentally and emotionally as adults, we could sit down with them like our parents did us, and air everything without the teenaged instability that haunts adolescents even in their early 20s getting in the way of a mature conversation.

That sounds terrible. Why the hell would you mess up a kid that badly. "Hay, we are not going to pass on judgement to you about this heroine here, you figure it out!" If you want a jackass, going-nowhere, bum of a child, raise them this way. Giving your children some sort of guidance is the job of the parents, and to completely look away and let the child figure everything out on their own is like turning them loose in the wild; it will not make them a better person. The reason parents are allowed to pass their judgement on to their offspring is because they have experience, and for the most part, they do know better. I dunno what the fuck kinda mom you had, but obviously she was very uninvolved emotionally in your life and did not give you advice when you needed it, like a parent should.
"But most parents are intelligent enough and dont do that!"
I don't care about those parents, I'm talking about what a parent should be doing.

[Venture]

I don't know what kind of medication or drugs you're on to draw that kind of statement out of that quote, but please share for the rest of us, Demos. Relevance?

[Neosutra]

No, it doesnt absolutely mean that are 100% wrong, but w/o evidence to back up their theory, I have NO obligation to even view it as a theory, let alone a bad theory with logical flaws. And atheism doesnt neccesarily state that "god does not exist" with 100% affirmation, it (as i stated previously), is a statement of disagreement with all theist dogma, which is indeed provable, since theist dogma base their religion on historic/metaphysical evidence that is easily debunked.

I dont have to prove to you that there isnt an invisible giant pink elephant in the room next to me, just to be able to say "there is no giant pink elephant", because the complete lack of evidence for a theory (and i stress COMPLETE lack of evidence) is evidence enough for any logical person to declare it as a fallacy. Your stretching the limits of logical deduction to try and include religious tenants that dont even follow the rules.

Lawl... Religion is simply the way a person relates him/herself to what they consider the most important or what they consider "Ultimate Reality." Your problem is trying to find logic in a religious experience/feeling/belief, etc. Religion is a form of experience which is kinda difficult to explain, it is a matter of feeling (emotion), rather than intellectual knowledge (your approach) . Anyways, I think it's up to the individual to discover in nature, or through human experience some clear grounds for whether they can accept religion from an intellectual point of view.

Gf and I believe in a supreme being, I am Catholic but she ain't. If we were to have kids, we'd raise them to believe in the existence of a superior force or whatchumacallit. Later on when they grow up, then they can choose whether to believe or not. It'd be cool if the follow the good ol proverb "Do good and avoid evil."

I dont trust my doctors "feelings" when it comes to treating me, I trust his medical expertise, reserach, and the high tech machinary. So if i wont place my health on such a risky/imature/irrational system of decision making, why the hell would I "feel" myself for the answers of the universe. Yes, personal gratification is indeed a -personal- experience, but that doesnt mean you have to throw out basic logic just because your beleifs are not held to any test. Tell me what you "feel" about that >.>

And to demons,... jeez lol. Not teaching your child religious principles is NOT the same as not teaching them morals. Morals have nothing to do with religion, and are only corrupted by religion when incorporated. (remember not to spit on the side walk or your going to hell, and that gay people will eat your brain)

[Demosthenes11]

yes because all religious persons are gay-hating, god pushing assholes.

[Jefe]

I dont trust my doctors "feelings" when it comes to treating me, I trust his medical expertise, reserach, and the high tech machinary. So if i wont place my health on such a risky/imature/irrational system of decision making, why the hell would I "feel" myself for the answers of the universe. Yes, personal gratification is indeed a -personal- experience, but that doesnt mean you have to throw out basic logic just because your beleifs are not held to any test. Tell me what you "feel" about that >.>

For an individual who boasts about "embracing" logic, you sure love your ignoratio elenchi. Furthermoar, you completely disregarded the concept of "ultimate reality." I bet you thought I pulled out of my ass or sumthin'. But enough about silly ad hominems, time to go to bed!