Atheists - how do you raise (or plan to raise) your kids?

[Anonymous]

Do you plan to try to indoctrinate them into atheism, or raise them to be free-thinkers?

[Anonymous]

Free thinkers. This includes encouraging them if they decide to turn to religion.

[Anonymous]

How do you "indoctrinate" someone into atheism? There is no doctrine!

I will raise my children to think for themselves. If they want to believe a bunch of bullshit, I would be disappointed, but it is up to them.

[Anonymous]

Indoctrinate them into atheism? I'm sorry, I can't stop laughing. Atheism is the absence of religious belief. You simply don't take them to church and you don't teach them that God is listening, or watching, or whatever.

[Anonymous]

By the way, you know that atheists still have morals and values, right? That do unto others and love thy neighbor and honor thy father and mother are not "Christian" or religious values?

[Anonymous]

My husband and I were both raised strictly, every-Sunday Christians of different denominations and both became atheists in college and high school respectively, before we met. So far, our kids were baptized and we are going to church regularly (not strictly every Sunday, though) because we think it's important for them to have a religious background of some sort, and we have strong family connections to the church we attend. If they continue with it fine, if not, that's fine, too. I hope our kids will come to the same conclusions we did, but I recognize they may not.

[Anonymous]

Question for you, OP -- when you teach your children about your religion (whatever it may be), do you refer to it as indoctrination? As in, "Come here children, I want to indoctrinate you about the Christmas Story."

[Anonymous]

I teach my kids that they should be good and do right thing not because there is an ultimate punishment if they don't, but because it is good and a right thing to do. The best way to teach is by modeling and an example and not by preaching and scaring them. It is when you do opposite of what you say when kids get confused and grow up without internal moral compass.

[Anonymous]

Huh? OP were you trying to be rude or just expressed yourself incorrectly? We don't teach kids religious beliefs and don't go to church. We talk about moral behavior and why things are good or bad.

[Anonymous]

OP here, I wasn't trying to offend. Maybe indoctrination wasn't the correct wording to use, so I'm sorry if I offended. I'm an atheist myself, and so is my husband. We are friends with another atheist couple who are quite....militant I guess you could say, about it. We are raising our kids to be free-thinkers. Just as a PP said, I hope my kids don't turn to a religion, and I would be disappointed if they did, but I would accept it as being their choice. Our friend's (the couple mentioned above) son has decided he wants to start going church. Our friends are so upset about it, they are talking about disowning him, and they are ridiculing him about being so stupid to believe in a god. I'm actually quite horrified at how they are handling this, I know that they have really talked bad about theists to their son - constantly telling him that "only stupid idiots believe in a god/religion", etc. (it's pretty much like what some fundamentalist religious parents do, just in reverse)

They pretty much won't accept anything but atheism from their son, they won't let him choose for himself (honestly, I think maybe the church thing is a way of him rebelling against them). We are at the point where we want to end our friendship with this couple, but our sons are good friends, so we don't want to hurt that relationship.

[Anonymous]

My mother was an atheist (the result of growing up in a home where religion was shoved down her throat). She encouraged us to explore various belief systems - we attended mass and church services of different denominations with other families as kids. Even temple once.

Both my sister and I went through phases of being active in church, mainly for the sense of belonging and social activities. But in the end, neither of us bought in to the mythology. Church is nice as a way to meet people and share celebrations, but I would encourage my kids to keep a rational mind about the doctrine.

[Anonymous]

My DH is atheist, we do not regularly attend any religious services except for Bouddhist/Shinto temples when we visit Japanese relatives, or Christmas mass with the other set of relatives.

However, DS at 6 discussed this with friends at school, and came back saying he was a Christian
And at 8 still considers himself a Christian, mainly through reading my old children's bible. I love that he is so thoughtful about it.

I encourage talks about different religions because I think it is valuable culturally and protects against all kinds of intolerance.

[Anonymous]

I encourage my daughter to attend different kinds of non-militant churches. She attends a Presbyterian church regularly, and is free to choose whatever works for her. I honestly don't care what she chooses, as long as it is not an extreme church.

[Anonymous]

I think Christianity etc. is a good phase for children to go through, and I am happy to tolerate that - they can read kids' bibles etc.

If they still end up believing as mature adults then that is a different issue, and I would want them assessed for brain damage etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here, I wasn't trying to offend. Maybe indoctrination wasn't the correct wording to use, so I'm sorry if I offended. I'm an atheist myself, and so is my husband. We are friends with another atheist couple who are quite....militant I guess you could say, about it. We are raising our kids to be free-thinkers. Just as a PP said, I hope my kids don't turn to a religion, and I would be disappointed if they did, but I would accept it as being their choice. Our friend's (the couple mentioned above) son has decided he wants to start going church. Our friends are so upset about it, they are talking about disowning him, and they are ridiculing him about being so stupid to believe in a god. I'm actually quite horrified at how they are handling this, I know that they have really talked bad about theists to their son - constantly telling him that "only stupid idiots believe in a god/religion", etc. (it's pretty much like what some fundamentalist religious parents do, just in reverse)

They pretty much won't accept anything but atheism from their son, they won't let him choose for himself (honestly, I think maybe the church thing is a way of him rebelling against them). We are at the point where we want to end our friendship with this couple, but our sons are good friends, so we don't want to hurt that relationship.

OP, you are right, your friends' behavior is so outrageous and wrong on so many levels. and it is also very stupid because the most likely results will be that the child is going to embrace whatever church or even cult just to piss them off