Reply to How do you explain god to your kids if you don't believe in one?

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[quote=Anonymous]I also do not understand why you are sending them to religious school, and it's not the same as sending your kid to Children's Learning Center which is technically a Jewish school,but is largely secular- and it's a pre-school first, and yes, it is lovely. 
There are so many people who openly deny their religious upbringing and belief system and yet are the first to sign them up for Hebrew school or Catholic school or even join a church or shul. Why?  For some it seems to be about the Bar Mitzvah. Years of Hebrew school, thousands of dollars in dues, and then..nothing really in the family regarding observance. For others it seems to be family expectations that they belong to a church, or maybe the culture of Sunday school. Not believing is a belief system, too. Why not express the belief of marginal or absent belief? What is the fear here? My kids were exposed to all through family events, but we were very upfront that religion appears to be paired with culture and sometimes it is hard to separate the two. If they asked about God we said- It's hard not to imagine a God as people have made it so important  in our cultural lives, and while we aren't sure about everything, we think it answers so many questions people feel they need to know, and really, as people we do not know everything. There are so many inconsistencies with the "story"- we don't see a God making decisions for us just because it is easy for us to assume that, and dealing with life is hard which is  why the story exists. When they were small and asked about heaven, we said everything that lives,... yes, everything, dies,that it is as natural as living, and it is a part of life. It is sad and it is scary because we want to be here, and we want to be with who love, but we can remember that we all came from somewhere and we are all going somewhere. When they were older, we talked about philosophy and the human condition. They are adults now. They identify themselves as Jewish agnostics/atheists (my family is Jewish- DH's family are Episcopalians) and both had very moving marriage ceremonies  with very meaningful readings and vows that seem to incorporate their views of the world. God was not mentioned in the ceremony.[/quote]

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