Get behind mr, Satan. . .!

Anonymous wrote:
I'm the PP whose post you quoted last. I am glad to hear you think I'm taking the right approach. The thing is, we cannot (and should not IMO) try to control our kids' spiritual lives. We can only lay the foundation and show them how we approach our own spiritual lives. My kids know that I pray, they know that I give thanks, they see and participate with me in religious observance. They understand why I value it, even as they say (from time to time) that they do not.

Despite protests to the contrary, my older child is so interested in all things spiritual/religious that I would be surprised if he didn't participate in organized religion of some kind as an adult. I don't know that he will be a Christian (he says Judaism makes more sense to him) but I think he will practice *something*. He is very well-versed in religion generally. If he does choose to practice as an adult, I will feel I have done my job in terms of giving him familiarity and comfort with religious rituals, communities and practices, all of which have served my needs in so many ways during my life.

You can't choose something from nothing. You can only choose it from some basis. My goal has been and is to give my kids that basis. The rest is up to them.

Just a reference point, but I'm the PP who grew up is a very religious household and who stopped believing as a child. During middle childhood and my teen years, I sounded a lot like your older kid. I knew a lot about religion, prayed constantly, actively participated in the church community, etc. My mom and religious teachers thought I was deeply religious and interested in religion. The truth was that I did not believe but had no language to even explain what it meant to not believe. I thought something was wrong with me, so I overcompensated in an attempt to force belief.

I am not raising my children religious at all. I have offered to take them to my parents' church and they could go with my mom, but none have shown interest thus far. So far they've decided they're atheist as well, but we're careful to let them know it would be okay if they decided to believe in a god or gods, so long as they were kind about it.

I am not Catholic and don't have kids. You're still thinking in terms of force. That will obviously never work. I wouldn't force children to do anything.

Forget all organized religions and just focus on love, kindness and compassion. Yeah, I could be a humanist, but where's the story? Where's the myth? Where's the magic? That can be found in the story of Christ. Why not use that a a vehicle? What's the worse that can happen? Nobody has answered that. save for "you're indoctrinating them."

In what? What are you afraid of? How is teaching children about God hurting anybody?

Love, kindness and compassion are a feature of many different religions and also of humanism. "Immersion" in the form of seven-day-a-week indoctrination in a particular religion is not necessary. People obviously pick up love, kindness and compassion in many ways without immersion. I bet you could stop sending your kids to church right now and they'd still grow up being loving, kind and compassionate. Many people have accomplished it.

And let's face it - many religions and certainly Catholicism, teach that there is one superior way of understanding -- and that is through that one religion. The religion is teaching much more than love, kindness and compassion. It teaches an eternal afterfile in either heaven or hell. and that certain kinds of people can't marry or have the kind of sex that comes naturally to them because the god they believe in doesn't allow it.

That's not part of teaching your kids to be loving, kind and compassionate. It's religious indocrination.

And who's to say that" faith and god's love" are all they really need in life. That works for you, but is meaningless to a lot of people - inlcuding perhaps your kids, once they get old enough to think for themselves - which they will eventually do, despite your efforts to confine them in a Catholic cocoon.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can we rename this thread "religious families - how to brainwash children"?

I hope the excellent examples of brainwashing here have had some effect on the loving parents (I mean that sincerely) who are going to such pains to immerse their children in Christianity.

It acually sickens me to know that this is still happening. In the middle ages, people were burned at the stake for being heretics. That's over, thankfully. But now, educated parents are indoctrinating their children all week long, in school, in church, even when playing sports! How insufferable that must be for kids who are not inclined to believe in the supernatural. And kids who are inclined toward religious belief don't need the constant reminders.

OP here-This is a very hyperbolic statement. I can't see any harm in teaching children about love, kindness and compassion. Three items that just so happen to be at the heart of Christianity. Why not immerse them in it? What's the worst that can happen? I'm not talking about force or coercion, but setting an example. Showing your kids that faith, and Gods love are all you really need in this world. That's sickening?

I love this thread! So hypocritical. When an atheist or agnostic claims they don't want their kids partaking in any religious activity, the religious folks all come to say how unfair that is to the child, who should be allowed to make his/her own choices.

I guess when it is the opposite the child should not be allowed to make his/her own choices. How "interesting..."

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
You can't choose something from nothing. You can only choose it from some basis. My goal has been and is to give my kids that basis. The rest is up to them.

But that basis doesn't have to be modeling from your parents - it can be, but doesn't have to be. It could come from teachers, or friends or friends' parents, or the internet, etc. If could even be the eact opposite of what parents were modeling.

Parents are important, but they don't control their children's natural proclivities. Anyone who was ever a kid once knows that.

Statistically speaking, people who are raised with nothing in the way of religion continue with nothing as adults. They do not seek out organized religion, in general.

OTOH, people who grow up with religion make choices as adults. They may choose atheism or be agnostics, but it is a choice and not a default.

I never said that parents control their children's natural proclivities. In fact, I said the opposite.

I haven't seen that statistic -- can you cite a source? If that's so, it suggests that seeking a religion is not natural to a majority of people and that if fewer people were indoctrinated as children, fewer would be religious as adults.

What we have now -- at least in the US -- is most people being indoctrinated as children, with some of them dropping religion as they get older. Some people do it quite easily. Others go through an immense amount of turmoil. Seems to me, it would be beter not to indoctrinate in the first place, assuming religion is natural and generally a good thing for people with a innate tendency toward it.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I want my children to love God. I want them to be faithful Christian boys and faithful Christian men one day. I want this because I have very sincere beliefs that cause me to know that a strong faith has enriched my life in countless ways. I want them to be similarly enriched. So you may think it is weird that I want my kids to love God, but that is just a normal thing for people who truly believe. We want to share that belief. That belief brings us joy that we would never want to keep to ourselves.

Change this a little and see if it stands:
"I want my children to love the violin. I want them to be faithful violin students and faithful violinists one day. I want this because I have very sincere dsire to play the violin that cause me to know that a strong interest in violin music has enriched my life in countless ways. I want them to be similarly enriched. So you may think it is weird that I want my kids to love the ciolin, but that is just a normal thing for people who truly feel that way. We want to share that feeling. That feeling brings us joy that we would never want to keep to ourselves."

I bet if you exposed both your kids to the violin and one or neither of them wanted to continue playing, that you wouldn't force them. You might notice, sadly, that they didn't have an ear for it, and would look for another musical instrument for them or let them choose a non-musical pursuit that they had expressed an interest in. You wouldn't expect them to be just like each other or just like you when it came to talent for or love of the violin.

You seriously see no difference between the violin and a fundamental belief system? Yikes...

you seriously don't see the similarities - Yikes.

Please, please consider that a "fundamental belief system" is a choice or a talent or a natural proclivity, like so many other things in life. Why would it not be? The fact that so many people reject faith as adults or choose a faith different from the one they were rasied in is a major clue that this is so.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I want my children to love God. I want them to be faithful Christian boys and faithful Christian men one day. I want this because I have very sincere beliefs that cause me to know that a strong faith has enriched my life in countless ways. I want them to be similarly enriched. So you may think it is weird that I want my kids to love God, but that is just a normal thing for people who truly believe. We want to share that belief. That belief brings us joy that we would never want to keep to ourselves.

Change this a little and see if it stands:
"I want my children to love the violin. I want them to be faithful violin students and faithful violinists one day. I want this because I have very sincere dsire to play the violin that cause me to know that a strong interest in violin music has enriched my life in countless ways. I want them to be similarly enriched. So you may think it is weird that I want my kids to love the ciolin, but that is just a normal thing for people who truly feel that way. We want to share that feeling. That feeling brings us joy that we would never want to keep to ourselves."

I bet if you exposed both your kids to the violin and one or neither of them wanted to continue playing, that you wouldn't force them. You might notice, sadly, that they didn't have an ear for it, and would look for another musical instrument for them or let them choose a non-musical pursuit that they had expressed an interest in. You wouldn't expect them to be just like each other or just like you when it came to talent for or love of the violin.

You seriously see no difference between the violin and a fundamental belief system? Yikes...

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
You can't choose something from nothing. You can only choose it from some basis. My goal has been and is to give my kids that basis. The rest is up to them.

But that basis doesn't have to be modeling from your parents - it can be, but doesn't have to be. It could come from teachers, or friends or friends' parents, or the internet, etc. If could even be the eact opposite of what parents were modeling.

Parents are important, but they don't control their children's natural proclivities. Anyone who was ever a kid once knows that.

Statistically speaking, people who are raised with nothing in the way of religion continue with nothing as adults. They do not seek out organized religion, in general.

OTOH, people who grow up with religion make choices as adults. They may choose atheism or be agnostics, but it is a choice and not a default.

I never said that parents control their children's natural proclivities. In fact, I said the opposite.

Anonymous wrote:
You can't choose something from nothing. You can only choose it from some basis. My goal has been and is to give my kids that basis. The rest is up to them.

But that basis doesn't have to be modeling from your parents - it can be, but doesn't have to be. It could come from teachers, or friends or friends' parents, or the internet, etc. If could even be the eact opposite of what parents were modeling.

Parents are important, but they don't control their children's natural proclivities. Anyone who was ever a kid once knows that.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm weirded out by the "love god" wording. I can understand parents wanting children to follow in their religious footsteps, but not believing in god(s) doesn't translate to "hating" god(s).

That's like saying that because I don't believe in Santa Clause, or Bigfoot, or the Tooth Fairy, that I don't love them - or that I "hate" them.

It has nothing to do with love/hate - some people just believe, and others don't. It either clicks or it doesn't. Agree with others - it's not a reflection of the parents if older kids and adults don't believe. Even when I was forced to go to Sunday School, I had lots of doubts. But when I was a kid, I didn't think there was any option except to believe. Now I know otherwise, and openly utilize my own mind to think and decide for myself.

I'm 7:14, the poster with the two middle schoolers. I appreciate your comments, but I think you just set up a straw man and knocked it down. Has a poster equated not loving God with "hating" God? I haven't seen that in this thread. To be clear, both of my sons believe in God, and further believe that Jesus is his divine son. My angst comes from the fact that they have zero enthusiasm for anything that would point towards actually puting that faith into practice.

I want my children to love God. I want them to be faithful Christian boys and faithful Christian men one day. I want this because I have very sincere beliefs that cause me to know that a strong faith has enriched my life in countless ways. I want them to be similarly enriched. So you may think it is weird that I want my kids to love God, but that is just a normal thing for people who truly believe. We want to share that belief. That belief brings us joy that we would never want to keep to ourselves.

I get where you're coming from - most parents want their children to grow and (mostly) follow in their footsteps, for various reasons. That's pretty natural.

But I assure you, forcing faith on them or bringing it up regularly, will quite possibly have the opposite effect. Faith isn't something you can indoctrinate your children with. It's not something you can make them love. I honestly don't even think it's something you can teach - how many of us were taught to believe in religion/god by our parents or community, but still ended up not believing? Whatever happens, your kids will find their own way. Ultimately you have to admit that while your faith/religion/god brings YOU much joy, it cannot, will not, ever necessarily be something that will be joyful to others - even your kids. The joy that you find can never, will never be replicated for any other human being. Great happiness and joy are found in people of specific religions, general deists, agnostics and atheists. Even if you try, your experience can never be taught to someone else. There are many, many ways to immense, blissfully-content joy. With religion/god, and also without.

Do you think that without religion or god, you children can be upstanding human beings? Do you believe they can be generous, kind, loving, supremely decent people even if they do not believe? I don't mean generous, kind, loving, and decent to a level of basic adequacy, but do you believe your children can be these things to the fullest extent, even without religion/god? These are the humanistic beliefs that should be your chief concern. If THEY decide to use religion/god as their vehicle, or to use their own hearts and minds as the vehicle, the end is the same.

Anonymous wrote:

I want my children to love God. I want them to be faithful Christian boys and faithful Christian men one day. I want this because I have very sincere beliefs that cause me to know that a strong faith has enriched my life in countless ways. I want them to be similarly enriched. So you may think it is weird that I want my kids to love God, but that is just a normal thing for people who truly believe. We want to share that belief. That belief brings us joy that we would never want to keep to ourselves.

Change this a little and see if it stands:
"I want my children to love the violin. I want them to be faithful violin students and faithful violinists one day. I want this because I have very sincere dsire to play the violin that cause me to know that a strong interest in violin music has enriched my life in countless ways. I want them to be similarly enriched. So you may think it is weird that I want my kids to love the ciolin, but that is just a normal thing for people who truly feel that way. We want to share that feeling. That feeling brings us joy that we would never want to keep to ourselves."

I bet if you exposed both your kids to the violin and one or neither of them wanted to continue playing, that you wouldn't force them. You might notice, sadly, that they didn't have an ear for it, and would look for another musical instrument for them or let them choose a non-musical pursuit that they had expressed an interest in. You wouldn't expect them to be just like each other or just like you when it came to talent for or love of the violin.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can we rename this thread "religious families - how to brainwash children"?

Don't be obnoxious.

There is an element of that in a lot of these posts. If you take out the religious context that "everyone" accepts as appropriate, and replace the religious elements with communist elements, we have:

Thread Title: Do your children easily love [the Party]?

It was an every day, 24-7 sort of thing, not some boring thing that we attended for one hour every week, under duress. Also, in school, they weave all the [Party] lessons into everything, so again, it's not set aside as one boring hour a week when you have to go to [Party Class] with kids you do not even know, who do not go to your regular school.

Or:

My children attend a [Party] program called [insert name]. The classroom setting is called the Atrium, so many people refer to it as that. My children have developed a relationship with [Dear Leader] at a very young age. it's much more personal than the classroom [Party] ed programs.

Or:

Our [Local Party Chapter] is focused on the idea that to develop and sustain faith, you need roughly five adults (who are not you) pouring into & interacting with your child on a regular basis. I think the concept comes from a series of books called Orange & Parenting Beyond Your Capacity. This could be [Party Education] teachers, scout leaders, your own friends, a [Party] youth [representative], other adult volunteers with youth [Party], sports coaches who model good values, etc. Our [Party] youth [representative] also really emphasizes how much time children spend with parents vs. the [Party] - we can't expect our [Party] to do all of this spiritual development. Even if you're there for three events/week (unlikely for most families), that's only six hours out of the many more that parents spend with their kids. So talking about faith & modeling it at home is the first step, and then finding a community that will support and your sustain your efforts is the next most important thing.

I have a young child at this point, so it's easier talking about [Communism] with her at this stage of life. It permeates our home life...

Or:

I want my children to love [Dear Leader]. I want them to be faithful [Party] boys and faithful [Party] men one day. I want this because I have very sincere beliefs that cause me to know that a strong faith has enriched my life in countless ways. I want them to be similarly enriched. So you may think it is weird that I want my kids to love [Dear Leader], but that is just a normal thing for people who truly believe. We want to share that belief. That belief brings us joy that we would never want to keep to ourselves.

I'm not doing this to be obnoxious, and I do honestly think there's a difference between believing in God and being a devout Party member. Despite my saying that, I know that there are some people who are going to be insulted by the implicit comparison. I'm simply putting these words in a different belief context to show how they look when the authors aren't talking about religion, and they do have a significant element of indoctrination to them.

Now compare that to -

I would like for my kids to love and find comfort in [the Party], but know I do not control this - that I can only expose/introduce them to [Communism] in various ways. In raising them as I have ... my hope is that they develop enough of a "faith muscle" to enable them to seek out [the Party] on their own when they want or need that. I know from personal experience that faith waxes and wanes, but OTOH for me, the comfort of the liturgy, especially during difficult times, does not. I hope I have given them enough of a foundation that they seek this out for themselves as adults.

That's respecting your kids, teaching them, and allowing them to make their own choices.

I'm the PP whose post you quoted last. I am glad to hear you think I'm taking the right approach. The thing is, we cannot (and should not IMO) try to control our kids' spiritual lives. We can only lay the foundation and show them how we approach our own spiritual lives. My kids know that I pray, they know that I give thanks, they see and participate with me in religious observance. They understand why I value it, even as they say (from time to time) that they do not.

Despite protests to the contrary, my older child is so interested in all things spiritual/religious that I would be surprised if he didn't participate in organized religion of some kind as an adult. I don't know that he will be a Christian (he says Judaism makes more sense to him) but I think he will practice *something*. He is very well-versed in religion generally. If he does choose to practice as an adult, I will feel I have done my job in terms of giving him familiarity and comfort with religious rituals, communities and practices, all of which have served my needs in so many ways during my life.

You can't choose something from nothing. You can only choose it from some basis. My goal has been and is to give my kids that basis. The rest is up to them.

Anonymous wrote:I with you, 17:15 and 17:54.

*I'M* with you....