PLEASE MAKE
SURE TO
FOLLOW THE
RULES!
RULES
This is the
Kill Em
With
Kindness
Forum!
PLEASE MAKE
SURE TO
FOLLOW THE
RULES!
RULES
This is the
Kill Em
With
Kindness
Forum!
PLEASE MAKE
SURE TO
FOLLOW THE
RULES!
This is the
Kill Em
With
Kindness
Forum!
RULES
PLEASE MAKE
SURE TO
FOLLOW THE
RULES!
This is the
Kill Em
With
Kindness
Forum!
PLEASE MAKE
SURE TO
FOLLOW THE
RULES!
RULES
This is the
Kill Em
With
Kindness
Forum!
PLEASE MAKE
SURE TO
FOLLOW THE
RULES!
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You've done well with your child, but that is not the question. Lets say, for example, for whatever reason, she decides that her critical thinking, or experiances, or a combo of both, lead her to a deity belief? What then?
I think the answer should be simple in the case of a child of either a theist or atheist going the oposite direction. LOVE THEM even if you dissagree with them and dont let that dissagreement cause a division.
Humans change positions all the time. I am not saying that theists have credible claims, I am merely saying that you dont need to disown someone because they are not a clone of you.
I think you have intellectually armed her well, but life does have a way of throwing curveballs at you. It doesnt make theism credible, it simply means you shouldnt disown them because they believe something you find absurd. Otherwise I would not be able, as an atheist, to live in the same house as my Catholic mother.
"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
Check out my poetry here on Rational Responders Like my poetry thread on Facebook under Brian James Rational Poet, @Brianrrs37 on Twitter and my blog at www.brianjamesrationalpoet.blog
I, in the Spartan tradition, would abandon them on a hillside as unfit.
Well, no, not really. I've helped raise four children and never interferred with their religious choices. I never assisted them either. There are always zealots willing to deliver children to the house of some lord. I always rather enjoyed my kids' cosmological questions of and lectures to these poor, surprised and unprepared souls. Their rides to church usually found excuses to not return.
I wish I could say that I raised four independently minded critcal thinkers but, alas, it was not to be. One grew up to be a professed Christian and another became a Scientologist, one grew up to be a knee-jerk conservative and the other to be just as radical in the liberal persuasion. It's surprising how similar those opposites are to me. Do I love them? Yes. Am I proud of them? I tell you sometimes it makes my heart stop, I'm so proud of them. Can I talk to them for any length of time and stay honest just to avoid an argument? No.
Kids make choices. So do dads.
Just knowing that my son is thinking that some theist baloney is even remotely feasable is almost painful. Actually it is painful. But I have faith that his inteligence will win out over the ignorance of theism.
Respectfully,
Lenny
"The righteous rise, With burning eyes, Of hatred and ill-will
Madmen fed on fear and lies, To beat and burn and kill"
Witch Hunt from the album Moving Pictures. Neal Pert, Rush
Doesn't bother me just I dont want them to preach to me.
Well, my child *IS* an atheist, and I'm darn proud of him. He uses his mind to think things through, he asks questions about things, and I answer him truthfully. I have never fed him kiddie answers (like thunder is God bowling, that kind of thing). By about 5 or 6, he had already formed an idea of how the natural world works, and of cause and effect. Consequently, he had decided that "this God stuff was silly."
Ironically, it was my extremely Christian step-mother in law who finalized this for him. She tried telling him something about God painting the leaves colors in fall or some such, and he corrected her. So she put her hand on his head and started doing the "I invoke Jay-sus to drive these thoughts out of this child's mind...etc."
When he told me about it later he said "I still think the same way, that there is no God, so nothing happened. And if there was a God, wouldn't that have been the time to tell me?"
It doesn't get any simpler than that.
_________________________________________________________
"I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours."
I would be disapointed, but if they were decent about it and didn't bother me with their beliefs, I wouldn't mind too much.