As a father of a, once sensitive 12 year old turned headstrong 13 year old turned determined 14 year old, I can say that this might change... the worse thing for a religion is knowledge and curiosity...

That being said, I really don't think there is a guaranteed "solution" to this... we tend to think of kids as tabula rasa - blank slates - onto which we can just write our ideas and beliefs. However, as every parent quickly discovers, they're miniature people (well, my daughter isn't so miniature anymore). Just think how strongly held your beliefs are.

Religious beliefs tend to temper over time. She may still believe but her views of your impending damnation may diminish.Your daughter obviously is an empathetic thinker. But the emphasis here is the "thinker" part. Your patience will be rewarded in the end...

Most children do not have the emotional maturity to deal with many of these concepts yet. Time will either resolve it or it will not. Having you as a parent will help but remember the natural tendency for kids to rebel. So don't push them one way or another, just be there to offer your opinions.

My son is religious. He attended a pretty extreme church for a while, but has become very progressive in his religious views since his baptism.

He's a compassionate young man and saw through the bigotry and insanity of the church he had attended, and is much more accepting and rational now. He's still religious, but without the hypocrisy of that particular sect.

Your daughter is a loving child, and she will see how hateful and hypocritical some groups can be. I'm sure she'll find a less troubling view of things, even if she retains her religion.

I asked my son why a loving god would create hell, or an omnipotent god couldn'tt forgive people without torturing and murdering his own son, and why does a perfect being need worship, adulation, and praise from imperfect mortals.

I can't remember or list every question I came up with, but you are an intelligent and determined woman, you'll get through. I hope it's sooner rather than later. Good luck.

Whew! This is a tough one. Complicated by dad, who is evidently a believer. I have been fortunate in my situation to not have had to have dealt with the type of brainwashing your daughter is being exposed to. She has the misfortune of being the victim of being a good girl and believing in the authority of the adults apointed over her (dad, minister, congregation. All those she interacts with at church). You seem to be the sole voice crying out in challenge to an overwhelming amount of mysticism being almost force-fed to your daughter.

I guess the best advice I can give is to try what I have done with my kids. I have told them that they can believe whatever they want to believe, but also to NOT just take people at their word. Do their own independent research and get answers and then make their own decisions about what they want to believe. This might place your daughter into a more questioning mindset and could get her to where she at least takes what she's hearing with a grain of salt.

I'm very sorry you're having to deal with this situation and hope this helps.

Wow that is a delicate situation. Trying to unbrainwash a 12 year old may be harder than you think. And at that age she's going to believe what she wants. I don't think there's too many ways to convince a child of 12 that god does or doesn't exist unless a priest were to admit it! I would think the best tact is to probably stop trying to convince her there is no god (at this point she's probably not going to listen to that anyway), reaffirm your love for her, assure her that you're OK and that nothing bad is going to happen to you, and try and comfort and console when she acts like this as only a mother can. Also I agree with other posts; watch for signs of depression, like sleeping too much, mood swings, changes in grades, etc. Is this behavior sudden? Or has this been coming on for awhile? Sudden changes in behavior may portend depression, but I would check with a professional. Also, is there a trusted teacher you could enlist that may be able to help? Sometimes hearing something from a nuetral third party may help. In any event, best of luck to you! Hoping this eventually passes and its just part of how she's growing up.

This is not the question to ask a twelve year old, but feel free to hold it for the future;:

How happy will the few people who get to heaven be when so many people they love and care for are suffering horrific agony forever?

Tell her it's always welcomed that someone 'holds a good thought' for you and if it turns out (somebody's) God is real, then it certainly couldn't hurt. You can then add that you see that people helping other people seems to make the most difference and choose to live your life that way.

“If you pray for rain long enough, it eventually does fall. If you pray for floodwaters to abate, they eventually do. The same happens in the absence of prayers.”

― Steve Allen

This is a tough one and I empathize with your situation. My ex and I are mostly on the same page. Others in the thread have suggested providing scientific evidence... the fossil record, the DNA evidence you provided, the fact that we can observe galaxies millions of light years away, and other resources. It can still be hard to overcome religious conceptions of our existence with folks who adopt the literal biblical view. I think your kind approach is great. Kids are curioius and feeding her curiosity with questions is a good way to go. There's some saying about planting seeds of knowledge but I can't remember it...

Tough.

I have a somewhat similar situation with my 10 year old niece. Her father and I are not religious, but her mother has her believing in angels and what not.

When things like that come up, we ask her if that is what she believes and gently explain what we believe. We then make it clear that she is free to believe what she wishes.

At the end of the day we’re hoping she just believes what she wants to, and not what she is told to regardless of what it is.

I think the smoking gun for me was actually reading the Bible around that age and learning how it was put together.

If she takes it seriously, she'll be interested.

My whole life, I never bothered to seek out what the other side had to say. She should listen to the four horsemen.

Gently congratulate your daughter on being more kind and far more loving than the god she's being told about at that church. Help her to see that hideous eternal torture for a finite crime is the ultimate in moral bankrupcy and that maybe, just maybe, that church is wrong. She can work through it from there.

Also, it may be worth taking her to other churches, to exposing her to other views & other claims about that god, and even about different gods. You know, fight fire with fire. It will shorten this unpleasant phase for both of you, I think.

:/

It's tough to say, because children's minds don't work in quite the linear way a logical adult's does, but I think I'd approach it by giving her tons of information (over time) about world religions, and how religious belief gave people stories that helped explain where the world came from, why people exist, how to explain the pain of life and death, etc., and compare and contrast the various myths from early civilizations straight through modern religions, to illustrate how different they are, and how people just made up the stories before they had scientific explanations for these things, and how we still don't know everything, because science is a process of continual learning through observation and testing, which builds our knowledge over time, so some people still use religion to fill in those gaps, but it still comes down to people making up stories when they don't know the answer. I wouldn't be overly confrontational about it or put her on the spot, which may cause her to rebel against what you're saying, but I think gentle prodding and nudging with solid information about how religion and science work will help in the long run. Good luck!

Why would an omnipotent all forgiving entity made basically of love burn you in hell for an eternity for not respecting him/her in your human life. Super contradictory lol. Seems like you are facing a tough one. My mom was religious but Dad was blatant about despising churches. His example was not to enter them if poss and on doing so swear or tell me god wasn't real. He told me star trek held more truth. Not sure how useful that is. Pretty sure all forgiving entities don't burn people for eternity though. Thats imortal psycopath vampire aliens.

Try showing this

Who has custody? Who takes her to church? Why does she go to church? If you have sole custody? Talk to your lawyer?

Be kind and direct her to science in school plus give items to read by respected scientists. Keep up the questions but do not press hard. She will come around .Took my sister 40 years.

I honestly think I would use the religion. This is where she is coming from and I'm guessing her dad or church or both may have something to do with the fear or anxiety. Get on the same ground and use biblical verses. It does say that God knew you before you were born and set you apart. Ask if a just God would send someone to hell without giving them any evidence to believe. There are so many scriptures that would ease her mind. At the same time they do not make sense, which hopefully would make her think. You obviously love her, so everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. If you show that you have love then how can can two loves be at odds. I know a lot of people in the church and they don't think with logic until you get pass the Bible. I lived with that kind of fear for a long time, until the Bible became what didn't make sense.This is only the way I would tackle this question. I hope it helps.

First one would have to remove Her from the source of the infection, I would think.

I have to break it down for my 10 y/o using quantum physics and Kabbalah (which are actually quite similar imo). There are different dimension's, there may be beings that live in these frequencies that we cannot see. Everything in this world is really a hologram Light reflecting and refracting off of matter, which is composed of atoms. There is an energy...there has to be, Law of Conservation of Energy. Look into the double slit experiment. We create our own reality as we perceive it. In all reality, everything has already happened...we're just the physical form going less that 1% the speed of light. Then there's electromagnetism...Lol. It goes deep.

Well I think every parent should teach/show their child to have an open mind. With religious influences that becomes

Encourage her to read Genesis. That should do it.

I would first review myself the various merits of science vs arts and go from there

Does she think or agree with men who beat women? What is the only unforgivable sin? Failing to belive in god.....What's the difference? Love me or I torture you forever? or Mafia mentality. Awful nice shop/soul you have here, be a shame if something happened to it. PAY UP. Love or loyalty by way of threat is not freedom nor love.

Get her a good fossil and explain the age of it then pull up the pictures from hubble and cross your fingers