Do you teach your children that there is no god? Or do you encourage them to keep an open mind and figure out what works for them?
Same as with sex, give them as much information as you can and let them decide. And as with sex, you hope they wait until they are older before making the decision,
I never tell my kids what to think or believe, they are smart kids and as far as I can tell reality driven. They know how I feel and what I think. I flat out tell them in both politics and religion to look at all sided and make up your own mind, so far I have not raised a theist or a Republican I have 14 year old twins and a 17 year old. They live with me half the time.
I don't have any children, but my dad taught us to make our own decisions. There was on catch, we had to learn about the religion, the good and the bad aspects and to weigh them equally without blindly believing. This is how I'd raise my children if given the chance.
Nephew, but yeah. Answered his questions when other people were praying candidly when he was 6 (they think that some old guy in the sky is judging all of our actions), to a copy of "The Magic of Reality" given to him on his 7th Christmas that he read when he was 8. Considering his maternal family is Mor(m)on, we've had to forbid him from calling them stupid, idiots, and retards
child or adult, i will tell them that if there is a god, then that god is a prick, unworthy of respect and highly sadistic. i will inform them of all the pain and suffering on earth and in life, then tell them that any god that allows such things is less than that of the human i'm speaking to.
i am a human. i am superior to any such creator of the universe. i can't say "there is no god" but i can say that god is something i wish to be apart from as much as possible. humanity is more god-like than any deity proposed throughout history. you and me are infinitely more compassionate, careing, creative, destructive, wise and everything else included when defining a deity.
i have created entire universes of beings and instantly erased them. we watch movies to see impossible lives do impossible things and achieve unfathomable goals. if those creations became sentient, they would also call the creator(s) assholes as we should for any proposed creator god in our universe.
raising children should be focused on teaching them about reality. introducing a god doesn't help anything. when people say they raise their kids "atheist" that's untrue. they raise their kids as sensible people and teach them of reality. you can't "teach" non belief. you either do or don't. it relies on nothing but the strength of ones mind to come to either conclusion. however, once a conclusion is made, you must have a good reason for it. that's a rule which governs every aspect of life, and as such, it applies to accepting the existence of any deity out of the thousands that have died, become myths, been forgotten or are currently popular.
i've never tried to breathe underwater, but i am 100% sure that it's impossible. i have plenty of good reasons without a direct experience. the same can be said for a god.
I'm a fairly new athiest. The vast majority of my family is still relgious. It's pretty much just my wife and me that have broken the chains.
I hope to raise my son to think for himself. If he is inclined to some religious belief or practice, I want to be supportive, but I also want to provide all the facts and truth for his consumption that I can. I really just want to help him become who he wants to be.
Meanwhile, it will be interesting to see what interference my wife and I get from family...
I allowed my children the freedom to decide for themselves, my daughter is a Christian and my son is an atheist.
Oddly however my atheist son can quote bible verses and knows religion intimately as he is currently a master's student studying English literature and finds a cultural knowledge of religion a necessity for the analytical understanding of poetry and prose.
My theist daughter has never read the bible in her life and insists all she needs is a personal relationship to Jesus. She too is a graduate, her master's is in business studies and she runs her own company.
I find the dichotomy fascinating.
The majority of parents indoctrinate their children into their personal beliefs. Some children reject it. Some accept it. If one is honest, I would recommend attending multiple churches, synagoges, temples, etc for a few years to give the child a flavor of religions and let them choose for themselves.
My son was baptised into the Church of England. He has never shown any desire to follow any form of religion and so I guess this makes him an atheist as he tells me that he doesn't believe in god.
I don't think I ever told my kids that god didn't exist. My daughter did go to a couple of churchs with friends over the years. One I recall is she went to a Universalist event with a friend and was annoyed with how rude she felt they were to her as a guest of a member. My son has seemed less interested in expoloring the topic of religion.
I didn't force anything on mine. We had discussions about a lot of things, but I left it up to them to work out what they thought. I even took them to church once.
nope, my kids know i don't have all the answers, they know that no matter what others may claim, neither do they. so i teach them about as many of the possibilities as i know about, give them the tools they need 2 learn about the ones i don't know much about on their own, offer 2 learn with them, and leave it up 2 them. so far my 15 year old son identifies mostly as atheist, with the concession that he doesnt have all the facts so there is a tiny possibility there could be a creator of some sort, and my 2 and a half year old hasnt shown any interest in the subject yet so his decision remains 2 be seen
Just teach her to think critically. It's not hard when she's a fan of Thor and asks questions. Bought her books on mythologies. Watching movies with Zeus or Wonder Woman.....easy enough for her to see the patterns.