Fuck this guy. I never lied about that. I also teach skepticism and while I have not declared “there is no god”, I have instilled in my oldest, at least, that there is no reason to believe anything supernatural exists, and if a “god” is not supernatural, then it isn’t what religious people are actually talking about when they talk about one of their gods.

Maybe try keeping that hole shut and staying out of others business.

WTF!!

Bullshit

Can you imagine the talk with them later.
So yeah, kid. Remember when I told you about heaven and hell and all that other stuff that happens when you die? It's all a crock. It's all one giant crock that people use who are unable to process non-existence after their life runs its course. It's like Santa, but we over promised on both the good and bad sides. Wait, what do you mean what else have I been lying to you about?

Erica Komisar is not fit to be a parent. She is totally wrong about saying it's good for kids' mental health. She also fails to think through the question of "Which god?". I had not realised that the WSJ was a mouthpiece for the God Mob.

I had to deal with the death of a classmates to a grade T, 1 and 2. We are talking 5 to 7 year olds. They asked all sorts of questions, I answered as honestly as I could, some were going to the funeral, again when they asked what was going to happen I answered as honestly as I could and with as many options as I could, I did not know if she was going to be buried or cremated so I had to explain both methods of bodily disposal to the students. I thought long and hard about how to explain cremation, and came up with they put her body into a machine that turns it to ashes. We had conversations about how sometimes the human body gets so badly damaged that the doctors can not save the person, how it was important to remember the person and to care about the people who loved her. I had a bundle of really well adjusted kids and most adults coming into our room could not cope. We had the months of the year on the wall with each child's name on the month for their birthday. One little boy (5yrs) was reading off the months and names to a support person when he got to her name he said "She died" and moved on the support person looked shocked and stared at me I simply told her that we say it like it is. I recently met one the the students from this class and she said while it was one of the most horrific things she had to deal with as a child (it was her best friend) she said that all of the talking we did around how we felt and how the students got to choose when the chair was removed (they did not want to remove her chair from her desk) and being honest helped. Explain it in terms the kids can understand, I once explained death to a three year old as you can never ever get any more presents from anyone no matter how much they want to give you one. She was very reward orientated.

And it's not like lying is some kind of sin or something.

Right, like brainwashing is great for kids.

You don’t have to be a withering sheep to believe in life after. That’s the Abrahamic bullshit. It’s not black and white or up or down. That’s the problem
You’ll never be able to make most kids atheists, it’s not in our DNA

You are born to live and you live to die.

Wow that is just abusive. I fully agree with Hement Mehta about this.

I agree with her. But more importantly - why would an atheist have children ?? I mean atheism is Nihilism. Your kids are always gonna ask about our meaning! You gonna tell em “we have absolutely NO MEANING?!

There are so many more healthy ways to understand death than through belief or even faked belief in god/s. I agree with Hemant's blog post, and wholeheartedly disagree with the essay.

Atheist kids should be taught that some people cope with a belief in God, but parents should try to explain death in healthier ways, if they are agnostic or want their kids to be well rounded spiritually. I did my best in that regard with my kids, when they lost their grandparents.