Some would argue that all babies are atheists. Conversely, our 9 month old daughter has been speaking in tongues a lot.
So we decided to just ask her how she feels about God:
Not surprisingly, her thoughts on religion mirror her parents’ views.
Another question I get is:
Are you raising your daughter to be ATHEIST?!?
I change my answer depending on the mood. (please leave suggestions in the comments, if you’ve got any.)
- No, we are raising her to be Southern Baptist.
- Yeah, we are trying to… she speaks in tongues and it totally freaks us out.
- No, we switch her religion every week. Do you have a fun one in mind?
- No, she was born that way. She probably needs a pamphlet, got any?
- No, Sam Harris ex-communicated her from atheism*
So cute!
Apparently this needs to be said: I’d love my daughter just as much if she became religious.
Even though the founder of American Atheists, Madalyn Murray O’Hair, famously jested that her son’s religious conversion was “like a post natal abortion”, it wouldn’t happen that way for me.
For more context:
“I repudiate him entirely and completely for now and all times,” Murray later announced. “One could call this a postnatal abortion on the part of a mother, I guess.” (via)
So the postnatal abortion one-liner seems to be a joke about her own repudiation, and the finality of her tone. A bit of humor aimed at herself, no doubt vying for headlines and attention. Their relationship soured in large part because he made an actual career out of going against his famous mother.
Madalyn Murray O’Hair was a fierce and unapologetic activist. She wasn’t perfect, but I think her life was unfairly vilified by just about everyone.
My daughter’s middle name is Madalyn – in memory of that strong woman who changed the country. My love for her would be unaffected if she ultimately became a religious person.
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gridlore
November 25, 2011 at 5:54 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
What an absolute cutie! And wise beyond her.. err.. months!
Janie
November 25, 2011 at 6:07 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I feel the same way as she does……and she’s VERY cute.
chigau (本当)
November 25, 2011 at 6:32 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
“She doesn’t speak English! I just can’t talk her!”
Dorothy
November 25, 2011 at 6:46 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
What a cutey-pop.
I just cannot comprehend parents who do the post natal abortion thing. I mean: Your kid is still your kid. Whatever they believe, or do, or . . .
Sorry, it’s making me teary. I don’t have a baby brother any more because he couldn’t believe that, and he never gave me the chance to tell him it.
Randomfactor
November 25, 2011 at 9:10 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
“Actually, we were kind of hoping she’d end up Chinese…”
DJG
November 25, 2011 at 10:41 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Just today driving by Mcdonalds, my four year old daughter announced that “people who eat there are eating bad food that’s gross”. It’s hard not to indoctrinate them with some of your core beliefs.
rwahrens
November 25, 2011 at 11:31 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Cute little lady you’ve got there, but I’ve been there and done that, and I’m glad it’s over. Not that I don’t love ‘em, I do more every day and they’re great to spend time with now that they are no longer insane teenagers…
That said, my second daughter converted to Catholicism -- we think just to catch her man. She caught him, now she’s caught on the never ending Catholic Mommy Carousel -- five kids and one in the oven. Unfortunately, now that I have been revealed to be an atheist, SHE is the one that dumped me. My wife and I are no longer allowed to be anywhere near the kids, unless BOTH parents are there to be sure we don’t sneak some non-approved knowledge into their little brains. (They are being home schooled with some of the worst religiously indoctrinating crap you’ve ever seen.)
I hate religion. Especially religion that claims family values yet splits them up where it counts…
Lauren Ipsum
November 26, 2011 at 5:06 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Zoe is adorable! and well-spoken.
I would be devastated beyond words if my precious, darling, brilliant child chose to crush her mind with theism. I wouldn’t disown her, but it would seriously give me an infarction. I have been and will continue to indoctrinate her with critical thinking and skepticism at every opportunity.
And Greek mythology. Nothin’ kills theism like those crazy Olympians.
Michelle
November 26, 2011 at 8:36 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
She is adorable! This is proof that babies are atheists, AND that atheists make cutie-pie kiddos. :)
anthonyallen
November 27, 2011 at 2:40 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
My answer: “I’m raising her to be my daughter. No more, no less.”
sc_2b532274835c88f405421bce9a136ab0
November 28, 2011 at 2:56 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
“Are you raising your daughter (in my case, sons) to be an atheist?”
My answer is typically a flat yes. Frankly, the ones asking this never question Christians (in that horrified whisper) whether they’re raising their kids as Christians.k Fuck off, religious freak who suddenly believes kids should be allowed to believe whatever they like when their parents don’t teach something you agree with.
Yes, I’ll still love my kids regardless. But I’ll teach them that there are no deities. I will not teach them there might be, or that it’s possible but we just don’t know.
nichellewrenn
November 28, 2011 at 8:11 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I would like to tell you how I was raised and how my younger brother is being raised. It worked well for for my older brother, too although I really don’t know his stance on religion. I was raised as atheist; although growing up for a good part of my youth I did not know what atheism is. My parents raise (I have a younger brother who is still a child) us without religion at all. They both impart on us the necessity of critical thinking and allow us to chose from there.
Using fun little word games, tricking us into believing something that is most obviously not how the natural world works. You know kids, they ask simple questions about the workings of the world all the time. Most parents tell them to stop asking silly questions or some such. My folks answered them, but the answers were really out there. A typical exchange would go like this, “What are those spikes on top of the roof (lightning rods) for?” “To play a game where you throw rings on them to score points.”, Mom would say, and she would leave at that, until the next thunder storm where my mom would be watching a special on Ben Franklin or take us for a drive around buildings with lightning rods or be looking at lightning rods being struck on the computer. They would never be the ones to tell us directly, no we would find the truth out ourselves(sort of)… I was raised in a home where the Christian myth is given no more weight than the Norse or Greek, and we had book shelves with both myths but we only got spoke about religion if one of us kids brought it up.
A more accurate way to say how I was raised is secular, I think. It took till I was reading Atlas Shrugged with my dad (at 14 I had asked him if he would help me understand it and he made a mini book club out of it making sure I would voice my views on a topic before he did) that religion was talked about at all and then only in context of the book. I could not tell you the day I became an atheist, I always was one even if I could not tell what one was!
Pizza Kielce
December 12, 2011 at 7:39 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Thor, they are not.(Helping)
Basil Dockham
January 27, 2012 at 3:51 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
We’re all spiders Lou…
CT
February 11, 2012 at 9:16 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
HAHA! That’s adorable. I’m raising my daughter to think for herself. If she ultimately decides that she believes in God, I won’t love her any less. She’s 7 and she loves to ask me questions and I try to give her the most honest, intelligent answers I can, but I always say it’s up to her to learn all she can to make her own decisions. She told me that she’s an agnostic. :)
A Baby’s Thoughts About God | Friendly Atheist
November 27, 2011 at 4:57 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
[...] age. Who knows. In any case, she makes more sense than hundreds of Christian pastors combined.(via Justin Griffith) About Hemant Mehta Hemant Mehta is the chair of Foundation Beyond Belief and a high school math [...]