I was raised in a house with a large property far from any city, where the night sky alone provides you with all you need in order to begin dealing with the fact that the universe is….. really freaking complicated. I would play outside on a regular basis, digging in the ground, taking apart plant life, searching for new creatures in my pond, and almost every time I’d learn something new. When I was first really introduced to religion by one of my best friends I was about 9. I went home and told my parents about this idea that my friend’s family had about this guy who hangs around behind the scenes and takes care of all the stuff we can’t understand. They as usual kept their own beliefs out of my way and encouraged me to explore this new concept and build my own opinion. When I approached my friend about it he said that I could attend church with him and his family one day. When I asked what church is all about he told me, you get up early Sunday morning, go to a building with a bunch of other people and listen to a man talk about a book for an hour or two. I declined without a moments hesitation, Sunday was one of my only two days off from school where I could play at home where I felt comfortable. I was fine with not knowing the supposed secrets of the universe, as long as I could explore it on my own.
My interest in religion disappeared for years, I never felt that it effected me. I saw it maybe as a fine and easy to understand placeholder for reality through the ages until science came along. My aforementioned friend and I were perfectly fine without speaking about religion, going on around 17 years now and he’s never once pushed anything on me. Him being my only window to religion for many years I thought that was the case for all of the religious community, they had a belief as a family, it made them feel good, but they didn’t literally believe every word and didn’t try to change my life with it.
It wasn’t until later on that I started to get a bigger picture, that there’s plenty of people who do take everything in their bible literally and without evidence, something I cannot even imagine doing. In my opinion if you want to get a deep feeling from a book, pick up a science text, read about the solar system, evolution, quantum mechanics, it all seems like fiction or even magic, the deep feeling comes when you realize that it has real evidence in it’s favor. If I read something new it almost takes me back to when I was a kid and I’d find something I’d never seen before on my property. When I hear of those from the religious community, for instance teaching children to ask dead end questions like “were you there?” when in the presence of a moon rock and told it’s age, I almost get personally offended. Asking creative questions is how we move forward, if everything is already explained as magic, we stall. I became an atheist from a previously apathetic standpoint because of miseducation, a reason quite benign in comparison to the atrocities I now realize are carried out in the names of gods all over the world on a daily basis. I am an atheist because I fear for our future and refuse to be associated with those who would see those fears come to realization, whether unconsciously, or with the best of intentions.
Will
Canada
Great entry, Will. This!
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Although, I don’t believe they do want this. At least not the Christian Right. If they truly wanted things to go bad, to bring about the end times, they would not be fighting against the things they fear. If they were serious about what they believed, you’d think that one year they’d just let everything go to hell. Abortions, gay marriage, elect an openly atheist leader. But they don’t. They fear the end the same as we, if not more because they believe in hell and are not entirely sure they’re going to avoid it.
This is one thing I don’t understand about many non-religious parents–the idea that children should be free to “come to their own opinion” when it comes to matters of faith. Now, they might consider that better than being indoctrinated to a faith, and that’s true, but it also seems to be a failure of parenting to offer no guidance whatsoever. Religion suckers in people every day, just like credit card scams or snake oil salesmen. Religion preys on people with poor critical thinking skills. Why not teach our children all the good reasons to believe religion is false and gods do not exist? We wouldn’t let our children teach themselves physics or chemistry. We don’t say “I don’t push math on my children, I just let them figure it out for themselves.” So why the hands-off approach when it comes to religion? The religious themselves have no qualms about inculcating their faith into into their children. We should equally ensure that our children go into the world with the knowledge and insight necessary to resist the ubiquitous religious proselytizing prevalent in our society.
As Jim Jeffries says, among other marvelously provoking things:
Good point by the way, about Christians not really wanting to see the end of times.
Terrific entry, Will.
The important part, I think, is to teach them the critical thinking skills, and let them take it from there. But maybe a family living in an environment saturated with fundamentalism would need to be more proactive(?)
Not picking a fight, but why is it “important” to let children take it from there? We don’t say “it’s important to teach children the scientific method and let them deduce Newton’s laws of motion on their own.” When it comes to matters of faith, why is there this reticence among many atheists to pass on actual conclusions?
When my younger son, the social one, all of whose friends were Christians, came home at the age of 14 and told me that he had been saved, I Wasn’t the least bit surprised. I said, okay, fine (note: this is roughly what my mother said when I told her I was an atheist at the age of 16) . He said he knew I didn’t believe in God and I said, no, but that he was welcome to believe what he liked. I told him I would take him to church any time he liked. I even gave him a crucifix for Christmas that year.
Within 3 months he told me, “Those people are crazy.” He’s been an atheist ever since. He is not especially vehement about it but he is “out”. He still has many friends who are religious and they sometimes discuss it.
I was not concerned. I let him figure it out for himself because I knew his innate sense of fairness and believed the critical thinking skills I had taught him would see him through.
On the other hand, my sister, also an atheist, lived in a small town in western Tennessee. Both of her boys became Christian and both still are. The major difference, I believe, is that her kids grew up in a town saturated with fundamentalism, whereas mine grew up in a large city surrounded by many different types of religion, including a large dose of Catholicism and a fair amount of liberal Christians as well as the more fundamental types.
I think that, certainly by the time a kid is in his teens, you can tell them what you think, but you have to face the fact that they will make up their own minds.
@kosk11348
That stance has always confused me too. My mom kept the fact that she was an atheist from me until I came out to her as an atheist. It was like well thanks for nothing, I could have used that support, and being lied to sucks.
If you’re going to let your kids be exposed to other people’s faiths, I think it’s only fair to also let them know what you as their parents believe and why you don’t believe those other faiths.
For the ‘were you there?’ idiots, has anyone had the experience of just telling these credulous bumpkins they weren’t there either? Their explanation for these amazing natural events amounts to a few lines in a single book written thousands of years ago by people who were afraid of their own shadows. Our evidence fills entire libraries in towns and universities around the entire planet and is still growing daily and will never stop. This evidence should fill a person with a sense of amazement and even more curiosity.
I genuinely pity the delusional people who, when presented with the awe-inspiring vastness and beauty of the cosmos, will say it was created by the devil to deceive humanity. Or the workings of plate tectonics, the incredible amount of time that life has existed on the planet, the human genome or any and every type of discovery that science makes. What a poor existence that mind must be trapped in. No appreciation for the amazing spectacle, or curiosity to explore it further just for the experience of being even more amazed.
There will never be another chance for these people to enjoy this incredible beauty, and they confine themselves in a shell of fear and hatred of it for their entire lifetimes and not get to revel in any of it.
Thanks guys.
@kosk11348
I get what you’re saying regarding offering guidance to one’s kids, but simply telling them to ignore religion is almost as bad as telling them to ignore evolution in my opinion, ignoring religion won’t make it go away anytime soon. It was a lesson in objectivity, and because I was able to explore it in a safe environment without any coersion in any direction, I clearly chose one of reason because it was, well, reasonable. Religion was never a big deal in my household, maybe I was just a lucky one, but that’s how things came about for me and I wouldn’t change a thing.