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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

children can make their own mind up about religion when they grow up...

814 replies

AliGrylls · 07/04/2011 12:05

Okay I have just read this on another thread but this is a statement I hear quite a lot and want to ask the question.

If all you teach your child is atheism how will they make their mind up about religion when they grow up because they have no religion other than atheism?

They will know nothing other than what you have taught them so they have nothing to make their mind up about - they will be atheist, by default. If people genuinely want their children to make their own mind up they have to provide them with a reasonable alternative (ie, Judaism / Christianity / Islam).

I don't actually know any adults who have been brought up atheist who have thought all of a sudden "I believe in God, I am going to go to Church".

OP posts:
exoticfruits · 07/04/2011 22:31

You will have done your job if they weigh the evidence without being influenced by your interpretation of the evidence.

UnquietDad · 07/04/2011 22:31

reallytired - that's true. I found the Christian Union really quite predatory. They provide vulnerable students with a set of ready-made friends and exert a very subtle level of control to make sure they stay in the "group".

UnquietDad · 07/04/2011 22:32

exoticfruits - you've missed my point several times, but no matter. Others will have got it.

ivykaty44 · 07/04/2011 22:33

well why not teach them to weigh up the evidence and only that - if you are good at it there will be no need to tell them anymore than that

EvenLessNarkyPuffin · 07/04/2011 22:35

Eugh, the CU bloke at my halls actually wore Jesus sandals. Seriously.

exoticfruits · 07/04/2011 22:35

I haven't missed your point. You are an atheist-you have said why and you think that it must be evident to all-including your DCs. People interpret the evidence in different ways and they don't all draw the same conclusions. Your DC may become a vicar-probably not, but it is a possibility.

Roseflower · 07/04/2011 22:36

exoticfruits is correct

EvenLessNarkyPuffin · 07/04/2011 22:37

Exactly Exoticfruits. There are children of athiests who become religious as adults. Therefore this thread is a bit pointless.

TondelayoSchwarzkopf · 07/04/2011 22:40

@exoticfruits
"Just lead, quietly by example."

I'm afraid you're only proving your own reverse psychology theory there because that 'advice' provoked in me an uncontrollable desire to be as loud as possible.

Any evidence that children reject their parents beliefs more often than they don't?

exoticfruits · 07/04/2011 22:44

The thread started off quite optimistically with people allowing their DCs free choice and respecting it.
People do not blindly follow their parents. We have already had, further back, a Christian whose mother was strongly atheist as a reaction against her Catholic mother and we have had several people who have a religious faith where their parents had none. I have put in links with the number of people (avererage 27ys, female and white) who convert to Islam. I know a vicar who had to take himself to church because his parents wouldn't.
Parents are an influence-nothing more-one person's sound, sensible evidence isn't the same to another person.

ivykaty44 · 07/04/2011 22:45

I just wish I could be a lot better at hiding my feelings over dd1's boyfriend - I try so hard to hide that I think he is a twat Blush and I hate the fact he is a dope smoking drop out whilst she works her butt off - I try and mostly 99% of the time keep my awful thoughts to myself - yet I think the same about religion and she hasn't got a clue....

exoticfruits · 07/04/2011 22:50

You have the same reaction as me Toldelayo. I am not a royalist and yet there is another thread where people are so anti it makes me defend them. I do the opposite.

My father had a strongly methodist upbringing-(very strong) he was an atheist, I found him rather like UnQuietDad as a DC and I am a Christian.My DCs are atheists. We all get on really well-I loved my grandparents, father and DCs-it doesn't change the relationship and I fail to see why it matters. You bring a DC into the world that is all-they are not a possession.

TondelayoSchwarzkopf · 07/04/2011 22:54

Parents have a lot of work fighting 2,000 years of social, cultural, political and military promotion of religion.

I don't see how it's 'free choice' when we live in a 'Christian' country, where Bishops are in the House of Lords, the Head of State is also the head of the church, where religious education and acts of worship are compulsory in non-faith schools, where judges give lighter sentences to people of faith, where religious groups and bodies exert huge pressure on government decisions and attract large amounts of public subsidy.

If it was a free choice wouldn't Saudi be full of Pagans and Seventh Day Adventists?

ilovemyhens · 07/04/2011 22:54

I find it quite sad that some people here are saying that they'd be really upset if their dcs grew up to be religious Sad

It can be a force for good you know. We're not all Bible thumping, fanatical lunatics who lack any level of intelligence or judgement Hmm

exoticfruits · 07/04/2011 22:57

It is obviously a free choice when we are in a Christian country and very few people are in church on a Sunday morning! We are lucky that we do have a free choice-I wouldn't care to live in Saudi.

exoticfruits · 07/04/2011 22:59

I don't know why people have expectations of their DCs in the first place-faith or lack of it is a private matter-not one to be decided by parents.

Roseflower · 07/04/2011 22:59

If people find the UK so oppressive and extemist then go out, see the world and come back and tell me what you think then.

TondelayoSchwarzkopf · 07/04/2011 23:03

What people find the UK oppressive and extremist? Sorry missed that bit...

ilovemyhens · 07/04/2011 23:03

I find all the atheists oppressive and extremist Grin

ivykaty44 · 07/04/2011 23:04

I did go and see the world and then I did it again and what bits do you want me to tell you about?

Roseflower · 07/04/2011 23:05

You think you have to 'fight' a Christian country. Says it all

TondelayoSchwarzkopf · 07/04/2011 23:07

Who thinks they have to fight a Christian Country? Confused

exoticfruits · 07/04/2011 23:07

We are very lucky that we don't have to fight it-people are free to think what they like.

Roseflower · 07/04/2011 23:07

So then ivykaty you will of course see how relgion is fairly lax in the UK.

Roseflower · 07/04/2011 23:08

Parents have a lot of work fighting 2,000 years of social, cultural, political and military promotion of religion.