AIBU for not wanting my MIL to discuss Jesus and heaven with my 5 year old?

[Spearshake]

I was just having breakfast with my 5 year old son and he asked me, 'do only people who love Jesus go to heaven?; I asked him who told you that.
Unfortunately, my tone must have been a bit sharp (hey, first thing in the morning) so he said, 'I don't know'

(I know it's his grandma though (my MIL) because she has been staying with us for the last week and we haven't been in contact with anyone else who is likely to make such comments) Unless he has been on the evangelical channels again

The problem is that I am an atheist, so I have a tough time with such discussions. He asked me what God is the other day, and I asked him to wait until his father gets home and he can answer (he was brought up more religiously than me)

Any ideas from fellow mumsnetters of a similar religious (or non-) bent on how to deal with such ideas would be most welcome.

Thank you!

"would find it difficult to bring ourselves to accept that there is no such thing as good and bad"

That's what you think.

I never believed in the concept of good or evil. Anyone can do anything, given the right circumstances. Any one of us can kill a man, if that means saving our babies. Any one of us can prostitute herself to feed her children.

Dora I was once stopped from being a Scout Leader because as an atheist I didn't have "a faith". I believe the rules have changed now.

Ok, fair enough, CoteDAzur - I can't speak for your beliefs/opinions. But I think that there are many atheists in the world (including me) who believe that it is better not to harm others than to harm others, for example, but are also unable to provide an a priori proof for why this should be the case.

I woI'll have no issue with the MIL discussing Jesus as an idea, but since she seems to be filling his head with all the nonsense and judgemental intolerance that goes along with it then I'd be having a VERY frank discussion.

No, I'm not restricting it to that! Can't imagine what gave you that idea - I never brought up either of these things, and in fact they're exactly the opposite of what I mean, as these would potentially provide a basis for objective proof.

You're misreading my post.

Sorry, yes I did misread it. But my point stands. Most atheists believe in morality.

Cote, surely it's impractical to be completely relativist. If nothing's good and nothing's bad, everything's just maybe, then I can bring a truck around to your house and start filling it up with your belongings and you'd help me load it, presumably.

Firstly, a stern word with mil that she is under no circumstances to fill your child's head with such awful stuff. Do x or you don't get into heaven /you'll go to hell is AWFUL to say to a child!

Secondly, your child is naturally curious. You need to have a conversation about the fact that people all over the world believe very different things and they all think they are right. Perhaps buy a book of Norse myths, and explain that people are curious about where things come from so they make up stories to help them make sense of things. Some people believe that the world was created by a giant...blah blah....

Keep the conversations with your son light hearted, don't let this be something he's unwilling to ask you about.

I haven't read the whole thread (sorry) but it resonates as we're atheists too.

We did borrow the concept of Heaven for DS1 (then aged 2.9) when my mum died last year though. It was either that or:

Nanny's gone to sleep (obviously confusing and could be scary)
Nanny's passed away ('when's she coming back, Mummy?')
Nanny's gone away forever ('was she cross with us?')
Nanny's died ('what's died mean?')

Heaven is a useful concept for 'a place where people go where they die and where you can't follow them to' for little ones. It also has the benefit of being immediately understood by other people when a small child says 'Nanny's in Heaven!' in a chirpy tone.

So, I guess the message is not to mentally write off religion altogether.

Um and as for the atheist/no morality crap...

I've never understood this. Seriously?

Religious view. Don't rape/kill /steal. There's a God who watches your every move and if you do these things you'll go to hell

Atheist view. Don't rape/kill/steal. These things harm others and thus are wrong in and of themselves.

View A is how children are kept in check - don't be bad or there will be no supper. So really, you're only being good because you're afraid of punishment.
view B is how civilised adults behave- don't be bad because harm to others is bad. You're being good because you see the damage the actions could do to others and realise that these things are inherently wrong. No threat of eternal punishment is needed.

Most atheists believe in morality.

Can you clarify what you mean by 'belief in morality'?

These things harm others and thus are wrong in and of themselves.

But the point is that there is nothing objective to say that harming others is wrong. That's just a belief we hold, a feeling we have. Don't get me wrong, I believe it too. But there's no objective basis for it, any more than there's an objective basis for believing in god.

Cote, surely it's impractical to be completely relativist. If nothing's good and nothing's bad, everything's just maybe, then I can bring a truck around to your house and start filling it up with your belongings and you'd help me load it, presumably.

Perhaps you need to re-check what the 'relativist' part of 'moral relativist' refers to. Your point makes no sense.

Can you clarify what you mean by 'belief in morality'?

well, they believe that some things are right and some things are wrong. The content obviously varies. But I would say the basic characteristics of a moral system is a belief that, as skiptonlass puts it, some things are "wrong in and of themselves."

The only adults who behave that way are the ones who aren't in prison. I don't suppose religion helps that much to keep law and order. But, we have definitions of right and wrong and we choose either to abide by them or not. I guess the religious criminal is doubly unlucky because he gets damned and goes to prison.

My point is that it's impractical to believe totally that there is neither good nor bad. I think that's what I said. Maybe I should have been briefer.

The idea of an objective morality is an interesting one (best go and read my Satre I suppose.)

I think I see it as a biological imperative - like allopatric behaviour for example. Altruism exists in lots of species, and they think it's down to the fact that in a closely related group of individuals, self sacrifice can benefits the group as a whole. As you share genes with them, your heritage benefits too. So some bird species have aunts that don't breed but help raise the chicks. As they share a proportion of their genes with their nieces and nephews, they benefit indirectly.

Interesting argument though. For the purposes of existing in harmony, I guess we treat morality as though it has an objective basis, or else things get a bit hairy.

Anyone who thinks he's not here can buy his own bloody beer, etc ;)

I agree that biology or some kind of social convenience seems like the only rational/objective basis for morality. But I just can't quite get myself to believe it - I still at the end of the day feel that somethings just are good and others bad, and would be regardless of evolutionary circumstances. I'm very aware of this being an irrational belief, it's just not one I can shake. So I'm very sympathetic to religious people in arguments like this!

Dora - has it ever occurred to you that different religions have widely differing moral codes? And that even a single religion will change its moral code over time? So that mainstream Protestant Christianity in this country, for example, has changed its view of homosexuality as being sinful to being perfectly acceptable.

Another example: when the subject of the immensely cruel way the Catholic Church in Ireland treated unmarried mothers and their children in the 50s and 60s comes up, Catholic apologists will say: "But times were different then". If that isn't moral relativism, I don't know what is.

I don't know why you can't just use it as an interesting discussion.

The Bible is nonsensical where it isn't offensive, good things happen to bad people and vice versa, there is unimaginable suffering in the world and yet I need faith to think there isn't a jolly good fellow in charge of it all?

I wasn't suggesting that relativism is non existent. Cote was doubting good and bad and suggesting we might all resort to prostitution to feed our children. And so we might. However, I think relativism needs limits for the sake of human survival. If it's OK to do whatever we like there will be chaos. Is it possible to say that an absolute standard exists, by which the Saudis should stop stoning women to death? How is this to be managed.

I agree that biology or some kind of social convenience seems like the only rational/objective basis for morality. But I just can't quite get myself to believe it - I still at the end of the day feel that somethings just are good and others bad, and would be regardless of evolutionary circumstances. I'm very aware of this being an irrational belief, it's just not one I can shake. So I'm very sympathetic to religious people in arguments like this!

I don't honestly understand why you find it so hard to understand your own belief in inherent good and bad in the context of us all being constantly socialised to believe such things, given the importance of adhering to such a framework in society (not to mention that others, our parents for example, have a vested interest in having us grow up believing in inherent right and wrong!).

However, even if you do still believe in inherent right and wrong, inherent good and bad, I don't see why that requires you to sympathise that much with religious arguments about it. There is no logical connection between a belief that there exists an objective morality on the one hand and the belief that a deity might exist on the other, or indeed that such an objective morality would come from said deity.

"I don't know why you can't just use it as an interesting discussion."

It is fascinAting that it is only ever people who have no faith who are expected to do this. Nobody ever tells people who want to bring their children up as Christians "But how will they know about atheism if they don't try it out for themselves?" or "I really don't see why you have the slightest issue with your child taking part in a Satanic ritual at their aunty's house- why do you only want them to believe what you believe? What would you do if they decide they want to be Satanists?"

I think relativism needs limits for the sake of human survival. If it's OK to do whatever we like there will be chaos.

You're still not grasping the 'relativism' part. Relative morality is surely a key part of human survival. That's the whole point in an evolved sense of morality. If doing whatever we liked would result in chaos then that wouldn't be relativism would it? Because a morality that resulted in chaos would do so by being unsuited to the conditions it took place in. Hence it wouldn't be relative...