Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Flexible and made to last.

Meet the Other Phone.
Flexible and made to last.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
Parenting

For free parenting resources please check out the Early Years Alliance's Family Corner.

Original poster

OK atheist parents - how do you deal with The God Thing?

417 replies

Bibulus · 31/05/2012 19:16

DH and I aren't believers but we don't make a big thing out of it. We made the decision early on to be as neutral as possible in the way we talked about religion with DD, i.e. 'some people believe this, some believe that....'

She prays at school, she knows all about baby Jesus and his mother Mary, although she's probably a bit sketchy on the details of it all and has barely ever set foot in a religious building.

Anyway, this evening she asked to visit the local churchyard, so we had a little walk around, and she was asking lots of questions about the people buried there, why people brought flowers to them etc. Then she wanted to go into the church, and it was open so we poked our head in.

DD was spellbound by it - she said breathlessly, 'why is it so pretty in here mummy?' and asked a million questions about how you talk to god, what does heaven look like, who are the pretty ladies with wings on the wall.....! Then we got collared by the vicar, who was very pleasant and sweet to her and showed her round the church which enchanted her even more.

Am now regretting taking her in there a bit! I didn't want to ruin it for her so I haven't said anything to undermine the idea of god or praying or heaven. Now she is sitting next to me on the sofa practising praying. DH will do his nut!

So anyway, I'm interested to hear how other non-Christian, non-believing parents handle all this stuff?

OP posts:
CoteDAzur · 08/06/2012 16:20

"They come through you but not from you"

As I said, fuzzy gibberish (sorry) Like, my body as a conduit for DC to arrive in this world through some mystical soul transfer phenomenon ? Grin I don't think so.

DC are from me and DH to their very cells. Claiming otherwise is acute hippiness.

If you read some important mystical/quasi-religious message in this poem, that just goes to prove what I said earlier: that you religious people are fundamentally different in the way your brains work than people like me, who cannot suspend disbelief long enough to take even the overly spiritual stuff seriously, let alone fantastical yarns or organised religion.

exoticfruits · 08/06/2012 16:26

Wait until they get to about 40yrs, Cote, and you will see that they don't actually have to be anything like you. I have seen a lot of my DCs friends grow up from babyhood to their 20's and you can't predict what you get -not in the slightest!

exoticfruits · 08/06/2012 16:30

Wouldn't life be simple if we met a very compatible DP and had DCs turn out just as we expect! Therefore if we bring them up as vegetarians they would stay that way for life-the vicar's DD would be dutifully going to church every week-the parent who had tutored a DC for grammar school would have one who did A'levels and went to a top university.

Interested in this thread?

Then you might like threads about these subjects:

Families General parenting Philosophy & religion
exoticfruits · 08/06/2012 16:31

My father would be an anti monarchist, Methodist, because his father was-life isn't like that!

Hullygully · 08/06/2012 16:50

But no one thinks they do Exotic. No one is saying you can or should or would programme children.

Are they?

HouseOfCheese · 08/06/2012 17:05

Actually I think you can apply genetics to this bit:

"'They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you."

If you think of individuals as stopping points of a river of genes which have been flowing throughout evolution. That sounds hippy-ish, but actually isn't (I don't think).

HouseOfCheese · 08/06/2012 17:10

And of course what any individual thinks / feels / believes is going to be a complex and changing state of affairs, depending on their genetics and life experiences.

exoticfruits · 08/06/2012 17:10

I may be misunderstanding Cote-I just thought that she thinks that because they are from her and her DH down to 'their very cells' they can't end up with a DC with a deeply religious faith. Maybe I got it wrong.
I think that DCs are gifts that you have the privilege to nurture for a very short time-but they are not 'yours' as in possessions and they are completely free to think whatever they like.

HouseOfCheese · 08/06/2012 17:15

Without wishing to speak for Cote, I doubt that is what she meant, it is of course possible for genes to express themselves in a child which aren't expressed in their parents. The parents could be 'religious gene carriers' without being religious, I guess!

exoticfruits · 08/06/2012 17:24

I think that is the point I was making in the first place-I am getting somewhat confused! All I know is that a couple look at their baby and they have no idea, and can't predict, what they have! They may pat themselves on the back thinking their 8yr old is exactly what they wanted, but they may get a shock later on. Certainly DCs that I have known at 8yrs and no guarantee of what they are going to be like at 18yrs or 28yrs!

CoteDAzur · 08/06/2012 17:26

Exotic - You are making up arguments (which nobody here has made) and arguing against them. This is called Straw Man and is a logical fallacy.

Nobody said they want to program their children.

Nobody said they expect their children to be 100% like themselves.

Why are you arguing against them?

ZuleikaD · 08/06/2012 18:29

I'm getting a bang out of the clash between arts and sciences on this thread - maybe those who say we shouldn't make children specialise at 17 are right.

exoticfruits · 08/06/2012 19:32

I started by saying that a person's faith, or lack of faith, is unexplainable-which it is. All DCs are different-as in my friends the atheist with 2 DCs -one an atheist and one a Christian-brought up the same. Or 2 scientists-one with a faith and one without.
You can't explain why one particular person should have a faith and one doesn't-there is no rhyme, reason or logic to it.

HouseOfCheese · 08/06/2012 19:44

"You can't explain why one particular person should have a faith and one doesn't-there is no rhyme, reason or logic to it."

I suppose on the face of it that seems to be true, but you could say that about a lot of things - eg why do some people succumb to certain diseases and some don't, or why do some people develop psychoses and some don't. Just because the reasons are complex and hard to define doesn't mean it's impossible and forever outside our understanding.

exoticfruits · 08/06/2012 21:12

Exactly-you can't predict what will happen to your DC, what they will do or what they will think. You bring them up a particular way, they may follow it or they may reject it outright-you can't know which they will do or why. And they may change later in life anyway. You can guess but you don't know-they might not even know themselves.

seeker · 09/06/2012 10:31

I still find it interesting that it seems to be OK for parents to bring the children up in their faith- the more liberal ones saying that they can make their own minds up when they are older- but bringing up a child to be an atheist is frowned on.

CoteDAzur · 09/06/2012 10:35

What HouseOfCheese said: "Just because the reasons are complex and hard to define doesn't mean it's impossible and forever outside our understanding."

Not only re religious propensity, but also re universe. Just because it is complex and hard to understand, it doesn't mean that it is impossible, and it certainly doesn't mean that we should recoil from trying to understand it and hide behind some texts written by ignorant peasants 1000s of years ago.

ladymuckbeth · 09/06/2012 10:35

What a nonsense seeker - the only 'frowning' I've ever seen is towards anyone who indoctrinates their children into any way of thinking - be it atheistic or religious. I do hate such 'poor me' hand-wringing... Hmm

seeker · 09/06/2012 10:36

Eh?

CoteDAzur · 09/06/2012 10:37

exotic - I know what you started by saying. And when nobody countered that (because it was reasonable: you can't predict the child you will have) you invented strange arguments that nobody said and started arguing against them (your children won't be you 100% etc).

We understand you. Do you understand us?

exoticfruits · 09/06/2012 10:37

I can't for the life of me see why it is frowned upon-I would have thought it was the norm.

There is one sure thing-adults don't hold their beliefs because 'that is what my mother thinks'!!

exoticfruits · 09/06/2012 10:39

I had only one point Cote-you have no idea how your DC will turn out-regardless of the fact that you gave them birth.

seeker · 09/06/2012 10:41

Whenever I mount a particular hobby horse of mine and complain about the fact that you can't fully participate in the livenof q state school in the UK without being at least a nominal Christian, people always tell me that I should let my children join in the prayers because children need to make up their own minds. Nobody tells Christian parents that their children should spend a day a week being an atheist so they can mke up their own minds!

CoteDAzur · 09/06/2012 10:42

That is a truism, not a point.

It's like saying "My point is that the sun will rise from the East tomorrow".

The upside is, everyone agrees with you Smile

seeker · 09/06/2012 11:19

What does indoctrination mean? I am not, for example, going to tell my children that God might exist, because I don't think he does, and I would be lying to them if I said I thought he might. I'm pretty sure a committed Christian isn't goingbto say "well, God might not exist" because their lives are based on the fact that he does!

I do tell them that some people believe in God- but I also tell them that I think they are wrong. Is that indoctrination?