Introducing "God" to 4 yr old (atheist family)

[EssenceOfGelfling]

Not sure if I'm just being a bit PFB about this, so please someone slap me about a bit if I am!

DH and I are atheist. Our children are free to make up their own minds about what they want to believe. I believe I will have as much influence over their beliefs as my parents have over my beliefs - i.e. none!

DS starts school in september. So far he has no experience of any religion whatsoever, never been in a church, never prayed, never had a discussion about the idea of 'God'. Not deliberately, its just not a part of our lives or our extended family.

Its not a faith school, but there will be collective worship. I don't want his first experience of religion to be in an assembly where he hasn't got a clue why people are closing their eyes and making shapes with their hands and saying 'amen'. I'd like to explain what it all means, and that its his choice what he wants to believe, but not sure where to start (without getting into the philosophical complexities of it), or even if its necessary, am I overthinking this?! (Background: he struggles with new routines and transitions... I want him to settle in easily and want to prepare him as much as is sensible to do so).

Thanks in advance for any thoughts on this.

"Religious people often get accused of being narrow minded/bigoted/lacking in tolerance and understanding of others. In my experience, though, these character traits are just as likely to be found in atheists."

What is the point of being religious then if these negative traits are "just as likely " to be found in people of faith?

At least atheists don't tell others that their babies are sinful or that they will be burning in hell for not thinking as they do.

I can't work out if you're just saying all this to get a reaction and wind me up, deep.

I think you are, either way, I've nothing to add.

No I am not saying thse things to wind you up. Do you think christians tell me I am going to hell to wind me up?

Misfitless, deepbluetr's family adhere to a particularly unpleasant-sounding fundamentalist version of Christianity. She is obviously very bruised by her encounters with this nasty and bigoted Christianity, and is very angry about the way it has divided her family. I can't blame her -- they sound absolutely awful.

But what this means is that on this board she crusades against Christianity in particular and religion in general as if all Christians and people of faith were as hate-filled and fundamentalist as her family. She will not listen to people who say that the vast majority of Christians don't tell their children that Santa is Satan, or that babies are sinful, or that members of their family will burn in hell.

There is little point in trying to reason with her because she simply will not listen.

I know that what you are wanting to say is that atheists can be as narrow-minded and lacking in understanding of and respect for others as they accuse Christians of being. It's annoying to have your words thrown back at you to mean something that you didn't. Of course there are narrow-minded and bigoted Christians we have the evidence of deepbluetr's account of her own family. But there is evidence of narrow-minded and intolerant atheists too much if it on this board.

Ah..ok, thanks niminypiminy.

Deepblue I'm sorry that anything I've said has caused you upset/anger. As niminy has realised, I had no idea of the extent of your personal experiences of religion.

That certainly puts things into perspective. So sorry that you have suffered so much.

I take a slightly different tack with my dc and tell them that nobody really knows whether god exists or not. I do not believe that he exists, but some people do, and we should respect that and not say that they are silly or wrong. Ds has a very religious friend and we have talked about it quite a lot - I have told him that I made up my own mind and he should make up his, and it is ok to change his mind as he goes along.

I am a scientist and I think this approach fits quite well with the scientific principle that you can't prove a negative. So you can't prove that god doesn't exist, but I have seen no evidence to convince me that he does. Other people think they have, or choose to believe with no evidence. I have explained this to ds in a simplified manner, but he is 7, it would be a bit much for my 4yo.

It is impossible to not influence your children on something as big as this I think. So I have tried very hard to encourage ds to form his own opinion, but as he is 7, most of his opinions are based on those of his parents.

Back to the original question, both my dc went to a C of E infants which is big on religious assemblies with no previous experience of religion. I did no explaining beforehand and they both seemed to take the praying and stories etc n their stride. I really really doubt that every reception child apart from your dc will be familiar with praying etc - I could be way off the mark but I always imagined that these things were taught at he beginning of school, ie now you must be quiet and shut your eyes and think about these words I'm going to say and this is called praying.

"deepbluetr's family adhere to a particularly unpleasant-sounding fundamentalist version of Christianity. She is obviously very bruised by her encounters with this nasty and bigoted Christianity, and is very angry about the way it has divided her family. I can't blame her -- they sound absolutely awful"

How can you judge other christians like this? My sister feels that she preaches love and truth.
While I disagree with her on many levels her motivation comes from love and her desire to save her family from an ill fate.

Yo say they sound "absolutely awful"
Are you such a powerful christian that you can stand in judgement over other christians? By what authority?

Why do you assume that your "flavour" of christianity is somehow superior to other christians? You all use the same bible- are you saying you have a better interpretation than she does?

I am certainly not bruised- I don't even live in the same continent as my sister. My atheist views were established long before my sister was born again.

Misfitless, I absolutely want them to be tolerant of others which is one of the reasons I'm raising them as atheists - they have a gay uncle so why would I raise them in a religion that condemns this? My eldest is the product of IVF, something else that can be seen as a "sin".

Atheists do tolerance on the whole much better than religions.

deepbluetr I am totally confused.

When I first read your last post I thought it was somebody else putting their two penneth in, then realised it was you .

I assumed that you and min had discussed this on previous threads.

min seems to have made her own mind up that her interpretation of the bible is the right one.

For goodness sake. I'm just going on things that you have said about your family.

Does the fact that we are both Christians mean that I can't say that your sister is wrong (going only on the information you have provided about her views)? Of course not! I think I have good grounds to say that she is mistaken in her interpretation of the Bible (with the caveat that I have only your reporting of those interpretations). We could get into a serious discussion of those differences of interpretation if you want -- but I don't think you do want.

I apologise for misrepresenting your relationship with your sister -- I wrote in what I thought was good faith, remembering what you have said about her on previous threads. I obviously got the wrong end of the stick, and for that I am sorry.

It does often seem to me as if I, as a Christian can say or do nothing right, and that you will argue against me whatever I say. This makes it hard to converse, and makes it feel like you are contradicting me for the sake of it. Perhaps it's time for me to take a break.

Don't go nim I'm only just getting to know everyone's name!

I thought as much, anyway. I didn't think you'd plucked it all out of thin air, min.

I've completely hijacked the thread anyway. This was essence's post, about a DC being brought up by atheist parents, going to school and encountering religion for the first time, if I remember rightly!

Atheists do tolerance on the whole much better than religions.

What is your evidence for this Knitting?

I must admit, Dione I thought the same thing myself, but didn't want to inflame the situation anymore than I already have.

It seems that if you are an atheist, you can make sweeping statements without any evidence, about religious people, even then mock/criticize/ tell, them they wrong and then still play the well you can't prove there's a God card!

Now, I know I've just made a sweeping my statement myself, and I know that there are many atheists who are reasonable people who are respectful of other peoples' views and beliefs, but as I've already said upthread, my experience of such encounters are very few and far between.

I'm an atheist with some very religious family members (including two who are ordained). I still love them very much, I just avoid talking about 'godly' subjects if I can help it, especially with my mother how finds it very hard not to try and re-convert me (and she is not one of the vicars!) and as I really really don't want to upset her I do my very best to disengage.

We have brought up our children as non-believers, and no this is not in any way shape or form like being brought up in a faith, or at least not like being brought up by strong believers. Faith was very important in my family (actually a source of great pain at time as my parents are from different denominations which caused much unhappiness) and is very important in my sister's family. It is utterly irrelevant in mine.

Growing up I went to a Catholic school, and to church every week. Advent and Lent were full of Christian traditions and Easter involved way more church than chocolate. I'd have said we were a fairly typical Christian/ Catholic family, nothing very extreme.

In contrast for my children the extent of our atheism that has affected them is a few conversations and some irreverent remarks every now and then. Probably more similar to the way that politics was discussed when I was growing up.

I don't know about relative tolerance levels but I've never yet met an atheist that tried to convert me, whereas I have had conversations with many Christians who have tried to persuade me that really really deep down I must believe. They were mostly terribly nice about it, apart from the born again ones who were a bit scary - ironic as I was actually still a believer at the time, just not in their brand.

Anyway to return to the OP's question. Yes I think you can talk to small children about other people and their religious beliefs, and some will take it in and some won't. ds was happy to take the whole school religion thing with a pinch of salt (he was always a big 'why' child) I suspect he didn't actually listen to most of the assemblies (community school with a strong relationship with a local vicar, so way more Christianity than we expected). dd on the other hand believed everything that she was told at school and got very cross with us when we said that we didn't believe in God, or Jesus, or Father Christmas/Santa for that matter. She went ahead with her own views regardless, and for three or four years told everyone that she was a Christian. Which was very annoying really, but there we are.

Much of the intolerance of religion is enshrined in its own code of conduct

No divorce
No contraception
No abortion
No sex outside marriage
No women priests
Ignorance is a good thing
Homosexuality is a sin
Celebrating christmas ( punishable by law in Scotland for 400 years)

Many of these concepts are also enshrined by the laws of some countries.

Well, I've got quite a lot of experience of atheists who just want me to see that my faith is stupid and unreasonable and incompatible with science. So maybe the scores are about even?

I think the OP's question confronts us with some of the contradictions that lie at the heart of being a parent. We want our children to be like us/we want them to be their own people; we want our children to share our values/we want them to think for themselves; we want them to be better versions of ourselves/we want them to be who they will be. Those things aren't easy to resolve maybe they are impossible to resolve. It's painful for religious parents when their children reject their faith it's also hard (as in my own family) when children reject their parents' atheism and find faith.

So much of making what happens then alright is being able both to love the child in spite of their difference, and to love the difference. That is the hard bit, because we might have to love something that we profoundly disagree with and that really unsettles us.

Only if you feel the need to control your adult children. I don't want my children to be a Better verion of me" - what a strange thing to say.
I want them to be themselves- they are not my property.

"It's painful for religious parents when their children reject their faith "
"that really unsettles us."

Perhaps for a religious parent it may be "painful"- I accept that my intellectual views and constructs are not going to be the same as my childrens'. Their political and world views, sexual orientation may be very different from mine, it certainly won't cause me pain.

Not would it if they became religious, because in rejecting my atheist views they are simply dismissing an intellectual point of view, not my emotional one. I would disagree with their view, but I wouldn't cause me any angst as I don't have an emotional investment in being an atheist.

I suspect that a child rejecting the religion that their parents have tried to impose upon them may be quite painful for parents.

Faith binds people emotionally in a way that non-believers have no investment in, so it wouldn't be "painful" at all to have my "atheism rejected" ( although I take issue with that idea - it's akin to having my "meat eating ways" rejected by my vegetarian child)

But crescent faith is not like having a political stance or being a vegetarian- that's the point I am making. Nimin is suggesting that we are all very upset as parents if our children choose different paths. Most sociaist parents I know don't find it "painful" if their child decides to vote Tory.

I suugest that is really only true of religious parents whose children reject their faith. faith goes so much deeper than deciding which political party to vote for- or don't you agree?

Atheist thinking is not a position of faith, it is an intellectual stance, not an emotional one.

Have never explained anything to dd1 and we are atheists but at her preschool they sit in on main assemblies and do the lords prayer. She thinks its awesome and likes to repeat it.

Not sure he needs a warning for a prayer each am. He might find it odd on the first day but after that just becomes something that happens at school I'd say?

I think if my adult child turned to religion I would be very curious and want to 'debate' it with them quite a bit. I don't think it would upset me though.

niminypinimy yes of I would be sad/concerned if my children converted to any faith because that could be a barrier between us. I've certainly experienced that with a few friends, as it's very clear that their new 'relationship with Jesus' is now the most important thing in their lives and this of course can change the way they live and think quite a lot. Which is difficult if you loved the way they thought and behaved before but find the new person very different. I think this a convert thing primarily though (in that in my experience the people with the most radical faith are mostly converts) and with that in mind perhaps I should have brought my children with a less dominant faith in order to inoculate them as it were.

I do agree with deep though that as my atheist views are not central to my life it really isn't the same as how my mother probably feels about me rejecting her faith. If you believe that faith is incredibly important and that your relationship with god is central to living a good life and life ever after then I would have thought it was pretty devastating to not share that with your nearest and dearest. Whereas for me my family's religious views are just a bit bewildering and occasionally irritating. We love each other anyway and our fundamental relationships haven't changed so not the same as the lost friendship above. Plus my mother lives in hope of course.

However that is about adult choices, and has very little to do with children not being exposed to worship/religious indoctrination at primary school.

As for scores I guess that's just personal experiences, difficult to compare really. Although again possibly irritation vs hurt.