how do atheists justify having children?

[jobhunter7]

Sorry if the question sounds banal... but it seems easier to rationalise having children if you think your children do the right thing mostly in life they'll end up beyond the pearly gates...

The beauty of not believing in a god is that you don't need to justify what you do to any higher power I guess.

easier to rationalise having children if you think your children do the right thing mostly in life they'll end up beyond the pearly gates...

Religious people don't have a monopoly on doing the right thing. I expect my children to have morals and act with empathy & kindness. They & I don't need a carrot of a better life after death if only we behave well to actually behave well in the life I am currently living.

People have children for all sorts of reasons. THE END.

Nope, not having the pressure of conforming to religious rules that you don’t personally believe in is far worse. You don’t need the promise of heaven to have a happy life. As a child the thought of living forever was actually quite terrifying, once I stopped believing it was a huge relief.

Atheists are able to enjoy life without worrying about eternal damnation. It's liberating - you should try it. 😁

I figured that my amazing-ness was TOO great not to share it with the world so I tried to replicate it by procreating...twice 💪🙌🏼

Sadly, all people are “condemned” to die - it really doesn’t matter If you’re a Christian, Jew, Muslim, Buddhist, atheist. It’s a fact.

Humans seek sense in their existence in different things, so if for you it’s the thought of entering “pearly gates” after you die and its something you & your kids look forward to them so be it

You should accept though that for some people that’s not the case and they don’t worry about being left outside of “heaven” as they simply don’t believe there is one.

As someone who was a practising Christian when I had children, I can honestly say that them going to heaven never factored into my decision to have them.

As someone who is more a Christian in theory than practice these days, I think life is precious even if it is just what we get here and now. I'm sure my children don't regret their existence just because this is all they are going to get.

I certainly don't think anyone should have their eye on the prize of an afterlife and ignore how wonderful this life is. What a sad way to live.

This must be from the "can't see beyond my blinkers" school of religion, where they assume that all atheists eat babies, I presume.

If you are saying that Christians have babies because they are mentioned in the bible conveniently ignoring all those parts where they happily murder children then you are projecting your world view (which you've been told, maybe try thinking for yourself before you die?), on to others. Maybe ask why Buddhists have children?

Or, maybe, just try thinking for once...

Do you think life isn't worth living if there's no afterlife? That's depressing.

As a devout Christian now turned athiest, my own experience is that accepting that this life is all we have makes it very much more worth living. I am much more conscious of the value of these few years that we have. And the considerable amounts of time freed up by not engaging in activities intended to build up credit in the hereafter can be devoted to the real people I live in the here and now.

@MNHQ, why on earth was my post deleted? I have just re-read the talk guidelines and do not see how my post broke any of them!!

I am sure some feel like that but don't think it's the norm. My MIL is an orthodox Jew who had 4 kids. No one asked her to. She is flabbergasted you can even plan your own family. You get married and you have kids; to be fair that's how we used to live but I guess some religious people still do that though I know some do still use contraception (but still have the big families)... It's seen as sad if you don't have kids!

What do people make of antinatalists' (like David Benatar) beliefs?

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Better_Never_to_Have_Been

He sounds like a miserable glass-half-empty type. If he chooses not to have kids himself I wouldn't try to persuade him otherwise.

It's a reasoned argument not a belief. But I'm not sure he's even convinced of his own argument given that the logical conclusion of it is to immediately kill yourself to be returned to a state of non existence where pain is not possible.

What does the OP think of To be, or not to be?

The Hamlet soliloquay?

Yeah, that ridiculous grid put me in mind of it.

Better for who, though?
If you're never born, you aren't able to experience the comparatively better state of not being born as there's no "you".

I suppose your non-existence could be better for other people if you, purposely or inadvertently, cause them a lot of suffering while existing?

Maybe I'm unusual but I'm quite happy, my kids seem happy, even without the anticipation of pearly gates.

Eh ?

I'm not entirely convinced either by his assertion that a lack of pleasure (due to there being no one existing to experience the pleasure) is "not bad", while there being no one alive to experience pain is "good". We generally think of an absence of pain as good, surely, because the implication is that there is a person in existence not experiencing it and therefore in comparative comfort. We think of pain experientially.

Basically, why do Christians think they're so speshull that they get to decide that it's only them that get to have children because they idiotically believe in some eternal cloud world...

I’ve literally never heard this apart from from the op.