How would "freethinkers" deal with children who turn religious?

S.A.M.

S.A.M.

uniquely dreadful
Valued Senior Member
All parents must confront the prospect that if we raise our children to be free, self-confident individuals, they may make choices that we don't like. Tough. The companion volume to Parenting Beyond Belief bears the title Raising Freethinkers. Sounds appealing - I'd like to raise freethinkers. But what if raising my kids to be truly free in their thinking results in their becoming religious? What if my efforts to instill scepticism in them lead them to become sceptical of my humanism? So be it.

"Teaching" your children (about) humanism can be a fool's errand, plagued by some the same pitfalls involved in raising children "in" a particular faith tradition. Richard Dawkins has provocatively argued that indoctrinating children with religion is a form of child abuse. But couldn't secularism, as Jeremy Stangroom recently wondered, constitute its own form of indoctrination? Might the attempt to impart one worldview or another to one's children - whether religious or secular - itself be ill-conceived?

http://newhumanist.org.uk/2087
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Any thoughts?
 
I'd think that most parents want their kids to become like themselves in many ways. They teach their kids what they believe in most cases and then hope for the best. The kids either accept or reject what their parents believe and if the parents are loving, understanding and accepting then they will still love their kids no matter what they decide. It is parents that cannot accept their rejection of their values and beliefs that are the ones who lose their respect for their own kids and therefore lose their love as well.
 
If I had a child I would raise them according to the beliefs that have come to be instilled in me. Preaching? No. Indoctrination? No. Not even an education regarding where those beliefs came from unless they ask specific questions. Of course I would want to share my life and myself with them honestly, but not to burden them.

I honestly believe that it is every individuals right and responsibility, according to their own experience to believe, and I believe in freedom.
 
cosmictraveler said:
I'd think that most parents want their kids to become like themselves in many ways. They teach their kids what they believe in most cases and then hope for the best. The kids either accept or reject what their parents believe and if the parents are loving, understanding and accepting then they will still love their kids no matter what they decide. It is parents that cannot accept their rejection of their values and beliefs that are the ones who lose their respect for their own kids and therefore lose their love as well.
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I honestly do not think it is important what people think about religions as long as they are fair, just, non racist, law abiding persons and see life and issues as they are rather than living in streams of wrong hopes and dreams . We ought to be realistic and fair in all aspects of life . Thanks .
 
mike47 said:
I honestly do not think it is important what people think about religions as long as they are fair, just, non racist, law abiding persons and see life and issues as they are rather than living in streams of wrong hopes and dreams . We ought to be realistic and fair in all aspects of life . Thanks .
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A tangential quibble but at many points in history being law abiding was racist. Perhaps there are laws now that to follow would be immoral.
 
All parents must confront the prospect that if we raise our children to be free, self-confident individuals, they may make choices that we don't like.
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welcome to America! That is the root of the 'invisible hand' and why the west and the preferred religion fits

The companion volume to Parenting Beyond Belief bears the title Raising Freethinkers. Sounds appealing - I'd like to raise freethinkers. But what if raising my kids to be truly free in their thinking results in their becoming religious?
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If no one fibbed to the kid, then fibs would not be OK

What if my efforts to instill scepticism in them lead them to become sceptical of my humanism? So be it.
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scepticism will impose responsibility if responsibility to actions are taught

that is humanism in itself; teaching the next generation the rules of compassion (no need of religion to do that)

"Teaching" your children (about) humanism can be a fool's errand, plagued by some the same pitfalls involved in raising children "in" a particular faith tradition. Richard Dawkins has provocatively argued that indoctrinating children with religion is a form of child abuse.
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best comment the man ever made

But couldn't secularism, as Jeremy Stangroom recently wondered, constitute its own form of indoctrination?
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not if the root of observing the religious material was coupled with it being HISTORICAL RENDITIONS (rather than a 'word of god')

Might the attempt to impart one worldview or another to one's children - whether religious or secular - itself be ill-conceived?
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nothing is ill concieved if what is taught is true.

eg.... you need oxygen to breath more than a religion to believe!


keep it simple stupid: KISS
 
To the thread title: I don't think that a non-religious parent would care as long as it did not affect the child's grades. An honor student is an honor student is an honor student. Atheists generally put more emphasis on education and talent than they do on anything else.
 
Alien Cockroach said:
To the thread title: I don't think that a non-religious parent would care as long as it did not affect the child's grades. An honor student is an honor student is an honor student. Atheists generally put more emphasis on education and talent than they do on anything else.
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I don't like to think of it in this way; rather, religious people don't put a good emphasis on education and talent. Atheists don't do anything, because "atheist" only means non-believer. You could be an atheist hillbilly or atheist genius.
 
Every freethinker would LOVE if his/her kid were a Mormon (well, I guess Muslim too), ASSUMING the kid really believes in it and keeps the practice.

I mean who could object to a teenager, who doesn't drink, do drugs and doesn't have sex??? :)
 
Most teenagers don't do drugs already. A large percentage of them don't drink either, and probably contain most of the ones who don't have sex until college or even later.

Such things are not uncommon.
 
My children would of course be free to think as they wish. If they chose to talk about it, they would certainly get a lively debate from me!
 
WillNever said:
Most teenagers don't do drugs already.
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doooooooooo drugs?

i agree

have, will or gonna; try, become addicted or be exposed too?

please, check the figures again?

sex? if they have a TV, or even half way oriented to modern society and the marketing coupled with associating with same age in the western environment.............be certain the 'words' and concepts are being worked over.

parents are having a tough time even allowing 'their' kids to have open email accounts with spammers sending every kind of enlarging, social, friends, big booped vacation you can imagine

i think the cartoons playing at 5-10pm each night have characters drinking beer, eating TV dinners and wondering if the children are theirs.

A large percentage of them don't drink either, and probably contain most of the ones who don't have sex until college or even later.
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drinking is nastier than the sex-drugs issues

the legal junk kills more than the other 2 combined

but i agree, drinking is not a real issue with kids before the age of social development
 
mike47 said:
I think the reference was made to religions and not rabbits.....!. Lool .
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yea but rabbits do lots for that thing called 'life' (the progression)

they make lot's of babies and

they convert lots of grass to food (better than cows do)

they rock for a cool critter to teach a kid some lessons on

they key is, they need to know 'how it applies'

eg.. if the kid knows that they are actually YOUR life into the next generation and that the more babies they make, the more you and all your parents have a chance to live longer; heck just by teaching them that, you 'honor your mother and father'

sorry,

i was having a moment;

perhaps i should wipe this time, enmos?
 
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