Atheists: Would you prefer children are never told about religion?

Question

Would you perfer that children be taken away from their parents or have the parents never tell their children about religion untill they are able to make a decision for themselves?

Would a policy like make the god vs. no-god debate fair and equal?

Or would stiffling and muzzling people from talking about the possibility of a creator and a God actually be an implied support for atheism and thus indoctrinating children to be atheists?

Answer 1

Someone once told me and it stuck with me. I never understood the implications until I heard my 5 year pray from his heart. This person said "The best thing I can do for my child is to go to church." I must say, five years later, he was so right. I wish I could go up to him and give him a big hug. I know it was God speaking through him. I know it was what i needed to hear. Since then my son was born, I met and married my christian husband and we had a baby together. I love Jesus with all my heart. All my love can never fully show the gratitude I feel for the peace and love and laughter I have everyday. I will share that with my children. If they do not accept that, that is fine. But they need guidance. All children need their parents and their love. I wish there wasn't so much hate in this world, but I don't think it's completely because of religion, I think it's more from a lack of proper guidance. Even religious groups misinterpret their own doctrines. We are all human, we are all mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, we all have or need a sense of belonging. Lets treat others as we would like to be treated. It saddens me to think there are people out there that think I should not teach my children where my love and peace comes from. I know what inspired you to write this question. I saw the other guys question. It saddened me to tears. I was actually crying. I hope this free world never comes to that. God bless you.

Answer 2

No, I am not a Stalinist and don't have any wishes to persecute religion and it is really a terrible thought that someone would take children away from their parents just because of their religion. It is also not realistic that parents should not tell their kids about their religion because everyone tells their kids what they believe, this is very natural. However I don't think parents have a right to push religion on their kids, like compelling them to go to church if they don't want to. And the kids must be able to make their decision when they are old enough, I mean if they turn away from religion then parents have to accept that. And same way atheist parents have to accept it if their children start to believe in some religion when they get older.

Answer 3

You cannot allow the government to start enforcing beliefs. However, I think loving parents should introduce their children to a wide range of beliefs from the very beginning so that the child never has a reason to develop the "i am right and you are wrong" idea.

It'd be way awesome if a bunch of worship communities in an area set up an 'exchange' program where families could enroll and have special teaching about each of the various communities then attend a service or two with the other religions, then return the favor by teaching others about their own religion.

Answer 4

The problem is not that simple.

To clarify my point of view, I grew up as a Christian and have since changed my ways.

Anyway, I feel that children should be aware of what is out there. However, rarely will you see parents that will teach their children about other religions. This may be simply because they aren't familiar with other options, but from my experience it is usually because they think their religion is right and everyone else is wrong.

The case with me was the fact that I didn't know I could believe something else until I was in College. I grew up thinking that either you were a Christian or you were going to Hell. This is not what children should be presented with. If they feel that Christianity is the path for them, by all means encourage them, but if they feel that Atheism, or Hinduism, or any other religion is the path for them, be supportive of that too.

Most people are to blinded by the "norm" or close-minded to new things that they miss out on many amazing things in this world.

Answer 5

Of course not - children need to learn about everything - even mythologies such as your religion.

The difference is in your definition of "never told" - certainly, teaching them about the differing beleifs and ideaologies is fine. However, indoctrinating them into the beleif systems and informing them that this is the only TRUE religion is where the "teaching" should stop... It is important to understand that the human mind evolved with a certain ability to beleive WHATEVER It is told by an elder, regardless of its usefulness. This assisted in the survival of man - the child that listened to the elder that warmed not to go too close to the lions tended to survive, while the child that didnt listen got eaten. When the elders said that the child also need to worship the Sun God to keep crops growing, the child beleived that as well....

So, if we keep telling children that religion is REAL and the TRUTH, they will continue to beleive it. We need to teach children the truth - trhat all religions are mythologies, and nothing more. they were useful at one point in our civilization. They are no longer needed.

Answer 6

I'm actually not an Atheist, but I don't believe in traditional religion. I don't think that ANY religious expression should be banned. That's against free speech as well as the STUDENT'S right to hear all sides of an unresolved question.

I do think it's unfair that: 1) Nontraditional beliefs can't be presented in a positive light. 2) Fundamentalist scream persecution every time they don't get their way. 3) MOST OF ALL that non-Christians can be villainized and demonized and the perpetrators are praised for it.

It saddens me that preachers can present venomous messages of hate and people don't seem to notice. He's called a "wonderful Christian." WHERE IS THE LOVE THAT JESUS TAUGHT????

Answer 7

I am not an atheist, I am a Buddhist, but I would still not want my children to learn about any religions until they were past the age of sixteen. Then I would expose them to the different beliefs in an unbiased manner and let them make an educated decision. I would not brainwashing them into believing what I do, it defeats the entire purpose of my religion...

Answer 8

I can see you don't understand atheists and probably don't care to, either.

Just because we don't agree with indoctrinating children into a religion doesn't mean we're in favor of dictatoral tactics like taking them from their parents or forbidding a parent to tell their child about religion as they see fit. There's a very simple solution to this particular issue, but a lot of believers refuse to see and accept it as an option.

First off, no matter what I or any other atheist says, we are NOT the parents of your children, therefore, we can state our opinions all we want, but YOU are ultimately the one who decides what you do with your child, whether you indoctrinate or not. Therefore, nobody's forcing anybody to do anything.

Secondly, we would prefer that children are not INDOCTRINATED into a religion, as in baptized(or whatever a religion has as an initiation ceremony) and told that's the only way to believe and to believe otherwise is to go to Hell, that the religion they're being taught is the truth and that all others are false. THAT is what most atheists I've seen are against doing.

However, in case you missed it in my first paragraph, even though we don't care for indoctrination, we are NOT parents of any child but our own and therefore can do nothing more but disagree. We can NOT force another parent to take their kids out of Sunday School. That's just ludicrous to think that we can or even WANT to do that.

We are, however, usually NOT against teaching children ABOUT religion. As in teaching a child about all kinds of religions that exist in the world(go ahead and say what you will about your religion being the "only" one, step outside sometime and you'll see that there's hundreds more than just yours out there), where they're practiced, what they believe, their history and origins. We're perfectly fine with that.

We're not ok with telling kids that one religion or another is the "only" religion and that all others should be abolished. That's what we disagree with, but again, we can only teach our own children, not yours.

Frankly, I wouldn't be surprised to see you get a number of thumbs down and reports for this question considering how insulting you are to say that all we want is to "brainwash" children against religion. Show me an atheist who wants nothing more than to "muzzle" people from talking about religion and enforcing their atheism and I'll show you a mad dictator whose intolerance of religion will lead them to a very short rule.

So how about next time, you try looking at some answers from some REAL atheists, instead of feeding into the usual religious stereotypes about how we supposedly want to abolish and destroy religion. Might find that we don't want to be forced to believe in something we don't believe in, than you don't want to be forced to disbelieve in something you deeply believe in.

Answer 9

As an agnostic (meaning I'm open to the idea of a God) and recovered Christian, I say yes, religion should require an "age of consent," like property ownership, voting and sex. Wouldn't you much rather tally up the number of free-thinking, educated adults on your side, rather than impressionable, dependent little children?

Speaking of which, my daughter's school is about to get called out for teaching the Bible stories as "history." I'm looking into it right now.

Answer 10

Indoctrinating children to be Atheist is almost an oxymoron. Most Atheists I know, including myself, see the importance of choice and tolerance.

Children should see the entire spectrum instead of one end and be allowed to choose what is right for them.