Children and religion

According to Pew, less than 6 percent of the U.S. population self-identifies as atheist.
But according to Gallup, only 40 percent, and declining, believe in creationism.

I think your kids will figure it out, just like you did and most other people.

 

I grew up around the church. I mean that in an extreme sense. I was at our church at least twice a week until I was old enough to stay home alone because my mother took me to weekly Bible study and other functions. My parents were devout in their beliefs, but those beliefs were very liberal. It's a unique situation, to be sure; I had aggressively open-minded Christian parents. But they did have one rule: When I lived with them, I had to go to church. That continued all the way through college; when I was home, I went to church on Sundays.

I'm an exceedingly cynical person, though, and I rejected the teachings at a rather young age. They never made sense, and I didn't feel the need to cling to faith for anything. I've always demanded explanations; Christianity's are weak.

Here's what going to church helped me with, though: ethical values and a sense of community. I'm not exactly a shining example of either of those things, but going to church instilled them before my cynicism completely defined my way of thinking. Going to church is a good way to make a little kid realize that all old people are not the same, which is how several children I know think. It's a good way to make a child think twice about how they are treating others.

Of course, religious teaching often leads to rebellion. Everything leads to rebellion, though.

Ultimately, organized religion destroys this world. But on a micro level, it might not be such a bad thing. Be honest when your son asks questions. Religion won't be.

 

I was brought up full Catholic, sent to Catholic schools up through eighth grade. I went to public high school and continued religious ed on a time-release program.

My grade school years were mostly the years surrounding Vatican II, and both my parents were very active in Renewal projects designed to increase the involvement of the laity in the structure of the church. They were CCD teachers and had been since before I was born.

My mother founded an interfaith group in our metro area intended to include people from all different faiths which is still running 45+ years later. The pastor of our church was a very very old school Monsignor who was in fact the second most powerful guy in the diocese under the bishop. He was not used tp and not particularly happy with the idea that lay people were going to have any say in the direction of the church.

This brought my parents into conflict with him early and often, so I was never particularly imbued with any awe or reverence for the church hierarchy. My mother in particular had many battle-royales with The Monsignor.

But I still banged out straight A's in religion all the way through high school. The teachers quit calling on me in religion class because, a) I knew all the answers, and b) I asked questions such as, "where did Mrs. Cain come from."

Our school never had any problem teaching STEM or history or anything -- we were taught about evolution and everything, and the teachers all agreed the church had been stupid to persecute Gallileo.

My parents apparently felt my religious education had 'taken' well enough they decided to make me godfather of my two youngest siblings (12 and 15 years younger) -- responsible in theory for their moral upbringing.

Happily they have turned out to be much better Catholics than I have. I am not sure if my own sterling guidance had much to do with it, but whatever.

Over the years I have become more and more dissatisfied with the direction of the church in a lot of directions, mainly in dealing with the pedo priests as well as a number of other social issues like divorce, so I have pretty much dropped out the last 15 years or so. And I want things FIXED before I am going to think about coming back.

My siblings are all well aware of this, but my youngest sister apparently feels my moral compass is still OK, since she made me godfather of two of her kids (making me both their godfather AND their 'grand-godfather,' if there is such a thing. Cue up the banjo music).

Their kids are going to the same Catholic school we all grew up in. They all seem to be fine with it. I imagine when they get to be college-age or young adults they will be allowed to make their own choices.

Obviously Catholicism will probably be their 'default choice,' which probably isn't so bad.

Incidentally, when my sister got married, her husband was Episcopalian. This worked out fine for a decade or so -- they would switch off going to one service or the other. Then after they had been married about 10 years and had a couple of kids, completely out of the blue, he converted to Catholicism.

My sister said she was completely shocked by the move -- she said she never once said, "you should convert," "it would be better for the kids if we always went to the same church," nothing like that. She said as far as she knew, everything was going fine.

In fact, she said, he did most of his training "undercover" -- he cooked up stories about where he was going for an hour or so once a week, then all of a sudden he said, "let's plan to stay a while after church next Sunday," and my sister said, "sure, why?", and he said, "because I'm getting baptized and confirmed."

So I would guess the kids will be told they can do what they want, too.

 

I know people like to say this (Tom Friedman wrote - I can't remember if he was quoting David Hartman) that God is Muslim on Fridays, Jewish on Saturdays & Christian on Sundays. It makes us feel better, but it's almost certainly not true. There's a lot more in all of the religions (I think, can't speak with any kind of authority on any other than my own) than the "be nice to other people" stuff. Theologically, either Jesus was the divine son of God, or he wasn't. If he wasn't, he was either a false prophet, a lunatic, or the entire religion is based on a post-mortem misrepresentation of his story. Those are pretty high stakes. We don't have to dwell on these differences, but it's misguided to pretend they don't exist.

 

Our kids are all grown and out of the house, pretty much on their own.

My wife is a staunch Southern Baptist, and very conservative where religion is concerned, while my faith has ebbed and flowed over the years. Right now it has ebbed pretty much to the point where I just don't care if I ever step foot in a church again.

So I've always been pretty passive about the church, and I've always let my wife call the shots about matters of faith in the family. When the kids were growing up, we took them to church pretty regularly, and they were all baptized at a fairly young age. However, I always encouraged them to be independent thinkers, and once we'd introduced them to Christianity, it was up to them to decide how involved they wanted to be as young adults.

The results are thus: Our older son is pretty much like me, very blase about faith, can take it or leave it. Our younger son, on the other hand, took a couple of mission trips to Central America as a teenager, and he's more serious about religion than any of them (the fact that he's a soldier who's currently on his second tour in the Middle East plays a part in his religious stance). Our daughter, the youngest of the three, has really rejected most forms of religion. She's a very moral person, generally a straight arrow, but she's convinced that a compassionate God would not have afflicted her with the bi-polar disorder that has disrupted her life in the past. Also, she and my older son have come to take a very dim view of many of the social stands of the Southern Baptist church. Truth be known, so have I.

FWIW, a few weeks ago, my wife and I had an argument about the Bible. She made some comment about Adam and Eve, and I pointed out that there really were no such persons. She bowed up that I was saying the Bible is a lie, which was not what I meant at all. My point was that as moral compass and spiritual guide, the Bible is the authoritative word of God. But as history, it's about as accurate and relevant as the Iliad, the Odyssey, the Epic of Gilgamesh or the time rings of the Mayans.

Needless to say, we don't discuss religion very much any more.

 

Does Savage consider the idea that the hub isn't there at all though? Certainly there's a place for challenging religion, but I often don't see that as a serious viable option from religious parents. I don't have kids but I suppose if I did it would be very difficult for me to let them freely explore religion without letting them properly develop critical thinking skills first. I don't want them to be in a situation like I was later on in life having to turn my back on decades of family history once I decided to become a non-believer. There's way too much bullshit that comes with coming out as an atheist.

And that's pretty much the reason why I support organizations (i.e. Secular Student Alliance) who allow kids who question God's existence to gather together at their schools or universities. I wish I had that option growing up. It's not likely that I would have joined in, but I think I would have benefited a lot more to hearing those ideas a lot sooner in life.

 

after a family tragedy, my family found god. i went to the assembly of god church 2.5 times a week until i got a job when i was 15. i went once again when i was 19. save weddings and funerals, i've never been back.

i now identify myself as an agnostic. my kids basically were raised in church daycare as a way to introduce religion to them. my 14-year-old is a (huge emphasis) devout atheist, and my 10-year-old doesn't really seem to care either way.

that's all i have.

 

No good will come from snake handling.

 

I'd say through natural selection it might help weed out some of the lunatic fringe

 

Terrific.

 

Assembly of God can either set you on fire for God or turn you away. There's not much action in the middle. I think it has everything to do with the charismatic/Holy Spirit stuff. Jesus said "you will know people by their fruits." I've seen people who spoke in tongues who lived the faith. I've seen some that are all showtime and little substance. The movement focuses on the miraculous (albeit the virgin birth and resurrection are both miracles at the core of Christianity) in the here and now yet we largely see so little of it. Name it, claim it is a dangerous thing to buy into. I remember a story in the south about a man who somehow made it out of the hospital with his stillborn daughter. Took her to a healing service. The pastor reacted like most of us would put in that spot when the man came forward. They prayed. They laid on hands. They brought more to pray. There was no resurrection. But after that happened, 30 people came forward to accept Christ. Again, it reminds me of the only thing I can find in scripture that is the universal will of God - not that we never get sick, nor lose our jobs, our homes, our loved ones, but that we find him. My point to you Tom, and in general, is the charismatic movement, because of it's out-there approach, can do as much harm as good if understood for what it is not. I'm not charismatic but I go to one because of my family's preference. And I have seen what God has done as a huge number of people in this church range from former drug addicts to prostitutes to felony offenders to corporate execs.

 

i still respect the minster of that church to this day. he is a wonderful man.
i've seen dozens of people speak in tongues, and each and every one of them is full of shit.
IMHO, of course.