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Children and Religion/Beliefs

What age do you feel is appropriate to tell your children your own beliefs and not distort their beliefs?

AdamHoople 7 Sep 22
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16 comments

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Depends on child that's a tough one I say somewhere between 15 and 18. I let mine go to church when wants to. I tell them there are alot of diffrent beliefs and one osnt more important than the other. There either all right or all wrong. When he ask what are mine I tell him I can't tell u mine yet. That it might make hes views become different. So once he decides for awhile we can talk about are differences and similarities at that time. #children

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The religion is part of our calender and taught in school. Our children are rewarded for holidays by getting a day off from school and candy. This is widespread.

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I would never entertain religious beliefs with my kids. I homeschool my oldest (8yo) and logic and reason have always been a part of his education. And I didn’t entertain belief in the tooth fairy or Santa or the Easter bunny or reincarnation (we’ve spent a fair amount of time living in Thailand). I have always taught him that claims that aren’t self-evident require evidence, and extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, I am teaching him what constitutes evidence. I try to teach him to ask thoughtful, relevant questions. I also give him examples of the harm religious beliefs cause, like child abuse, holding back scientific progress, people voting for Donald Trump, religious kids being mean little shits relative to their secular peers, bigotry, child-marriage etc. And I actively teach humanism. I’m happy to say he is a very strong little atheist and budding humanist. I wouldn’t have done anything different.

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I allowed my wife to raise our 2 children in the church and now I am the only atheist in the family. Hell my 7 year old grandson asked me if I believed in god and when I replied no he commented “but papa if you don’t believe in god you will go to hell”. The indoctrination of young children disgust’s me but I don’t know what to do about it except to just tolerate it and keep my mouth shut for the sake of peace and harmony in the family.

@AdamHoople I never mentioned my lack of belief in god to my 7 year old grandson until he asked me then I told him there was no god. Later he told me I would go to hell if I didn’t believe in god. This disturbs me but there not much I can do about it because the religous exposure is his parents choice.

@AdamHoople Divorce is the number one cause of Farmer-rancher bankruptcy. Where I live openly atheist people unfortunately are extremely rare. I choose not to go broke and also not to be a social outcast.

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Generally, I believe if they're old enough to ask the question they're old enough to get an answer. I made my share of mistakes raising my son and niece, but I never lied to them.

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I would never countenance any indoctrination at any age. What I have done is give them information when they started to ask; more than they asked for, to make them understand the bigger picture and make up their own mind.

Religious belief often festers because people lie to children or withhold information, when they tell you what to believe.

One example is when creationists were demanding we teach the controversy in schools. What they did was publish books with pseudoscience to deceive children as to what evolution is. To this day, millions of adults have no comprehension of what the theory even means.
The muslims preach that for any civilization to be peaceful and prosperous, it has to be based on the Koran. A demonstrable falsehood.

Zealots like to say secular families indoctrinate their children too, I say this is bullshit.
You can't indoctrinate someone with the facts you can actually demonstrate to be true and the encouragement to keep learning more.

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I strongly believe in telling children the TRUTH from as soon as they begin asking questions, etc.
This I did with my daughter, Lorrae, from around 3 years of age and, as I was told frequently by her School Teachers, she was the most mature minded student they had ever had the absolute pleasure to teach.
Lorrae shared my Atheism and Atheist ideas, like me she had a reverence and respect for ALL life and people, a thirst for knowledge that knew no bounds and was a friend to everyone once she got to know them.
However, like myself, she also met those of a religious ilk who sought only to shun or denigrate her BUT she took that in her stride and would often tell them, " I'm ever so sorry for you because you feel that you have to be like that."

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One of the million reasons I chose not to have any...maybe just teach them how to treat others and try to leave religion out of it. Mom put me in Catholic school but never really preached about anything that had to do with God or religion specifically. She only attempted to teach me about how to be good to others ?

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since my beliefs are that science and the method can reveal all knowable things about the universe, i.e. everything that could actually impact our lives, I started teaching them the method and logic as soon as they were talking, giving them as much exposure as they could understand at each level.

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3

all the time children should feel they can ask you anything and trust your answer. From birth till about 10-11 they will believe most of what you tell them, when they start questioning things if they feel you have lied you will be just another untrustworthy person

2

I never told my kids anything but I did not pretend to be religious either. I was an open critic of the bible however. I think my oldest will eventually be atheist based on some of the things she says such as "P may stop believing in god because she is into science"
She kept leaving churches once they started up the anti homosexuality crap and calls herself a christian but will not attend the small minded churches around here.

My grandchildren are aware of my lack of belief and since they've grown up knowing it, accept it. I know the oldest does not believe because evidence is lacking. He in turn influences his younger brother and the aforementioned youngest is a budding mad scientist

They have occasionally gone to church when staying with friends or the other grandparents but do not seem to be buying into it.

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If you don’t tell your kids ‘this is the world’ and let them choose for themselves, hey are unlikely to ever take up organised religion

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Whenever I think of it.

1

My parents left me pick and choose if i wanted religion, I've done the same for my little bean.

R0bb Level 1 Sep 23, 2018
1

show, don't tell. it's never too soon.

g

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