No they figured that out for themselves,my family of origin was not religious and our family was never religious and my children never had any need to incorporate more into it than was needed. School is quite enough.

I did not raise them with any religion. Explained what I believed and let them go to church with others if invited to and chose what they wanted to believe.

Hopefully I am teaching my kids how to think not what to think. If I get it right then they'll be ok

I'm a fairly new athiest. The vast majority of my family is still relgious. It's pretty much just my wife and me that have broken the chains.
I hope to raise my son to think for himself. If he is inclined to some religious belief or practice, I want to be supportive, but I also want to provide all the facts and truth for his consumption that I can. I really just want to help him become who he wants to be.
Meanwhile, it will be interesting to see what interference my wife and I get from family...

I allowed my children the freedom to decide for themselves, my daughter is a Christian and my son is an atheist.
Oddly however my atheist son can quote bible verses and knows religion intimately as he is currently a master's student studying English literature and finds a cultural knowledge of religion a necessity for the analytical understanding of poetry and prose.

My theist daughter has never read the bible in her life and insists all she needs is a personal relationship to Jesus. She too is a graduate, her master's is in business studies and she runs her own company.
I find the dichotomy fascinating.

I let my sons make their own minds up. I was an unbeliever. their mother believed in the idea of some vague deity and felt there should be an afterlife. the school system promoted (in my day it was enforced) catholicism. raising kids as atheists is another form of indoctrination. as parents we were helped by location, living in northern Ireland where religion had caused so much pain and division. my sons are 30+ now and i'm not really sure what their presise beliefs/opinions are. that's their business not mine.

I don't like telling anyone how to raise their kids but if someone were to ask me I would say:

>If you teach a child no faith, they default to the majority. If you teach them one faith you indoctrinate them, if you teach them many faiths you innoculate them.

The majority of parents indoctrinate their children into their personal beliefs. Some children reject it. Some accept it. If one is honest, I would recommend attending multiple churches, synagoges, temples, etc for a few years to give the child a flavor of religions and let them choose for themselves.

I raised my daughter as a Unitarian Universalist, without any dogma. She got a relatively impartial exposure to different beliefs. Unfortunately, her father didn't respect that and had her baptized in his (fundamentalist) Presbyterian church. She's grown and plans to raise her daughter as I raised her.

My son was baptised into the Church of England. He has never shown any desire to follow any form of religion and so I guess this makes him an atheist as he tells me that he doesn't believe in god.

I don't. With all of the societal baggage that comes along with atheism, it is a very personal decision. The best a parent can do for his child in this regard is to arm them with sufficient information to make an informed decision.

Nope, they raised themselves that way.

I don't think I ever told my kids that god didn't exist. My daughter did go to a couple of churchs with friends over the years. One I recall is she went to a Universalist event with a friend and was annoyed with how rude she felt they were to her as a guest of a member. My son has seemed less interested in expoloring the topic of religion.

As two atheists, we raised our daughter without religion or attending a church. "How can you be a moral person and be an atheist?" Christians ask. Being a good person is a daily, moment-by-moment decision.

We taught our daughter:

1. Social skills- conversational skills, good manners, confidence, kindness, honesty, humor and fair play. To value diversity and respect others, regardless of skin color, religion, national origin, disabilities or sexual orientation.
2. Self-responsibility.
3. To value education, art and music.
4. A healthy lifestyle including exercise and eating healthy food.
5. Music- piano and violin lessons.
6. Athletics- tennis, gymnastics, karate, swiming, hiking, basketball, downhill skiing, weightlifting, stretching and more. One sport at at time, although tennis and swimming lessons were continued. When Claire was four, she began horse-riding lessons to build confidence.

Although she tried different sports, tennis was her passion. Like her dad, Claire was a varsity doubles tennis player during all four years of high school.
7. Volunteering to help others in need.
8. Love of the outdoors.
9. The importance of protecting the environment.
10. Love of reading.

No, I raised them how to think and told them my beliefs and they happen to be none believers

My kids' dad's family is very religious. (I haven't really believed since I was a small child and saw my grandfather crying in church, but I grew up with the expectation that church is part of child-rearing.) So, my kids went to church with their nana, and she's given them bibles, study guides, devotionals, DVDs, religious plaques and Christian music CDs for every occasion (though my son has somehow escaped ever receiving any of these, to his utter relief and his sisters' eternal frustration.) But my kids tend toward my way of thinking, which is that there's no proof of a God or gods, the bible is nonsense, and religion makes people nuts. I didn't have to "raise them atheist" because it's their natural state, and my atheism and acceptance of whatever they chose made it easier for them to be themselves - agnostic/atheist.

Same as with sex, give them as much information as you can and let them decide. And as with sex, you hope they wait until they are older before making the decision,

I didn't force anything on mine. We had discussions about a lot of things, but I left it up to them to work out what they thought. I even took them to church once.

I am raising my kids to be skeptical freethinkers. So that they can see through religious BS. Both sets of grandparents are religious. So we read about all the different religions and different dieties so they can see the foolishness in it.

I never tell my kids what to think or believe, they are smart kids and as far as I can tell reality driven. They know how I feel and what I think. I flat out tell them in both politics and religion to look at all sided and make up your own mind, so far I have not raised a theist or a Republican I have 14 year old twins and a 17 year old. They live with me half the time.

Yes, I would.

nope, my kids know i don't have all the answers, they know that no matter what others may claim, neither do they. so i teach them about as many of the possibilities as i know about, give them the tools they need 2 learn about the ones i don't know much about on their own, offer 2 learn with them, and leave it up 2 them. so far my 15 year old son identifies mostly as atheist, with the concession that he doesnt have all the facts so there is a tiny possibility there could be a creator of some sort, and my 2 and a half year old hasnt shown any interest in the subject yet so his decision remains 2 be seen

I taught my kids to study every religion there is and make an informed decision regarding your beliefs and follow your heart. One chose Christianity the other chose Wicca.

I raised them to ask questions and draw their own conclusions. My oldest is an atheist, the middle is agnostic, and the youngest who is still athome, is exploring. She's currently attending some kind of teen Bible study and asking a lot of questions.

I reared my sons to make up their own minds.