Whether or not an atheist can achieve one with greater frequency is debatable.

But what does whether or not you achieve one do for the rest of society?

Is there any social service in it?

Thanks. I find at this point in my life the most complicated part of religion is dealing with family. My parents are sort of religious (they consider themselves Christian, but they realize that sleeping in on Sunday is awesome, so they're not really "involved" with church or learning about Christianity in any way), and my wife's parents are very religious.

I can fake religious belief out of politeness when relevant, but children are on the horizon for my wife and I (she also is not religious). We don't really want our kids hit with religious messages at a young age - telling a small child mommy and daddy are going to hell while having them draw pictures of Christ on the cross just seems inappropriate.

The hard part is keeping religious indoctrination from coming in from the grandparents - if we tell them "Hey, don't talk to our kid about religion" it's going to cause a lot of drama, but it seems like the only option.

I'm fine with our kids getting exposed to religion - when they're old enough (hopefully they'll come to the same conclusions I have, but I accept that my children will ultimately have to decide on their own) . But if a kid is too young to understand that Santa Claus isn't real and why, I think it's just wildly inappropriate to expose them to religion and religious beliefs.

As a guy who was once involved with church childrens ministries, I understand very clearly that up to a certain age, kids will just take anything an adult says as unshakable truth. Not really sure how to navigate that in a culture and family life looking to religiously indoctrinate the young at every turn.

You want the world to talk to your kids about religion or you want someone who loves them to do it?

Christ recommended people be more like children. Do you know why? For their innocence and purity.

This world is always trying to steal people's purity with the repetition of ungodlike ideas.

It surprises me you didn't notice that.

Your kids will always be safer with a grandma or grandpa that loves them than off learning the wrong things from strangers.

Isn't the solution to expose your children to a wide variety of religious traditions? I don't know if this is possible where you live, but if so, take them to religious services at Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Unitarian, Buddhist, etc. It seems to me that religion is an important part of many people's lives and it would be wrong to prevent your children from having the opportunity to have it be a part of theirs. But what you do as a parent is try to have it be so in a responsible and thoughtful manner--which to me means primarily having a respectful awareness of the different alternatives.

are you suggesting grandma and grandpa won't love them if they cannot expose them to their religious belief?

Of course not.

A lot of people on here tend to reason from the exception not the rule.

Are their grandparents terrible people?

I don't think the world is an appropriate teacher. It's too random and cares nothing about them.

You don't put children at the mercy of the world when their reasoning skills are just developing. They may draw the wrong conclusions. For one thing they don't have enough life experience to evaluate things by.

This is the reasoning for not exposing them to religious beliefs of any sort until they are capable of evaluating said beliefs on their own.

I don't know if it is possible to achieve but i think the grandparents would(should) respect the wishes of the parents if that is how they choose to handle the situation

While there hasn't been anyone close working to Christianize our kids, we've never made the slightest effort to shield them. My daughter used to go to church some with her grandmother. My five-year-old is in day care with bible stories. To me, it's just world literature. We live in south Arkansas, a very religious area so they are exposed to a lot in schools, some teasing on the subject of not going to church, they know they're different. My oldest son has gone on outings with Christian youth groups. We've always told them this stuff is totally up to them. The oldest were in Jewish day care when we lived in Jersey. The boy was in Jewish Cub Scouts but I was fine with him quitting because they were training the kids to hate Arabs. (Highland Park, NJ is a pretty zealous neighborhood.)

Guess what? Church is boring, Christianity makes no sense, and none of what they are exposed to sticks. It takes years of constant repetition for any of it to sink in. My eldest (16) son's Facebook religious affiliation is "atheist, get over it, bitch." My 10 year old daughter is starting to identify as atheist. If one of them starts finding religion meaningful, that's fine with us, though we would have a problem with extremist sects like some of the Baptist.

bahaha, that's great.

i can see your point here and i agree! if my parents wanted to take my future children to church once in a while i guess i wouldn't mind too much. but i would have been opposed to it right before reading your post just now.

i only have one really vivid memory of church from when i was a kid, i must have been around 6-8 years old.

i thought that church was like a funeral and the altar had the actual body of jesus inside of it. and i was REALLY creeped out by the water they used to baptize people. kids don't really know what's going on.

it wasn't until i was probably 12 or 13 until church started to become a real part of my life. coincidentally, it was at the same time that i was old enough to start going to the youth group on sunday nights, which was also attended by many hot girls. funny how that works!

The only thing I remember of church was my dads stupid "He who farts in church sits in pew" joke.

"get over it bitch"

Classy, and mature. Not.

I'm glad to say that my 14 year old son would never post something
so crass.

LOL..he's hiding it from you. Trust me. And don't think he isn't getting frisky on those Youth Group outings either.

Your teaching him all that reverence -- he'll get suckered into fighting the rich peoples' wars and come back to you in a box. But he'll be polite.

Actually, asdf is undoubtedly right. He probably has a disgusting screen name like yours.

no, a (supposed) older man insulting young teens. Now THAT's class

It's not the method the bible suggests.

Sin has a corrupting influence on people including their minds and opinions. It's possible to get yourself into lifestyles and certain patterns of thinking that it's close to impossible to get out of.

Okay

I still believe that if the parents of a young child request that i do not discuss my religious belief or lack thereof with their child i should respect their wishes

Teaching my son to be respectful has nothing to do with
"fighting rich peoples' wars."

Total non sequitur.

Care to try again?

Yes, yes, God (ha!) yes.

I don't know about that.

Parents are guides and protecters not owners.

Why don't the parents respect the grandparents more?

You can throw your kids to the wolves without realizing you're doing it or that it's occuring. Purity is a nice thing to hold on to. It's a very nice value most people don't consider important today. They don't even consider it relevant.

Me stating that his actions aren't classy and mature is insulting?

Puuhlease.

who are these wolves?

Are their groups of sinners running around trying to ruin the purity of 5 year olds that i am unaware of?

My son has corrected me. His status always referred to "punk," never bitch. Which is better, lacking the element of misogyny and all. He put that on FB because he was getting hassled. He recently changed it to the FSM.

Hey Bill, are you the same guy that wrote the book
"Beat Web Casinos?"

I am a former Jehovah's Witness. I saw this thread and have enjoyed the discussion so far. I would call myself an antitheist at this point, as I am very glad there is no evidence that a god exists, even a benevolent one. I will post again shortly with my personal story. It is very fresh in my mind, as the bulk of it has happened over the past two years.

interested in reading it