It Is Okay To Tell Your Kids There Is No God?

Hell I tell strangers kids there is no god, I would surely tell any kids I have the same thing. I even picket churches with an atheist message. I'm an ordained minister of the Universal Life Church I have as must right to promote my message as any other minister to promote the message they have. I happen to be an atheist one.

 

Can't remember if I replied to this already - CBA trawling 38 pages. Anyway, essentially everyone is OK with Christian parents telling their kids that god exists, so what's good for the goose...

 

I think that a family has to decide what to teach their children and teaching that there is no God is within the rights the parents to do so. But this in no way should be seen as an intellectually superior position to teaching that God does exist because point of fact there is no proof either way. So if what is being ask is if we should ridicule those that believe in a god or gods then no, you shouldn't teach hate. Just like I think it is child abuse to teach children to be anti-gay, anti-black, anti-white, anti-Jews...you get the point. If what you teach your child is that people who do believe in a god concept are inferior you are no better than anyone else who preaches superiority or hate.

The interesting thing is that despite what you do, in western culture children have to know about God even if they don't believe. It is how you talk about it that is important. God's very existence is not relevant to a better understanding of why God or when God exists in people's minds.

What I find fascinating is the overwhelming need for many atheists to paint anyone with a God concept the same way. They build straw men of belief and have done so in this thread and often fail the logic test when doing it. I support your right to non-belief and frankly I would never try to get anyone to believe the way I do. But calling the Bible a fairytale, talking about all people who have god concept as having an imaginary friend just makes you sound ignorant of how real people conceptualize and live under a concept of a faith tradition.

But then that is not important to most of those kinds of atheists, they just want to feel better than someone else.

 

I certainly wouldn't. I would tell them that some people believe there is and some don't but there isn't sufficient evidence either way for a reasonable degree of certainty. Therefore I can say, I personally don't believe there is but can't be certain.

 

As I said in 2011, you teach your kids what you think is the truth. If you think there is no God, teach them that. If you think there is a God, teach them that.

 

In the end this is left up to the parents.

I think it is no more okay or less okay than telling your children there is a god- it really depends on the parents belief systems and how much they want their children to decide for themselves.

 

Well... yeah... that's pretty much what I said.

 

Very few people who say that there is a God actually live their lives as if there is one. Consider the priests and ministers who have engaged in all sorts of "evil acts" while babbling about their favorite deity. If they really believed that such a deity existed why would they deliberately engage in behavior that will see them tossed into the lake of fire? Some say that the new Pope has a shady past.

 

That's the issue. It's not.

And ignorance like that isn't helping one bit.

 

I'd like to know how they justify the opinion that it's not acceptable. I think it's not much better than telling them that yes, there is a god (of some kind), since either way you're basically trying to indoctrinate them into a certain view. That's not how you teach critical thinking and independent development.

 

Well, no one is perfect. Or as the bible puts it, All have sinned.. But yeah, there are some extraordinary cases of hypocrisy within any given religion. Religion does not change people. Religion is a tool with many potential uses, including hiding the worst of offenses/sins from public suspicion, as well as for making genuine changes. However, it's not religion that changes people - they change themselves, if they change at all. Many simply use religion as a means - a justification - for doing so.

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Well, no one is perfect. Or as the bible puts it, All have sinned.. But yeah, there are some extraordinary cases of hypocrisy within any given religion. Religion does not change people. Religion is a tool with many potential uses, including hiding the worst of offenses/sins from public suspicion, as well as for making genuine changes. However, it's not religion that changes people - they change themselves, if they change at all. Many simply use religion as a means - a justification - for doing so.

 

Why does the opinion of other people have any significance? The Atheist parents already do as they please with their children with regard to talking to them about religion... so the opinion of others really is an unimportant matter. Besides, 'ok' is subjective, whimsical, capricious... get the point?

 

I still can't believe this question was even asked. Such a bizarre concept in the year 2013.

A bit like asking "is it okay to start calling my trousers 'pants', instead of 'southern necessity'?"

Queen Victoria died in 1901.

 

My observation is that most priests are pretty good men, and do exemplify what they preach. Are there a few bad apples? Of course, and there were those stupid bishops who actually believed psychology when pscychology said that pedophiles could be cured, and then there were the power hungry bishops who hid cases. That said, the Church's actions towards newly discovered pedophile priests will be much different than the past actions.