Porc Therapy 073: Athiest Parents Raising Religious Kids

One of the best reasons mentioned that atheists might allow children to discover religion for themselves is that atheist parents don’t want to “indoctrinate” their children into atheism. While this sounds like an impartial approach, parents need to keep in mind that their children will be exposed to individuals and groups that are compelled to influence children by using all types of tactics, including indoctrination and psychological and emotional manipulation. As you guys mentioned, guilt and shame are built into most religions, along with promises of rewards for beliefs and behaviors. If an atheist has not raised her child to see through these tactics, she is basically encouraging her child to go and be manipulated by encouraging her child to shop for a religion. Parents can expect that, given the right set of emotional experiences, most children will be convinced that those experiences have something to do with deeper truth and will find themselves wrapped up in religion.

When I look back on my experience as a Christian, I can tell you that the emotion and love involved appealed to my childhood needs and insecurities so greatly that I almost had to believe it. If your child deals with any lack in his life – perhaps an absent or difficult parent, any type of special emotional or physical needs – he will be especially susceptible to the emotional appeals of religion.

So the conclusion at the end of the show that you should “let children decide for themselves” sounds great, but children are children – most are too young for strong critical thinking. They lack both experience and full reasoning skills, so they need guidance and structure, not ambivalence. Kids will get that guidance and structure from somewhere, and they will cling to it, because most kids like the appeal of “black and white, right and wrong.” It is solid and easy for them to grasp. So if you aren’t providing some of that guidance, they WILL get it somewhere, and let me assure you that churches will jump all over that opportunity.

Another issue – why would an atheist think that her child needs religion to have structure and happiness? Haven’t most atheists realized that simple humanity requires us to deal with ethical and moral issues, and that humans can be happy without a religious group? I don’t really understand how an adult can choose a way of life or set of beliefs and then think that they may not be good enough for her children. If you believe your child needs structure, ethics and values, help your child to learn these things. Work them out. Don’t just leave them to someone else to handle. So many atheists have come to realize that public schooling is not an answer. If you don’t want to send your children to the government to learn math, why would you send them to a powerful religious group to learn a structure of values and ethics? Or to “fit in?” Do we have to even go there?

I am personally not going to indoctrinate my child into anything. Though I am an atheist, I am not going to teach her that “there is no god” as if that is the critical fact about life. I am instead going to focus on giving her the positive – what she can know about ethical behavior and about science and the world, whether or not she ever chooses to believe in god. When god comes up, the focus will be that lots of people believe in lots of different things, and then we’ll get back to the things about the world that are solid and provable, including basic human love and respect. I am going to do my best to prevent my child from believing she has to have “views on god” until she is able to think critically and realizes that her entire life doesn’t hinge on that one question.