Children and “God”
May 26, 2007
This post is more of a reply to some of the comments I received to a previous post, “Keep Your God Away From My Child.” Several people said that children should be taught about religion at an early age (my daughter is 2, so that gives you an idea of how early they are thinking of). Not only is this absurd, but it is very dangerous as well and I will explain why.
First of all, the separation between reality and fantasy has not yet been established with a child of this age. Let’s take, for example, the myth of Santa Clause or the Easter bunny. Should you teach your child about these myths, they believe them without reservation for a period of time. Why? Because YOU have taught them this, so it MUST be true. You are the adult, the caregiver, the teacher. You have taught them meaningful lessons that turned out to be true; the stove is hot (don’t touch it or it will hurt), the knife is sharp (it, too, can hurt you), be careful on the ice (you can fall and get…hurt).
Sooner or later, the child realizes that you have it’s best interest in mind and that everything that you have taught him/her has been truthful. Why in the world would he/she doubt that the Easter bunny or Santa Clause are any less real than what you have made them out to be?
I know what you are thinking, if you are a Christian. “But you are equating something fictional to something that is real (God)!” This really isn’t a debate about whether or not God is real. It is about what happens to a child’s thought process as they get older, having been taught religion from a young age.
The problem is that there is no punishment for not believing in something like Santa or the Easter bunny. As a child grows and learns more about the world around him/her, it becomes obvious to them that such a figure cannot exist. Mom and Dad confirm the child’s suspicions and that is the end of that. However, should the child begin to question the reality of a religious doctrine, there is a built-in fear mechanism that starts up in the youngster’s head. Hell, eternal damnation, ridicule, chastisement…. The list is long. This stifles independent thought and cognitive thinking in a child. “Everything in the world has a rational, logical explanation…except for this ONE thing.”
Most religious views skew other subjects in life as well. Sex is taught as a “bad” thing and that you should “stay away” from it until you are married. Teach a child that trains are evil. Every time a train passes, cover his eyes. Those of you that are parents will agree that there is nothing that that boy wants to do more than to touch that train or ride it. Instead of actually taking the time to sit down with your child and explain sex, they learn about it from their peers (much earlier than you think). Religious views skew our views on people. how many of you Christians think that atheists are immoral or untrustworthy? (You may say that you don’t here, but poll results don’t lie.)
The fact of the matter is that when a child is taught a religious belief at an early age, the odds that that child will deviate from that teaching are slim. Maybe that is what you want for your child. I was raised in a Pentecostal family. I can tell you this from experience; the internal struggles that your child will go through should he/she choose to question their taught beliefs are no less than horrible.
That is why we have chosen not to teach our daughter about religion until she is much older. When she can actually process the information in a rational way without feeling “guilty” about exploring.
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11 Responses to “Children and “God””
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Excellent post! I was raised as Catholic and remember well the repression and brainwashing that went on. Around age 12, I really began to question it, then openly rebelled at 13 and left the church at 16. My parents threw fits and I vowed NEVER to force a religion OR my atheism on my child. We just never discussed it, unless HE mentioned it or asked about things like ghosts and the afterlife, as he got older (not when was 2!).Yesteray, I was telling my mother how proud I was that we never forced religion or atheism on our kid (now almost 17) and he's made the choice of atheism for himself and is quite happy with that. She argued (thinking herself quite clever) "Why did you tell him Santa Clause and the Easter Bunny existed, but not God?". I told her that a) both of those arise out of Pagan traditions and are just for fun, and b) when you find out Santa doesn't exist, it's not an existential crisis, but something every kid realizes eventually. She got it but wouldn't admit it.People worry so much about their kids and drugs, sex, strangers (as well they should), but never seem to worry what exposure to religion (especially fundamentalism) does to them! Most parents aren't prepared for how VICIOUSLY kids may be attacked by their theist peers and even adults, for being atheists or not going to church…we certainly weren't.It's something that every atheist with kids needs to think about and plan ahead, what they'll do and teach their kids how to respond to theist attacks, including shunning (my kid was shunned in one neighborhood!).The fact that kids are indoctrinated and then punished for not believing, by these so-called "followers of Jesus", means they're just hypocrites, who serve only their OWN agendas.We DO need to protect our kids from religion, crazy as that sounds.
thanks for the comment
Vercetti-
You sound like me but with a different name. As you can see I am a recovering Catholic, Roman Catholic to be precise. I didn’t fully leave the church until I realized that I disagreed with more things than I agreed with, and when I had a child it got worse. I thought that things were dropped until my grandpa died in March. We were really close, and my granny told me that his dying wish was for me to baptize my daughter. Well, what now? Talk about guilt! Those Christians sure are good at that! It’s hard for me, though, to pull away completely. With the death of my grandpa and other health issues that I have, I sometimes find myself wishing that I still had that comfort of religion, that I could just give it to God, I guess, and then it would be off of me. Instead, listening to the priest at the funeral as well as listing to a chaplain at a recent memorial service i attended, I only felt sad, not at all comforted. I don’t want that for my daughter…to feel guilt and shame when she doesn’t think the way that the other church people think. I went through that. If I can help it, she never will.
Very interesting, and very true in my opinion. I’m from Denmark, and the entire concept of being shunned for being an atheist is very hard for me to visualize, since nothing of that sort happens here. I think the chance for being shunned or teased would be larger if you were a theist than an atheist in Denmark.
I was raised by parents who both left the church years before my birth and wasn’t baptized till I was 14 years old (in connection with my Confirmation). At the time I thought a lot about religion, and thus made the decision to be both baptized and confirm my beliefs (not sure that’s the right English expression). That is the one decision I’ve made that I regret the most and I have later left the church again.
But the choice my parents gave me, to believe in God and be a member of the church or not, of my own free will, was very nice to have. Especially compared to some of the “horror stories” I hear from more religious countries.
Anyway, I hope a lot of people will read this blog-post and act accordingly.
Thanks, Marius.
My parents went out of their way to keep the illusion of Santa and the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy alive. But I never really believe them…..mostly because they were never very good at it. My mom…well she gave up trying to make me go to church when I was about 8 but my dad (who I only saw in a church 1 time) was very pushy about me reading the bible and believing in God. Recently he told me
“Religion doesn’t make a lot of sense but it’s good to believe just in case.”
That disgusted me. That he pretended to believe and was just being an opportunistic pig. I grew up with a lot of religious issues from him. I went to Catholic school because of him. I spent full nights crying and praying trying to find some kind of God. And all of a sudden it turns out he never really believed!! All his pushing was a just in case measure!
I could never imagine doing that to a child. Especially my own. My children will not be evangelized to, they will not go to church with their friends on Sundays. When my kids ask me who Jesus is, I’ll explain he was a leader but he was a man. That he died a long long time ago but some people think he’s still alive and they do strange things to make him happy.
When my kids turn 10, along with a sex talk(they’ll probably know most of it by then anyway) they’ll get a God talk. I’ll tell them the absolute truth about it and after that age if they want to go to a church or a synagogue or whatever they can, but until I talk to them about it I will not have some crazed evangelical preaching to my child. I will not have a kid who is as scarred as I am about religion.
And yes I know I didn’t have it terribly bad, but it was bad enough for not to want it to happen to anyone else.
You know, Hannah, you got me thinking. I have a friend with three children, two of whom are baptized. One has chosen Catholicism and the other is Baptist like his grandma. Each child enjoys going to their own respective celebration on the weekend, and that is what I want for my child. I want her to enjoy her faith, whatever that may be. It’s her faith, not anyone else’s. I used to enjoy my faith as well, but I was born into it. I think if I had chosen it based on facts and my own experience with it I might have given it another try. Now I guess we will never know.
Thanks for a rational post! As a former Episcopalian, Freemason, AND Eagle Scout, I have renounced ALL of these organizations. The church for the fact that I no longer believe in God, the Masons therefor since you MUST believe in a deity to be ‘raised’ a Mason, and The Scouts for their insistence on believing in God also.
All in all, I am much happier!
Bob
Hey.
Excellent post. I totally agree with that. Being though when you are young of something that is self reinforcing by the community and/or by parents is forcing a way of thinking to the young child.
So much for freedom of speech when we are conditionned to think in a certain way. The fact is Santa Claus is not self reinforcing. People stop beliving it after the age of 6 or around. What people tend to forget is that God isn’t more real than Santa Claus.
I mean, we don’t have more proof that God exist than we have that Santa Claus exist.
How many of us thought that when the gift under the tree was brought by Santa Claus himself. This dream was then discarded when we heard it was from our parents.
The problem with god, is that we’ll only know if he exists after our death. And as far as I know, nobody ever came back from their grave to tell us: “Hey! He exist!”.
Cheers.
Just recently found your blog, some pretty interesting posts.
It’s always seemed to me that Christians prefer to teach/raise their kids with religion from a very young age BECAUSE that’s when they’re most vulnerable. If Christian parents were to wait until their child is older, after they had naturally developed rationality, then it’d be much more difficult to get them to believe in God. I’ve heard stories from international friends that missionaries specifically target very young children in their home countries, soliciting them with schools, games, and such and then “teaching” them about God. I think it’s disgusting.
-Peace.
Matt - Sakai, Japan
I stumbled across this quite late, and whilst i do not generally comment, i felt that for this one, i had to.
Thank you so much for your view!
As the mother of an awesome,fantastic,charming little boy, I have wondered about this issue a fair bit.
We are lucky here in New Zealand as i really feel that as a culture, we don’t get religion forced upon us in any setting (politics,school,plunket etc).
I was brought up in a household devoid of ‘RELIGION’ but full of spirituality,and er….morality i guess. I tried several churches as i got older, always with the consent and support from my mother.
This felt good for so many reasons, particularly that of learning free will(!) and learning to understand and trust myself, crucial, i think, to becoming a well versed, well rounded adult.
I ended up unhappy with the church as i saw it, so my experiments with religion ended. But i am ready and willing for the day when my son, based on his own experience and feelings, decides to have his go at religion… but until that moment…KEEP YOUR GOD AWAY FROM MY KID!!!
I imagine if it was a Scientology book, or lets say… a satanist’s bible (do they have one?) many of the Christians who complain of your view would be agreeing whole heartedly.
Thanks!!