I agree that atheists or other freethinkers don't discuss their points of view as much as I think they should. I have heard several people say that they don't want to indoctrinate their children as they feel they were indoctrinated, but to this I say - If you don't fill the void, someone else surely will and with nonsense.
My children (my son anyway, my daughter is three) know what I think about religion and why. I answer questions the best I can, which can sometimes be complicated. Especially when one of my son's doting grandmothers is an extremely believing Baptist type (She's worked for Benny Hinn.). Trying to explain how his grandma could be so largely into something I am so obviously against and yet someone who I believe is a nice person is difficult. I think he finally understood, but for a while, I think he had trouble because he didn't know how I wanted him to feel about her (He likes to please his mama. He's a mama's boy, and that's not a bad thing.) I remember my own upbringing, which was devoid of any real structure, religious or material in nature, and although it kept my head above the religious dogma in the long run, I see how I also would have accepted a lot of the baloney I heard from outside my family simply because there was no reason not to as a small child. liz -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Taylor Sent: Saturday, November 22, 2008 11:40 AM To: Memphis Freethought Alliance Subject: Re: Theism/Atheism within society <<I offer education as a solution. There are many ways to educate >> One thing I find interesting is that many secular parents fail to pass on their worldview to their children. My uncle, a nuclear physicist, fled his childhood home in southern Mississippi to California. He is an atheist, but his three children grew up to be very religious. A friend of mine, a very liberal theist, has a teenager going to a local Baptist school, which is teaching them creationism. The child is sure the mother is going to hell, but the mother feels the child will outgrow this belief system. That's naive, in my view. I suspect that the sum total that the parent offers the child is ridicule of religion, rather than teaching them *why* the whole mechanism of belief and faith is wrong from its very core. So the child has no intellectual tools to defend him/herself when encountering groups pushing religious dogma. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Memphis Freethought Alliance" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/memphisfreethoughtalliance?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
