Hello

[BlackBird]

Thanks, robvalue! It helps to have perspective from someone who was not raised religiously. I was just thinking earlier today about the sheer number of different church programs I went to as a kid - church and Sunday school, yes, but also a Wednesday night program, a Christian knock-off of girl scouts, vacation bible school, youth group... and that was only the stuff outside the home. Even if my son occasionally gets a dose from Grandma, it won't be anything like I had growing up.

[Salacious B. Crumb]

Welcome Blackbird. Good job on questioning religion. And, yes, family can be quite a pain in the ass when it comes to their precious fairy tales. Oh well, we'll try to be hear for ya.

[robvalue]

You're welcome BB

Holy mackerel that's a lot of Christ you got shoved in your face! You did really well to survive all that with your sanity intact.

If he becomes the questioning sort (with your guidance, no doubt!) grandma won't be able to handle his responses. Her lack of reasonable answers will be enough to indicate the ludicrous nature of her beliefs I reckon. That's not an insult to her personally, no one can rationally defend it.

[BlackBird]

Yeah, a lot of the people I grew up with are still into it. My brother did some missionary work for a while.

I feel a lot better about my son now. It doesn't feel like so daunting a task.

[MTL]

Hiya, nice to meet you

Sorry you had to go through the deconversion stage, I imagine it must be horrible. But congratulations on fighting your way through to atheism

Sneaky indoctrination is always a problem. My advice would be to concentrate on teaching your child critical thinking skills. No need to preach at him "there is no God" like some theists seem to think atheists do. If you teach him how to think logically, he will likely recognise any sort of indoctrination for the nonsense it is. And if he comes to you with questions about religion, I recommend using a series of questions in return to help him come to his own conclusions (the Socratic method). It's more effective to enable someone to realise for themselves why something is nonsense, rather than just telling them it's nonsense.

However, children are vulnerable when very young, before the age of reason. If people start trying to program him in this window, then you're more than justified in telling them to back off.

I agree completely.

Indoctrination is Indoctrination.

Programming a kid to be Atheist is not much better than programming him to be a Theist.

Teaching our kids to be a carbon copy of ourselves isn't good parenting.

Enabling them to become the best version of themselves, is.

Learning how to ask the right questions in life, in ANY situation, is a highly valuable skill, indeed.

[MTL]

Thanks, robvalue! It helps to have perspective from someone who was not raised religiously. I was just thinking earlier today about the sheer number of different church programs I went to as a kid - church and Sunday school, yes, but also a Wednesday night program, a Christian knock-off of girl scouts, vacation bible school, youth group... and that was only the stuff outside the home. Even if my son occasionally gets a dose from Grandma, it won't be anything like I had growing up.

My home life was just like that, too, BlackBird.
I was at church, it seemed, more than I was at school or at home.
To break free from that requires a lot of mental and emotional strength, and individuality.

[BlackBird]

Thanks, MTL.

And I agree, any indoctrination is bad. I can see how easy it would be to swing the complete other way, especially if indoctrination is what you knew growing up.

If I can get out of it with critical thinking, staying out with critical thinking should be much easier.

[robvalue]

I'm glad you're feeling better about it BB With you looking out for him, I'm sure he'll be just fine.