Teach children about Jesus at a young age,

[emjay]

I can't tell you how much that means to me emjay I am overcome that you would consider my opinion on things so highly You make me feel very proud!

I agree, while religion is strong in a house, the crap will probably continue. But I've heard more and more stories of liberal parents who don't presume their children will take their faith. They seem to focus on educating them properly, and allowing them to choose for themselves. I think this is a trend that will continue as religion becomes less and less fundamental, over many generations. I think indoctrinating these days is a lot harder than it used to be. Instant worldwide communications make insular environments much harder to create.

You're welcome Rob   It's amazing what a little community can do... make things real that were once only vague ideas... no man is an island and all that. It was the same when I met other gay people for the first time and was no longer alone. It makes all the difference. So being here on this site has changed the sort of atheist I am and given me far more confidence in my convictions, along with more arguments against god than I ever would have thought of myself. And I kind of see you as the Richard Dawkins of this site and the figurehead of it. You're such a welcoming presence and you do so much to help new atheists. I'm so glad I met you 

You're about the luckiest man alive having no religious baggage whatsoever. You can look at all religions equally, from Zeus to Jesus, and say 'that's ridiculous'. I would give everything I owned to be able to do that. I can do that only for every other religion other than the one I was brought up in, Christianity. With Christianity it takes a lot more because I have a lot more to undo... a lot more subconscious and programmed ideas that I have to deal with. So despite the inherent inconsistency in just about every aspect of Christianity, I can't write it off in the same way as I could Zeus. I don't believe in it but it's still there lurking all the time. The problem is you just can't 'unlearn' things... you can replace them, you can repress them, or you can forget them, but you can't unlearn them   So that's part of why I'm so pissed off that I never really had much of a choice in hearing those messages when I was growing up.

Anyway, I hope your vision comes true. It's just that fundamentalism takes many forms so outwardly a family might look pretty liberal and casual in their religion but it all comes down to the strength of belief of the parents. As I said, I've never met anyone with the level of belief of my dad... you could put all the Christians together on this site and IMO it wouldn't even approach it. I hope it comes to a point of liberal parents thinking like you say, but in my own experience those sorts of Christians... here usually CofE or whatever, aren't really Christians in the first place... they follow the traditions and all that but don't seem to really believe. If I ever meet a Christian with the same level of belief as my dad, but also with a let-them-make-their-own-choices approach to parenting, that will be the day I rejoice.