Much needed advice. I need more atheist friends.

[Ksa]

I live about 3 hours south east from Baton Rouge. It would be nice to have something like that to attend around here.
You are right about Christians here being more excepting to less religious folks. Most, if not all, are hypocritical sheep in denial. It is still looked down upon though.
There are churches on every damn corner it seems. And not just small ones either... There are billboards for most of the huge churches too. Southern States are pretty damn ridiculous with the whole Jesus thing.
I'm not bashing on the home schooled. Lol. A couple of my close friends are home schooled. They're a bit odd. But great non the less. Regardless, financially, I do not have the means to do so with my son or future children.
I'm hoping that my son is an easy going child who lives and rationalize with common sense. I will always be there to help him.

Parents like you complain about having to explain to their children what sex is and how they came into this world. In my opinion, this is an easy task where you can turn to science and exceed in your wisdom, and the child will be happy.

However, when it comes to explaining to the child that, like every other human being, he was born sentenced to death, that's the tricky part. "mother, why do people die, and, will I die too?".

All of a sudden, science no longer cuts it. It just doesn't. WHY? Because the child will ask you, if his days are counted, why go to school? Why struggle? Towards what end? And it's a legitimate question. You are asking the child to sacrifice 20% of his life going to school, rather than playing in the yard and enjoying his minuscule life span just like any other creature on Earth.

The mother then says, if you don't go to school, you will be a nobody. Child replies, Al Pacino and John Travolta never finished high-school and they are more important people then you mom with a P.HD in God knows what. Then the mother tells the child, you have to go to school because everyone else goes there, child replies, am I a lamb?

If you want to answer this question accurately, you have to tell the child what weird species he's born into because the child has no clue what shit he's gotten himself into. To do that, tell him this Mayan story:

“And a man sat alone
drenched in deep sadness.
And all the animals drew near to him and said:
We do not like to see you so sad…
Ask us for whatever you wish and you shall have it.
The man said:
I want to have good sight.
The vulture replied:
You shall have mine.
The man said:
I want to be strong.
The jaguar replied:
You shall be strong like me.
The man said:
I long to learn the secrets of the earth.
The serpent replied:
I will show them to you.
And so it went with all of the animals.
And when the man had all the gifts that they could give…..he left.
Then the owl said to the other animals:
Now the man knows much and is able to do many things….Suddenly I am scared.
The deer said:
The man has all that he needs now his sadness will stop..
But the owl replied :
No….I saw a hole in the man…deep like a hunger he will never fill.
It is what makes him sad and what makes him want.
He will go on taking and taking….
Until one day the world will say: I am no more and I have nothing left to give.”

You tell the child that there's a hole in him. That playing in the yard will get boring and suddenly, he will become sad. He will want more, and going to school is required for him to be able to get more and fill his hole that has no bottom, that only death is able to fill entirely. I believe the problem originates from the difference between what our reason wants us to do and what our physical body was programmed to do. The truth is we operate on some pretty outdated hardware. Our progress was...a total surprise.

But of course, unless you want the child to become suicidal, you will tell the child that once you die you go to Heaven, so during this life, you must sacrifice, struggle, strive and do good deeds so that finally when you die, you get to do what you should have kept on doing when you were 6. Otherwise, sacrificing most of your life towards questionable endings will seem idiotic even to a 6 year old. Or, you can read my next post.