Atheist Parenting Guide

[freedeepthink]

I think you should let them find out their faiths/beliefs in their own time, don't pressurise or stop them from doing things, (apart from illegal activities)

This was my approach as a Christian. The problem with this is I don't want her growing up with the inability to think critically, or the possibility of her wrongly denying scientific facts based solely on the idea that they conflict with her beliefs. With Christianity (her most likely religious choice) she would be more likely to deny evolution, archeology, genetics, physics, cosmology, and geology, to name a few, and almost scariest of all, all of her beliefs would not be tentative.

Excellent! I agree. Share the science, not wishful fantasies. Help your children understand the beauty of the real world. I really like this. Then when she is confronted with religious influences, she will naturally ask herself logical questions.

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I think back to when I was a devout Christian and I had that ridiculous "blind faith" attitude. To question your Christian dogma was immoral. It was only in my deep pursuit of what the whole bible really said did I discover the ridiculousness of the bible. I realized that the God of the bible wasn't at all loving but a selfish and threatening bully that would create a civilization knowing, in advance, that most of it's creatures should burn eternally. Utter madness! Hopefully, my girls will understand the ridiculousness of the bible too, but through their understanding of the truth.

Now, I am not going to tell my daughters to be atheists. However, in discussing history how can I resist warning them of the dreadful consequences that religion has had upon mankind? It really isn't a subject I can ignore. Imagine: Daddy, why did the inquisition happen? Daddy, what does ISIS wan't from the rest of the world and why?

Isn't religion the biggest scam ever fabricated upon/within human civilization? How can I not share my opinion with her while at the same time (to be fair) to explain the converse. Again, when age appropriate? I wonder how other atheists are explaining ISIS and the religious war to their teens?