h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I don't believe in God - sorry but I don't.

This leaves me with the problem that I can't give my son the easy answer to death i.e. "Grannny gone to heaven" but have to explain a little more that she has got old and dies, like flowers etc. but we can all remember her.

More difficult is that I know he won't understand why some other families seem very certain about heaven and stuff like that. Have you noticed how atheists tend to keep it to themselves, they'll even mutter the Lord's Prayer when necessary so as not to stand out, but beleivers are more uncompromising. While I try to be tactful and will say "some people believe that... " about religious things I've never met a believer who would also take that approach. This makes it especially difficult for childern of non-believers because this may be the first instance where someone suggests their parents might be wrong.

Take no prisoners, make no allowances.

The lesson that there are no easy answers is far more valuable than ANY spurious parable, and if they have any intelligence at all your children will respect you more for not lying to them.

"More difficult is that I know he won't understand why some other families seem very certain about heaven and stuff like that."

Simple answer - they're stupid.

Some people are very certain Elvis is alive and well, some people are very certain astrology is a science, and some people think the earth is flat. We need such people to flip our burgers, empty our bins and sweep our streets, so it's just as well that not everyone is particularly bright.

And if your children say "surely not THAT many people are THAT stupid?", show them the sales figures for "The Sun" newspaper. Or educate them about probability and statistics, then tell them how many people buy lottery tickets every week, or take them to a race meeting and get them to watch a bookie raking in the cash from the punters. If that doesn't annihilate their faith in human intelligence, there are too many other examples to list here...

"Have you noticed how atheists tend to keep it to themselves, they'll even mutter the Lord's Prayer when necessary so as not to stand out"

Not all of us.

Why do it? If a Christian were in a room full of Star Trek fans, and said fans started reciting their favourite script, I expect the Christian response would be to look on in indulgent amusement. That's exactly the attitude I adopt if social conventions ever require me to be in the presence of people who feel it necessary to mouth a memorised passage or sing a song about their imaginary friend.

Which is worse? Being the only person in the room not talking to someone who isn't there? Or being a hypocrite for the sake of conformity?

"While I try to be tactful ... I've never met a believer who would also take that approach."

Then stop being tactful. Why should you? Treat those who cannot handle reality without a crutch with the attitude they treat you.

"This makes it especially difficult for childern of non-believers because this may be the first instance where someone suggests their parents might be wrong."

Again, simple answer - prove it. Time and again, when pressed, religionists fail to prove anything they contend about the world, and in many cases seem to fail to understand what proof is and why it is reasonable to ask for it.

Another point though - it's important for your children to learn early that you are NOT infallible (and neither is anyone else). Kids worship their parents, and the realisation that their hero(ine) has feet of clay can hit them hard. So never be afraid to say "I don't know", and always check your facts and admit your mistakes. Admitting ignorance and error should be something that gains you respect. Making up answers when you don't know, and refusing to admit when you're wrong will only make you look worse.

H.

Hoo,

I agree with all that you say in the above post with the exception of the following:

"We need such people to flip our burgers, empty our bins and sweep our streets, so it's just as well that not everyone is particularly bright."

It's this kind of 'intellectual' snobbery that is as harmful to impressionable children as imposing irrational beliefs and practices on them may be.

Perhaps you are correct, perhaps SOME of the people that flip our burgers, empty our bins and sweep our streets are not 'particularly bright.' Perhaps not. Certainly it's not ALL of them. And it doesn't mean the rest of us should think them stupid for it. As you say, they perform some vital services.

This pigeon-holing and social labelling of human beings by other human beings is, in my opinion, at least as damaging to accept as the norm as religion.

So, would you rather have some children hold some irrational beliefs that teach them to respect other human beings (regardless of whether they actually do or not), or would you rather have athiest 'intellectual' children that are taught to look down at the men and women that flip our burgers, empty our bins and sweep our streets?

You also mentioned the importance of proof in your post. I could ask you to prove the sentiment: 'We need stupid people to flip our burgers, empty our bins and sweep our streets.' But I'm not going to ask that, I'm fairly sure that you'll either agree with me and retract the statement, or forge ahead and attempt to justify it, either way, I've made my position clear.

I think it's all well and good to show your children what you believe, but you should also allow them to make their own minds up. Fair enough if you're an athiest (so am I...) but your children might not grow up with the same beliefs as you, and that's not necessarily a bad think. I think all children should be educated about all religions (or the major ones anyway) and helped to work out what they believe, rather than being preached to and almost forced to believe (or pretend to believe) what their parents do.

I agree with most of the above, especially with Cyzaki's comments.

I'm not religious myself, and I don't believe in forcing your religious beliefs (or lack thereof) on children.
I speak from experience as I have grown up with my grandmother telling me how important it is that I go to church. I, inquisitive from the moment I could speak right up until the present day, wanted to know why. "Because you should" or "because it's the right thing to do" have never been sufficient arguments for me, but that's all I have ever heard from her. In a way I resent my grandparents (although I love them dearly) for attempting to force me into religion, and it is probably partly due to their continual and unconvincing attempts to convert me that I am not religious myself.

However, I am respectful of the fact that some people do have strong religious beliefs- for example, a very good friend of mine is strongly religious and lives her life following the Christian religion and it's rules and ideals very strcitly. However, she does not try to enforce her views on me, and respects my views and opinions on religion as I do hers.

For the record, as well as having strongly religious beliefs, she is a medical student at University, attains high grades and will certainly not be flipping burgers or emptying bins for a living.

I believe it is important not to impose silly personal grievances on children (i.e. 'people who believe in a God are idiots and will never amount to anything) as they are quite simply not true, and children by their very nature are impressionable.

While I am a respectful person and would never dare attempt to change anyone's practices or alter their beliefs, I do have a problem with people who are unwilling to question anything.

Regardless of acedemic prowess, if you never question the things that you're encouraged to accept, it's very difficult to actually learn anything for yourself, instead, you just memorise facts and utilise that knoweldge in an appropriate job. It doesn't neccessarily make you intelligent.

Disclaimer: Not that I'm suggesting that your med student friend is an unquestioning acedemic idiot, the above can be applied to anyone, religious or not.

My point was that my friend is not flipping burgers- i.e. being strongly religious does not make you any worse/lower/more stupid an individual (or better/higher/more intelligent) than a non- religious person.

I agree that it is important to question things you've been told (as I implied in my previous message, and which is why I have said in other postings for this article that it is important not to put children off asking questions).

I also believe that it is important that you do not enforce your views and opinions on children and let them ask their own questions and decide for themselves- i.e, I do not agree with a previous poster's comment which implied that you should tell a child who is confused as to why another child's parents believe in heaven and God etc whereas his or her own parents do not because the people concerned are 'stupid'.

My point was that a person's religious beliefs are not what makes them 'stupid' or 'intelligent' any more than which brand of ketchup you prefer, or even if you like ketchup or not. There is no discernible relationship between these factors.

I agree with what you are saying but if a child is brought up in a CofE school, even if the parents are non-believers, then should the parents keep up the pretence of the teachings of god and other matters if the child believes in what they've learnt?
What I mean is, if the child believes that if somebody dies, then they go to heaven, but they ask you, the parent, if this is true, then should you tell them that it is true, or tell them what you think - which could confuse the child even more?

"I refuse to prove I exist." says God, "for proof denies faith, and without faith, I don't exist."

"But the Babel fish is a dead giveaway!" says man, "Nothing so useful could have evolved purely bu chance!"

"I never thought of that!" says God, and vanishes in a puff of logic.
---------------------------------------

It's no longer entirely a matter of does/doesn't god exist. God is (for many people) just something to believe in. It's something that gives hope. What sounds better? (1) You will die. or (2) You will die and go to another place where you'll be happy forever.

[But hey I'm not saying there's no God, or something like it, I'm all for omnipotent energy beings!]

In such a situation I think the parent should tell the truth- the truth is that no- one actually knows what happens when we die. Diferent people have different opinions, and the parent should be able to tell the child their opinion without discounting the child's own belief, in the same way that I will not cough at the beliefs of others as I expect them to respect my beliefs.

If one person believes in heaven and another doesn't, so what? They both have the right to express their personal opinions without being offended by or looking down on one another. The same, in my opinion, should be true for a parent- child relationship.

TK

My children attend a CofE school and when they started to question the belief-based information they had been given at school I tried talking to them about belief itself. This seemed to be fair way to tackle what they were being taught without saying simply that it was wrong.

I have tried to get them to understand that beliefs are things we hold personally as ideas, not based on evidence. That to have some beliefs is beneficial, since they offer a framework for thinking and that religious beliefs can be comforting and beneficial together by providing a framework for unselfish or positive behaviours.

I tried to identify my own beliefs about science, death, the bible etc. and explain that I too only had evidence that I was willing to believe for the structure of the atom or the universe.

Quite how well this was received by a couple of 5 year-olds I don't know, but we can now discuss Jesus, the tooth fairy or monsters without having to discuss whether they really exist(ed).

It is possible that I successfully pre-empted some of the argument by discussing irrational fears, like of monsters in the night. My children grasped the concept of things that only happen in their heads, things that could be communicated as ideas into someone elses head.

What I think I am saying is that truth is important, although it should not be presented inconsiderately or without balance and that belief is an important part of what makes us human, whether it be a belief in an omnipresent, omnipotent God or the Great Green Arklesiezure.

A good line might go along the lines of "they believe in because their parents told them...".

I think that if a child asked me why some people believe in God I'd tell them I think it's because it's a simple solution to questions that we don't have any certain answers for and faith in God allows people to feel more comfortable than taking responsibility for their own lives and actions. Some people are like children who need the threats of parent or a policeman to set the rules and give punishments when they break them, and they find it easier to behave because they believe that God knows everything and watches every move they make. Those people also need to believe that God will forgive them and still love them, even when they do things they know are wrong, as long as they say they're sorry. It can give them an excuse for being weak and not living up to the standards they believe are right. Some people need that kind of structure to make sense of their existence.

It doesn't sound like you know many Christians....

I don't think that's the reason anyone becomes a Christian. I know a couple of them and they are without a doubt morally far stronger than I am! They're also intelligent people (the ones I know, anyway).

From what I've gathered from them (I've been asking them all about Christianity, I'm curious about it) they are still responsible for all their actions; apparently God doesn't want us to be mindless sheep! Plus I get the impression that you can't do anything you like and then say sorry if you don't mean it.

If your children ask about God and all that, simply say that some people believe very strongly in a supreme being who created everything around us, and they believe that in order to please Him we have to obey laws He wrote and avoid doing bad things to others and ourselves. (Most religions are based around that sort of thing.)

Flake99 is very clear on the matter.

The other non-committal mutterings about , well some people have beliefs simply because the answers are not immediately evident, or too tricky, or those folk are too weak minded to be responsible for the realities that arise and just need to be herded in the right direction or they will get scared, only serves to reinforce the attitude that believers are "just stupid".

Like Douglas Adams I cannot profess to understanding why otherwise intelligent people believe in god, but they do... fascinating.

Insulting people (this of course includes children), personally , or insulting their intelligence with nonsensical fluff about the Great Green Arkelsiezure or worse still, excusing irrational beliefs with a "so what?", can only cloud the crystal view of a young mind .

There are so many exciting, beautiful,and imaginative ideas (thank god) to be thought if we free ourselves from the shackles of a thinking system that actively inhibits the thorough exploration of where a thread, tangent, or curve may lead .

Thank god? Well ,

"..what other word is there? When there's that gratitude in
you for life's dumb luck, when there's nobody to thank
and you need to thank somebody, what do you say? God...
The word sounded to me like a way of disposing of emotion.
It was a place to put something that had no place else to go."
- Salman Rushdie

If god is the opiate of the masses, then agnosticism is their methadone. Global culture is changing rapidly and as the spiritual dream fragments we must be wary of dangerous withdrawls, and direct our attention in a positive direction.

We have evolved our cultures and our hybrid minds by virtue of our "superplastic" brains. Let's use them to continue to conceive of a deeper understanding built on the gains of the past; learning where we can move forward, and what we can leave behind.

Let's teach our children how to find and know the truth, then they may show it to us.

Peace
rosi

ps. you don't think the GGA will be angry, do you?

There are a lot of people on here suggesting answers to give children which can only serve to tech them to look dowen on those that have different views and beliefs to themselves (or more accurately, their parents). These are exactly the same principals which are frowned upon as being racist, sexist, anti-semetic etc...

Whereas many of you find it disturbing that 'seemingly intelligent' people can believe in God or heaven, etc, I find it disturbing that 'seemingly intelligent' people look down on others purely because they hold different views or beliefs- believing in heaven, God, etc does not harm anyone any more than having dark skin or a Ford Fiesta.

Passing on such discriminatory views to children should be discouraged- by all means express your own opinions, but let others express theirs. Neither 'side' in any such argument should attempt to enforce their views on the impressionable young, but let them learn and decide for themselves.

TK

Why is it that everyone assumes that once you are openly a member of a religion that your ability to question things and think independently goes out of the window?

But back onto topic....


"Let's teach our children how to find and know the truth, then they may show it to us."
I've got to agree. We should encourage our children to think actively about the world around them, how they interact with it and what things might mean. Exploring the world around us is the best way for us to learn about it.

And of course, we should try and let them form their own judgements!

PS - Sir Temporal Bandit, I also second what you've said!

Thanks, at last someone who doesn't belong to the 'if you're different I don't like you' clan!

No offence

TK

"Why is it that everyone assumes that once you are openly a member of a religion that your ability to question things and think independently goes out of the window?" - Rains

Who is 'everyone'? As far as I can see, the only person who explicitly talked about not questioning things was me. Therefore, I can only assume that the above remark was aimed in my direction (if I'm wrong, then please ignore this entire post).

In the post to which I am referring I said that I have a problem with 'people' that don't question anything. Not 'religious people' or 'non-religious people', simply, 'people.' I even added a disclaimer for further clarity.

And even if it wasn't a pointed remark at me, it's a rather sweeping generalisation to make, isn't it? It's also an assumption that attacks another assumption, which is clearly hypocritical.