I have a friend that had started going with me to my church youth group because it was something to do besides sit at home on Wednesday and besides we did weekend activities too anyway much to my surprise he eventually went up during the altar call to accept Christ.
Since his parent’s were allowing him to come to church with me I assumed they would have no problem finding out their son was a Christian and I told them about the altar call and I was shocked when I found out that his parents are giving him grief about it. He wouldn’t go into specifics but I do know that he was not allowed to go with me to Youth Group after I told his parents about the altar call.
Apparently his parent’s are athiest…but I can’t understand why if they were going to become upset then how come he was allowed in the first place to go to church events with me…and secondly he now has something added to his life which is a belief system that will help him to do right and give him some hope…what could be bad about that? I would understand a little better if they had already had a religion but they didn’t so the whole thing doesn’t make sense to me.
Any Athiest parents out there that would be mad if your child started following a religion or went up to an altar call at a church?
That said, I probably wouldn’t care, but the thing to keep in mind is that a lot of atheists had very bad experiences with church and they don’t like to be associated with it in any way.
You think that atheists have more trouble with morals and hope than believers? You’re wrong.
Probably depends on the type of church and who it is with, now doesn’t it?
My parents were a tad distressed when my sister started going to church, because it was a Catholic church (my dad was an altar boy) and they hate her boyfriend. They didn’t so much have a problem other than that. They certainly don’t mind my religion.
They may be more bothered (or, depending on the type of atheist, LESS bothered) by non-mainstream religions, though I hear most accept the modern day AMerica rape of what we call Buddhism and the like these days. They’d probably be a little concerned if little Billy started going to mosque every Friday.
Maybe I’d be a bit disappointed, but certainly not mad.
If it makes him or her happy, I’d tolerate it OK. I’m already a bit jealous of religious people, what with the happiness and comfort many get from their beliefs.
I would be upset and disappointed if my kids did anything that I would not do myself: believe in gods, vote Republican, wear navy with brown, smoke cigarettes, go to Jim Carrey movies.
That is one of the many, many reasons I don’t have kids: they will invariably do whatever will piss you off the most.
I wouldn’t be angry at my child if he decided to believe in God, although how supportive I would be of his decision would probably vary depending on his age. I certainly wouldn’t be thrilled by the news.
I don’t particularly find the parents’ reaction to be particularly surprising. I think that there are many parents out there who would not react well to having their child disagree with them on a fundamental issue such as religion. I’ve read a number of posts here on the SDMB by atheists complaining about the pressure their religious parents put on them to go to church.
Beyond that, there is certainly a group of atheists out there with a less than positive attitude towards organized religion. Your reaction is colored by the fact that you view your friend’s conversion as a positive change. His parents may well regard it as a very negative one.
Okay, smart-assednessicityism aside: As an atheist, I do nothing but that which is right. I refrain from spitting on the sidewalk, I pick up litter, I hardly ever eat kittens. Hell, since I stopped smoking I even curse less.
Just because someone isn’t religious doesn’t mean that they don’t do right. This really steams my beans.
Not to speak for the poster or support his arguement, but he said “helps them do right”, not “lets them do right” … I didn’t see any implication that “right” is necessarily religious, just that religious is “right”… which opens up a whole other can of beans, but that’s how I read it.
By the way, I’m kind of curious as to how this thread will go. I’m not an atheist, so I won’t get involved (yet), but there have been some pretty interesting answers… some that I can’t say I agree with at all. :-/
I am curious about something—if some of you, as atheists, didn’t like getting grief from your (religious) parents about your atheism, would you still feel it was okay to “give grief” to your kid for embracing a belief system you do not share? And how do you define “give grief”? I would not personally define feeling disappointed (but keeping the expression of that disappointment low-key) as “giving grief,” however, actively forbidding the kid to attend church functions would definitely be “giving grief.”
Quite. And not to step on anyone’s toes, but I found Eve’s answer bordering on disturbing. I mean, it is one of those posts I can’t tell if she is being totally serious, or just joking around, but the concept of not having kids because they might/will not be exactly like you?
It is weird. Like Russian parents worrying their kids will be Capitalists, and American parents worrying their kids will be Communists.
Well, my wife has decided to raise our daughter in the RCC as long as I reserve the right to tell her it’s all bullshit and she doesn’t have to believe it.
Seriously, I don’t want to control my kid’s mind but I want her to know how to think and be critical. I wouldn’t try to stop her from pursuing whatever religion she wanted but I might be more disappointed in some choices than others (YEC Fundamentalism would irritate me more than Catholicism or something a little less irrational).
Yosemite, I don’t think anyone in this thread has said they would forbid their kid to attend church functions. I took Eve’s answer as being tongue in cheek, not to mention moot since she doesn’t have any kids. But even she didn’t say she would actively forbid her kids to go to church.
I’m also reasonably sure that a lot of Christian parents would not be too happy with their kids converting to Islam or Wicca.
I don’t care what other people – including my own children – believe so long as they don’t get in my face about it. I would be upset if they became intolerant fundie-style Christians, but it’s the “intolerant fundie” part that I would protest. But I’m a very soft atheist with no beef against Christianity. I have known many people who felt their connection with religion enhanced their lives. I allowed my husband to raise our kids Lutheran because I really didn’t care much one way or the other – it was more important to him that they be raised with a faith than it was to me that they be raised without it.
I could see more strict atheists being upset about their kids “finding God,” though. I imagine that would be the same level of disappointment that a practicing Jew might feel if his kid converted to Christianity, or a devout Catholic if her kid became Wiccan. Although most decent parents don’t expect their kids to grow up exactly like them, I think most of us do want our kids to maintain the value system we raise them with. And for many people, their religion is pretty integrated with their value system.
I would never dream of telling my kid not to attend church services, or give them any sort of ‘grief’ over their religious convictions. Although you can expect a lot of interesting debates over the dinner table.
Overall though I’d be very dissapointed for the reason Revtim illustrated so succinctly. I would spare no effort in enriching my kids with core values of critical thinking, and how to arrive at logical conclusions through investigation, research, impericla data, etc.
To have my kid then join chrstianity for example, TO ME, would be like throwing those concepts out the window.
My mom is Jewish and my dad is Jewish by blood but really atheist. I grew up going to (very) religious private school (part of elementary school after I immigrated from Russia and middle school…BAD experience) so I believed at first but then I stopped when they refused to answer my probing questions. My dad would smirk at religion sometimes but he never straight up told me “This is bullshit” because he wanted to me to figure things out on my own which I’m still doing. Anyway, I think that approach is best, letting the kid figure it out unless he’s getting drawn into some weird cult at a young age.
My reaction would depend on a lot of things, such as the age of the child, the sect chosen, and the degree of his/her belief. I certainly wouldn’t be happy, and if the religion seemed to doing more harm than good I would cut off contact between my child and the church. If the child was old enough, and church was beneficial to him, then I’d be more accepting after the initial shock wore off.
