Advice on dealing with teenager's professed lack of religious belief

In My Humble Opinion
1

My 13-year old son announced this weekend that he is fairly sure that he is either an atheist or at least agnostic, and that instead, he “believes in science.”

On the whole, I guess I’m OK with this, but my wife is a bit upset. On the other hand, she has nobody to blame but herself, because she has not endeavored to impart any religious education on him other than a general belief in God.

Both my wife and I were raised Catholic, my wife much more so than me. I got through First Communion before my parents got divorced and our family stopped attending church. My wife was a pretty fervent Catholic until her own divorce, at which point she got pretty disillusioned with the Catholic church and what she perceived as the church’s extortion demands to get an annulment in order to remain a Catholic in good standing.

When my son was born, my wife was still angry at the Catholic church, yet could not contemplate attending any other denomination, so we’ve never gone to church at all other than for weddings and funerals. My son was never even baptized.

My son is essentially completely ignorant of any religious tradition. For some reason this bothers me a bit. I’m fairly knowledgeable about religion (scoring a perfect score on the religious knowledge quiz referred to in this thread), and I think my son should know something about religious traditions–especially that of Christianity–if nothing else than for some vague sense of “cultural knowledge.”

The other complicating factor is Boy Scouts. BSA is currently completely intolerant of atheists/agnostics, and will not allow a boy or leader professing this to remain in the organization. I personally like Scouts a lot, and believe it’s done a lot for my son. It’s really the only formal moral guidance he gets in his life (other than from me and my wife), with respect to being kind, trustworthy, etc.

As for myself, my beliefs are somewhat muddled. If pressed, I would say that I do believe in God, or at least hope that there is a higher power and some point to life. I do not believe in the literal truth of the Bible. I might have some Deist beliefs, and have recently been attracted by what I’ve read of Unitarian Universalism. Perhaps I’m an atheist or agnostic, too, but just don’t want to admit this to myself.

So anyway, I was looking for input as to where I should go from here with respect to my son. Perhaps there’s nothing I can or should do. I’m somewhat torn between dropping the subject entirely; or telling him he can believe (or not) in whatever he chooses; or encouraging him to keep an open mind; or to start taking him to church (which he doesn’t want to go to). I have tried to talk to him about my own beliefs, but muddled as there are, I’m not really getting much across to him.

I feel like I’m completely failing as a parent here. My wife is no particular help here. She can’t see past Catholicism, and has been meaning to “talk to the local priest” for years now, but never gets around to it. I’ve thought about looking into a Unitarian Universalist church, but my wife is completely against this, too.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

2

I suspect your window for exercising any actual influence (other than by example, which seems to have already taken root) is probably over. I was about 13 when I first came to the same conclusion, and I don’t think there was anything my parents could have done to talk or influence me out of it. I already knew what they thought, based on the past 13 years of behavior.

I also wouldn’t worry about it. When he goes out into the wide world he will be exposed to a lot of influences, religious and secular. If he is able to think he will be able to evaluate them for himself.

And although his moral character is also already pretty well formed, this is an area where I think you may still have time to be a good influence, again by your own behavior. I would be more worried about that. If he doesn’t have religion, does he have other underpinnings for being a moral person? Or can he learn them?
Roddy

3

What concern is it of yours? Have you considered minding your own business and allowing your son to think whatever he chooses to think? (As if you can hope to influence that anyway.)

4

I suggest being proud for him.

5

Uhhh, I ought to just mind my own business, but you never baptised him and now you’re worried he doesn’t believe? If religion was that important to you, I’d think you’d have baptised him at least.

6

My mother did the same thing you and your wife did. She raised me to believe in some nebulous god, never enforced any kind of religious upbringing or ceremony, and only got upset when I took god’s name in vain, yet took my declared atheism as a personal affront.

Her not realizing this was my own life and my own decision led to years of conflict and ultimately culminated in my step-father and I literally fighting when he wouldn’t drop a religious argument or let me by him so I could go to my room. They’ve eventually mellowed out and accept my lack of faith, as well they should, because one’s spiritual life is no one else’s but their own. If you wanted your son to be a Catholic, you should have done something about it before now. It’s now his own decision.

7

I was raised Catholic, and the church was 50 feet from home and the church was part of my community.

I was an atheist by the time I was 12.

Are you regretting that you didn’t get a chance to skew his ability to remain somewhat objective?

8

Mind his own business? He’s the kid’s father. It’s his business. Of course it’s a concern of his. Especially true of a minor. That’s what parents do.

Now it’s debatable whether he should try to convince him to believe something other than what he believes, but it’s certainly acceptable to decide to provide more of an education about what religious beliefs are out there and what religious traditions exist in the culture.

9

You came to the wrong board for “advice” on this topic. Most people here are going to back up your son (myself included). Since he believes in science, at least he believes in something real.

10

I agree with the rest of the crowd; your son is thinking for himself, and reaching conclusions based on evidence, not on faith. Why is this a bad thing exactly?

Also, I have to raise the point that you never took him to church. You never got him baptized, and you expect him to somehow blindly follow in your belief? Wow.

I never got taken to church as a kid either. You’ll never guess what that did to my beliefs!

11

Does he like pasta? If so, there may be hope.

12

I agree fully! Give him a pat on the back. Be proud of him man.

I am curious, why does it bother you that he does not believe?

13

Perhaps you and your wife could articulate to your son what it is you want religion to mean in his life. I’m an atheist and so are my kids yet we go to synagogue, my son had his bar mitzvah and my daughter is on her way to her bat mitzvah and we celebrate holidays in our home. I told my kids what value I thought participating had for me and why it was important to our family. I told them what I hoped they would get out of it and what I expected their level of participation to be, while we still all lived together. I never told them what to think or believe. They are certainly allowed to bored and think it’s silly, if they wanted to.

So perhaps you and your wife could explain what religion mean to you and what value you see it bring to your family. Do you go to church regularly? Christmas/Easter? Would you expect him to go and be polite, while acknowledging and accepting his lack of belief? Could you explain that it makes mom happy to have him sit next to her in Church on Christmas and that’s a small sacrifice, while not making feel guilty for his own beliefs? Perhaps explaining that you like it because it brings back fond childhood memories of your own? etc.

The bottom line is that you can communicate respect for his point of view while asking him to have respect for your wife’s point of view and as a member of the family you ask him to participate in reasonable way, if you have good and valid reasons to do. It’s not about forcing him to believe, it’s asking him to be a participating member of your family.

14

I think your massivly over-estimating the religious component of the modern Boy Scouts, especially in New England (I’m assuming your still in Conneticut). My entire family of more-or-less athiests went through Scouts in Vermont during the 90’s, and it never caused any issues. There are occasional, very general, mentions of religious piety, but as long as your son doesn’t mind those I can’t imagine what other problems he’d have in the scouts. They don’t grill you about your beliefs or demand church attendance or anything.

As for the rest, I’m an athiest but I don’t really see any problem with exposing your kids to his religious background if you want to. Sign him up for some Sunday school at the Church, he’ll probably hate it and come away with an even more athiest view, but at least he’ll have some frame of reference when thinking about religion or when others discuss it.

15

Maybe the obvious needs to be stated, if only for your wife’s benefit:

You can’t make your son believe in anything, no matter how much you might drag him to church.

That said, teaching him something about various religions (not just catholicism) is probably a good thing. This doesn’t necessarily need to be done by dragging him to church.

re: boy scouts, I was once in the same situation as your son. My parents weren’t bothered that I was atheist/agnostic, but they cautioned me to be careful about who I shared that information with. It generally wasn’t an issue until it came time to achieve the rank of Eagle Scout, at which point you are required to obtain a letter of reference from a “religious official” within your church (minister, rabbi, priest, etc.). Not being a member of any formal church, I was permitted to instead submit a statement of belief, on which I basically lied my ass off, professing a belief in God but preferring to worship in my own individual way. The Eagle Scout award was seen by my parents and me as an important achievement, one that might open doors for me in the future, and to forego it (and all the other work I had done toward it) because of one arbitrary bullshit rule (“you can believe anything you want, except THAT”) seemed a waste.

As being in a Boy Scout troop is probably a good thing in general for a boy, this might be a good time to start teaching your son some real-life lessons about tolerance, caution (i.e. thinking carefully about to whom he divulges his beliefs), and choosing your battles (i.e. he could declare his beliefs to BSA and then fight them all the way to the supreme court for the right to remain in his troop, or he could keep quiet and continue to reap the benefits of being a boy scout).

16

Your wife sounds like my bubbe. She raised my dad to think that religion was pointless, never once took him to a synagogue, and they lived in a neighborhood that was essentially entirely Catholic. Then she got pissed off when he decided to marry my mom. (Who also isn’t religious, but comes from an Irish Catholic family.) He should have just known that he should marry a Jew, and he was betraying his people by marrying a gentile.

You sow what you reap. Your son is an atheist. Deal.

17

It sounds like you don’t really have a problem. Your wife has a problem and she’s complaining and dithering rather than doing something about it. You are under no compunction to make this go away for her. Your choices are: 1) you can nod and make sympathetic noises when she complains, or 2) you can put the problem firmly in her court every time she complains, or 3) you can tell her you’re tired of hearing her complain and don’t want to hear any more unless she’s got a plan of action. There may be a fourth choice of discussing the problem in great detail, but only if you enjoy that kind of thing.

If she ever gets a plan of action, you’re free to disagree with it. Until then, if you don’t have a problem with your son’s decision, then you don’t have a problem.

18

I think this is less about your son and more about you and your wife having to accept that you won’t have a traditional Catholic family like the one you grew up in. Your son would be about confirmation age, ie, the age when he takes over from his parents his own religious practice. JMHO but I don’t think there’s much you can do now, accept influence him as a fellow free-thinking person.

But that said, maybe you want to think about going for yourself. You could certainly go to a UU church by yourself without your spouse, it’s not like they are going to question you. Or encourage your wife to talk to a priest (but of course you can’t make her) or do something besides what you have been doing, which is sorta put the whole thing off.

ETA: So what Yllaria said, but think about yourself too.

19

Background…We are Catholic, I converted as an adult, but let my son decide if he wanted to be Baptised and receive First Communion. He did both at 7 years old along with all the other kids his age. He is 12 now and is decided whether he wants to do Confirmation this spring or not.

That being said, if my son came to me with this announcement my first response would be, “You don’t have to choose between God and Science. You can believe in both. I do.”

Then I would I would tell him that I love him no matter what he believes and to remember than he doesn’t have to make up his mind right now and that it’s likely he will change his mind back and forth a few times as he grows and changes. I would remind him that he needs to respectful of everyone’s beliefs.

Last year my son did come to me and tell me he believed in all the Gods (of the various religions) and that if there weren’t other Gods, the why did “our God” tell us to have no “other Gods before him”. Why didn’t he just say “no other Gods”? I thought it was amazing that he was giving the whole matter so much thought and told he had given me something to think about.

20

<context> I was raised Catholic, served at the alter and Dad was on the church board. Now I’m hard agnostic / soft atheist.</context>

First of all, I don’t think you’re a bad parent based on not bringing up your child in a religious environment. You don’t need religion (or the Boy Scouts for that matter) to be moral or to be a kind, generous, considerate person. I do agree, however that understanding religion is enriching from a cultural IQ standpoint, but you don’t need to be religious to take a Comparative Religions course. In fact, not having a “horse in the race” can be beneficial is such an event.

What about what your child wants? If he likes Scouts, he can “stay in the closet” while he’s in it. If he doesn’t think religion is sensible, why are you trying now to push it on him?

It clearly sounds like you two parents are ill-suited to do anything about his beliefs: you are wishy-washy on your own beliefs and the wife is both too lazy and too disgruntled about her religion. Add to the fact that the train has left the station — your kid has actively entered the rebellious phase and any pushing in one direction is likely to result in him moving in the opposite.