We have? I guess that’s a way someone can end up an atheist, but I’m not sure how representative it is. How many people were like me - raised in a religion but didn’t get anything out of it and stopped practicing it when they were no longer required to?
So you’re saying that people believe in things they’ve never heard of? How does that work?
What about presenting them as a game that people play around the holidays?
As far as Santa and the bunny go, we had them in our house. But, when my kids asked my if they were real, I told them the truth, and explained about Santa representing the spirit of giving and all that stuff. They were completely fine with it. I’m not saying it would work that way for every kid, but I think parents worry too much about it.
Of course, we no longer celebrate either of those holidays, so it’s ceased to be an issue. 
Depends on HOW you do it, though. Do you encourage them to call their classmates idiots when they mention they’re religious, for example? Not such a hot idea. (For the record, religious parents shouldn’t teach their kids to call atheists classmates idiots either)
When my kids were old enough, we went through Genesis, and I pointed out, until they started pointing out, all the contradictions, scientific untruths and absurdities there. The message was critical thinking. With this background I had no trouble with them going to their friends church or temple activities - they came back saying how absurd they were.
The most important thing was to not be embarrassed by our lack of belief. Kids pick up on you feeling ambivalent very well.
It has served them well. They are both grown, with six college degrees between them (and one more on the way) and I am proud of their logical thinking skills.
Because those are the only two options, of course… :rolleyes:
Guess what. It is a myth, just like belief in Zeus or Odin or Rama or a cargo cult. Being open minded does not mean believing that 2+2=5 or a young earth. If you disagree I invite you to start a GD thread where we can examine why you think god belief is reasonable.
Now religion is a different matter. It, unfortunately, exists. Sometimes it does good, sometimes it does bad. But attendees at a Harry Potter convention would be deluded if they truly believed in Hogwarts no matter how much they donate to charity.
I’d have been upset if my kids fell prey to religion, because I would have thought I’d have failed in teaching them to think logically. Happily, they did not fall.
And I’m Jewish - tell me again how tolerant Christianity is when uncontrolled by secular forces?
Would you be proud if your kids (though I assume you don’t have any) bought into astrology, pyramid power or little green men?
Well, that was incoherent. No clue about what string theory is, eh?
My oldest daughter figure out Santa Claus pretty early. My younger one never believed in him; she said her grandfather brought the presents. She was right - he and I moved them from the attic to the basement ready to put out when they were at church listening to Christmas songs.
I was a child raised by atheist parents.
At 6 or so went to Sunday school with a friend, and then went home and tried to convert my parents to this neat new thing they’d clearly never heard of. Amazingly they didn’t immediately convert, and I reportedly ended up in tears sobbing ‘you just don’t believe’. I have no memory of this however, and generally it was just live and let live, with some friends going to church etc, and some not.
I didn’t need ongoing lessons about how religion was silly in order to end up being an atheist/agnostic, the only time it really came up was in regards to my mothers funeral. But I lived in countries that are probably less divided over it than the US, in a more generally secular setting.
Otara
Totally agree. When my kids (my son especially since he’s older) come home talking about god, I explain to them what other people believe and what I believe. Mocking religion to me seems akin to mocking others’ emotions. Clearly both are felt very deeply; making fun of either has absolutely no benefit to anyone other than the person doing the mocking.
That said, it irritates me when my son comes home telling me that only bad guys don’t believe in God, like he did a few weeks ago. When I asked him if he thought I was bad, he said, “Of course not!” When I asked if he would feel differently if he thought I didn’t believe in god, he said, “No, way, Mommy.” I let him know that whether people believed in a higher power or not rarely informs whether they’re a good person or not, then let him know what I believed and moved on.
Are you being ironic? I can’t tell.
You’re doing it right. 
No kidding.
My kids generally aren’t old enough to ask a lot of religious questions at this point, though it does come up occasionally. My wife was at least religious in name when we met but I think I’ve turned her into a non-believer. We obviously don’t go to church or anything. But honestly when my daughter asks I usually just say when she dies she will go to heaven and such but don’t go into much detail. It seems a bit hypocritical but she is only six and I will tell her my own personal beliefs when she can actually understand the issue on a more intellectual level. Its really just easier to not get into a giant discussion about it. I was raised in a somewhat religious household but by the time I was in 8th grade and started looking closely at the world around me I came to my own conclusions.
“She needs to know respect applies to all aspects of a person, including their religious beliefs”
Perfect.
One thing that I see atheists condemm religious people for is the accusation they are not open minded. So, kudos on your reflecting this value, the importance of being open minded and tolerant to others, with your kid, instead of the hateful indoctrination stuff that says “lets talk shit and mock those icky religious people”. This is much more likely to resonate with her as she gets older, whereas the kids of thse who encourage them to mock and hate religious people will likely see it as hypocritical and will be more likely to disdain it
I suspect a lot of these views depend somewhat on how intrusive religion is for the given individual person in question.
In my context, its comparably rare, so tolerance is fairly easy in general, even if it can come up in various issues, eg abortion or the like. For people who feel its impacting more directly on thier lives or has in the past, I might not judge mocking quite so harshly.
Otara
I’m an atheist, and my wife is agnostic. Our 8-year old daughter seems naturally to be a theist of some sort. She knows I don’t believe in God, but just thinks I’m wrong. My attitude is that she’ll make up her own mind.
When my wife decided I needed to teach our daughter more about religion, I showed The Kid The Brick Testament, which she finds endlessly entertaining. Our daughter’s considered opinion is that “The Lego God is very bad”, and she’s glad the real God isn’t like that.
Why would you teach a child to respect all aspects of a person? what if that person rapes babies? what if they cover up child rape? what if they are part of an organization that not only engages in child rape but actively promotes the systematic rape of children and the enabling of the rape of children and the protection of child rapists from punishment?
I taught my son that belief in the supernatural is fine for tv shows, books, and film, but living your life as though the supernatural is real is a complete waste of the only life you get.
“rapes babies?” 
God no, nobody would advocate that.
Now back to our regularly scheduled program…
I plan on having kids someday, and I hope bringing my opinion in on this isn’t unwelcome.
I have dated people who believe in God, and have plenty of friends and family members who believe in religion. I don’t love them any less.
If my child winds up believing in things, I won’t try to stop them. I also plan on teaching them on a factual basis about the world’s major religions, their histories, demographics, and what their main message is. During this lesson, I will treat them all equally and in a positive manner.
I am not afraid of exposing my children to religion. But if they ask why I am not a member of any religion, I will answer all of their questions truthfully.
I’m raising mine in a world of theories and stories - about God, Santa, the Easter Bunny etc. “Some people think”, “the story says”, “we don’t really know” etc. my oldest is 3, so this works very well at the moment, and I never feel I’m misleading her about things, but she’s not particularly aware of the subtleties, particularly around something like Santa where she gets so much external validation that he’s a real person. But we didn’t pretend he visited by putting out carrots, and all the presents were already under the tree.
I think it’s important to get a basic understanding of religion so we talked about the nativity scenes we saw at Christmas, again as part of a story. We will be able to develop this idea more as she gets older, but right now I think it’s a very balanced worldview she’s getting, and pretty similar to the way I was raised (one atheist parent, one religious, allowed to make my own call.)