It may not be brainwashing, but it’s certainly very one-sided.
Judaism states that Jesus is not the Son of God. This is not mentioned in Christian churches.
Does your Church preach Creationism?
Where does this ‘belief’ come from? Why do they have to attend church?
The US is a largely Protestant society. If you were born in Italy, you’d probably be raised Catholic. In Iraq, you’d be Muslim.
Religion is a cultural thing. Nobody looks at the evidence and says “This makes me believe in this God.” Why do children have to be dragged to church?
I’m sorry if you thought I was insulting you…I didn’t intend that. I have no idea what you do with your time while your wife and child are at church…I was only using the example from my own life, where getting my children to wake up even for school was a struggle, much less Sunday School, and the arguments they would make…and that my friends would tell me their children have made, at various ages.
But as for the second statement above…that seems a little straightforward to me…if you don’t take them to a place where they have an opportunity to learn, it deprives them of that choice…doesn’t that seem kind of obvious?
The Sunday Schools I went to as a child did teach about other religions, especially Judaism’s opinion of Jesus, especially when we got to the upper grades. And no rulers were ever involved, nor any mention of hellfire or damnation. Methodists don’t get into that stuff. We’re all about… well, you atheists won’t agree, but about rational thought and study and service to others and caring for each other. All things I really wanted my kids to learn.
Really? No one? Ever? Are you sure that’s the hill you want to die on?
I can give one reason why this particular kid would have been liked being “dragged to church”: because I wanted religion. Some of us do, with no “brainwashing”, indoctrinating or coercion required. I was raised in an atheist household and told I could “decide what I wanted to be when I was older”. But I didn’t get even so much as a comparative religion discussion at home, so I spent a lot of time and energy on my own reading, researching, and once I was in high school, attending one (mostly Christian) church after another trying to find the right fit.
When I was young and my friends went to CCD, I’d sit by the window crying, waiting for them to come home, and then I’d badger them to teach me all they had covered that day. I had my first transcendent experience at age 8 or so, repeating the Hail Mary to a tree in the farmer’s field behind our house.
My parents actively supported me in my efforts to learn about gymnastics (fail!), the flute (fail!), and archery (fail!) - I was very hurt that they were not similarly supportive of my efforts to express and learn more about faith.
Your Honor, as counsel of record for glee, I would like to introduce the following into evidence:
To the OP: I do think you should be supportive of her choice if she does want to believe in something. However, I think you should be evenhanded about it: if the wife wants to take her to church, take her to a synagogue, too. And a Buddhist temple, a Hindu mandir, maybe another church or two, and so on. If your wife is going to encourage her to choose faith, the onus is on you (well, both of you, and more on her, but she probably won’t see it this way) to make sure she is able to make an educated decision.
I was late to a Worship committee meeting tonight because I was posting my last reply…when I told them why I was late, they were all intrigued…I found myself having to explain and defend the atheist point of view on faith! It was almost funny. But what one of the children on the committee told me was that they do go around and visit churches of other faiths as part of their class. The choir director gave me a wonderful quote to bring forth, but I have forgotten the exact wording, so I’ll have to email him and get it. And WhyNot’s recollection about being told to make the decision on their own later is exactly what I was trying to say earlier…you can’t make decisions without all the information.
And let’s get practical here: unless your wife belongs to a very, very fundamentalist or evangelical church…Sunday School is an hour a week, and half that time is taken up with snacks and games and crafts. You have the attention and time with her the rest of the week to show her the example of how your belief system (can’t believe I typed that phrase) makes your life better, and how you do good in the world without what you may consider fairy stories.
Oh, and I’m on the Worship committee because I bring a “unique” viewpoint to the group, so they say…which means I was the one tonight to say, in response to a question…“you know, I never really feel the presence of God during the worship services…”
I teach Unitarian Sunday School - you might want to consider that. We believe each person needs to find their own path, and all paths don’t lead to the same place. So the kids are taught both Christian mythos and a little on Buddhism and some on Islam, and about Atheists - and told these are all acceptable approaches. More importantly, we teach that each human being is valuable, that you need to respect yourself and others, that tradition is important and worth, the we deserve justice, and we need to respect our Earth.
When our kids started going and started realizing that there are lots of families where the parents believe different things, they didn’t feel so odd - they started to internalize that it was OK to have different faiths or no faith. My son is not a great thinker, to him “Dad doesn’t believe in God, Mom does - and that’s a decision you may make for yourself” was fine. My daughter needed more.
A few years ago I read a book called Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time by a professor of religion named Marcus Borg. In it he compares having a spiritually-wired brain (that’s my term, not his) to having musical ability in that both spiritual people and musical people perceive something, some order, in the universe that’s not as readily apparent to the rest of us. In a long section of his book he described these “spirit persons” (who come, just as musical geniuses do, from every cultural milieu and express their understanding in every vernacular) as “mediators of the sacred.” Here’s a brief excerpt: “What [spirit persons] share is a strong sense of there being more to reality than the tangible world of our ordinary experience. … [T]his other reality, it is important to emphasize, is not ‘somewhere else.’ Rather, it is all around us, and we are in it.”
Whatever one believes to be the cause, source, or reason for people having these spiritual experiences, I believe that all of us have much to gain from participating or trying to participate in some of the rituals that bring them on. And if you buy the musical talent analogy, then depriving a spiritual child (like the young WhyNot) of opportunities to experience the divine–which, as far as I’m concerned, could happen in a church, mosque, synagogue, temple, or national park–would be akin to depriving a budding musician of exposure to varieties of music. So that would suggest the “have the kid visit a whole bunch of religious settings” argument that several people have put forward.
On the other hand, there’s something to be said for another model of musical or spiritual learning–the in-depth study of a traditional form that gives the student a deep base of knowledge out of which to create or re-create in a new form. I think that if a child truly has ability, then either model of “education” or exposure will foster that spirit/talent.
That’s all I’ll contribute for now–thanks for the thread and the opportunity to put some of this in words, a worthwhile challenge.
Lily Milliner (who is neither particularly spiritually gifted nor musically gifted but sang in an Episcopal church choir and took piano lessons for ten years or so and would probably be better suited to Unitarianism but continues to attend, sporadically, an Episcopal church because it’s comfortable)
Ever just tried putting a name on what it is? Say something like “Mommy goes to church because she’s Catholic, but I’m not.” Then if she asks what that is, elaborate. I recently addressed “why would a girl want to kiss a girl” (thanks, Katy Perry!) using the same technique.
Jr.: Why would a girl want to kiss a girl?
Me: Did you ever want to kiss a girl? have a girlfriend?
Jr.: Yeah, I like girls.
Me: You do? I like boys. See, we like the opposite, and other people like the same. People like us are called “Heterosexual” and people that like the same are “Homosexual” because “homo” means “same”. Some girls kiss girls because they like the same. Same with boys.
Jr.: (scrunches up face)
Me: Now, you know you like girls, right?
Jr.: Yeah. I don’t like boys.
Me: Well, you like what you like. They can’t help it any more than you can, and we don’t make fun of people for things they can’t control, so make sure you never make someone feel bad for it.
He then proceeded to tell me he broke up with his third-grade gf over the summer because “It was time for something new.”
BTW, one thing I feel strongly about is that you don’t have to indoctrinate your children into a belief, but they MUST respect the beliefs of others - at least until they become mature enough that they can get through their boyfriend’s grandmother’s funeral without managing to offend anyone. (I took my UU children and my atheist husband to my own grandmother’s Catholic funeral today - this is really important - because if Dad mouths off about kooky religion, the kids will - and they’ll do it at the worst possible time. Mine did ok, but were very confused by the whole thing).
This should be important in any household with an atheist, but is especially important in the house of an atheist/theist. The questions WILL get harder, and if you don’t have respectful answers (and she doesn’t have answers that respect your point of view) you’ll strain the marriage. That isn’t good for anyone.
I think that exposure to other beliefs, or that you don’t necessarily have to believe anything, is valuable. I was raised in a particular branch of Calvinist Protestantism where the “going to hell if you’re not a believer in Jesus” was pushed really hard, to the point where I almost made myself sick worrying about a friend who was an agnostic.
(Total sidetrack: In my early teenage years, I began having serious issues with their concept of predestination - namely, that God knew before the creation of humanity who exactly would be saved and who would be condemned to hell, and that even though it was all predestined and our actions were kind of “outgrowths” of God’s will, we were still completely responsible for our actions and feelings. So it’s like free will but… not exactly. And your fate was determined before you even existed and doesn’t have anything really to do with who you are or how good you might otherwise be. head explodes)
I think the point many posters are making here is that by taking them to a church – any particular church you are offering them a slanted view of religion. If you teach on the premise that people believe all kinds of things, including the non-belief in a god, you are truly giving them the choice they’re entitled to. Forced attendance at weekly church services and education sends the message that YOU believe this is the truth and puts them in the position of disappointing you (or maybe angering you!) if they disagree. And of course there’s nothing you can provide them to prove that your way is right an the other ways are wrong.
Sorry, you’re going to have to be more explicit; I don’t understand how my experience supports glee’s statement.
In time, as I studied various faiths, I found that the doctrines and deities of neopaganism make the most sense to me (especially the inclusiveness of it - Jesus is one of my gods just as much as Brigid and Sekhmet and YHVH - no one has to be wrong here). Again, raised atheist, dabbled in Christianity and Judaism because they were the only things I could find information about as a child, experienced transcendence through a Catholic prayer to a friggin’ tree (idols, anyone?) and later chose to become a neopagan based on knowledge acquired as an adult (well, early 20’s. Close enough.)
But what that meant was that all those rites of passage that would have meant a lot to me: a Communion or a Bat Mitzvah or a 7-Year Rite; all that education that young children just absorb effortlessly, all those experiences of being a young child raised in the comforts and pageantry of any faith were denied to me, and I can’t help but wonder what my life would have looked like if I had those. Maybe it wouldn’t be any different at all. But maybe I wouldn’t have felt so weird and alone for most of my life. Maybe I wouldn’t have gotten pregnant at 17. Maybe I wouldn’t be struggling to learn my Hebrew letters at 33 or being embarrassed during public ritual because I can’t remember which way a banishing pentacle is formed in the east.
Lily Milliner, I absolutely agree. I think if I had been raised in a household with any religion, I would have found great comfort, and perhaps a greater mastery than I have now. If my parents were Catholic, I’d probably be a nun right now; if Jewish, I’d be a rabbi, if Voudun, I’d be a Priestess. While there are doctrinal and theological differences which made me choose my current path over those, I agree that there’s something just wired “spiritual” in me, and it would have expressed itself in whatever vocabulary I could have been raised in. As it is, it’s like trying to teach myself a language as an adult (sometimes literally!). Not impossible, but more difficult than having learned it as a native speaker.
It seems to me not taking them into church also gives them a slanted view of religion - just a different one. It also sends a message about what YOU believe is the truth and puts them in a position of disappointing you if they disagree (“I’m going to believe in Jesus when I grow up!”). And, of course, there is nothing you can provide them to prove your way is right and all other ways are wrong.
Not that I think that not taking them to church is wrong - or that taking them is wrong - each family needs to make their own choices. But not doing something is also a communication of values.
Data point here. My parents dragged me to their Anglican church when I was a kid. I objected strenuously, every time.
We made deals - if I went to church I got treats. If I went for three Sundays I could go play at my (Jewish) friend’s house on the fourth. And so on. I think they thought I would outgrow my cynicism and come back to God. (Or whatever it is people do.)
They could not have been more wrong. After I endured my confirmation ritual (which I did for the sake of family harmony) I never looked back. I am currently religiously undecided, I call myself agnostic and I may one day find a religion that compels me to join, but one thing I know with absolute certainty is that I am not, nor will I ever be, Anglican (or, likely, any other flavour of Christianity). Nothing my parents could have done would have changed this.
If I’d had a rounder experience (gone to worship with different faiths), maybe I would have a religion now. But how much is it my parent’s responsibility to expose me to faiths other than their own? There are probably hundreds of faiths practiced in this city. They were practicing their own, they offered it to me, and I wasn’t interested. They left it all to me (after confirmation, that is) and I think it worked out quite well. If I really want a faith, I can seek it out myself.
