Do atheists pass their beliefs on to their children?

I’m not sure where to post this so I’ll start here. It doesn’t seem great enough to be in GD.

In high school and college I saw Christian students who were heavily influnced by the beliefs of their parents. Some were downright controled by their parents expectations of their behavior.

I wondered how this works in atheist households. There’s the guy who sued because he didn’t want his kids to say “under God” in the pledge. Is he trying to let his kids form their own beliefs by not wanted them to be indoctrinated by tradition, or is he trying to insert his personnal attitudes about religion onto them?
I’m sure it varies but I’d be interested in hearing some feedback. Anyone with any experience about this. If an adolesent goes to his atheist parents and says, “Hey I want to go to church with my friends” what’s the reaction?

In my case fireworks – I had betrayed them, I was/am stupid for being duped, religion is for unthinking people, etc. This argument started the summer I tuned 14 and is still ongoing, with me in my 40s and them in their 70s.

Thanks for responding. I guess there’s some universal thing between many parents and kids that we want them to believe as we believe, or in this case, not believe as they don’t believe. I hope it hasn’t created too much of a rift between you.

My parents are more agnostic than atheist, and they didn’t have a problem when my sister became Christian.

My daughter is going through that stage right now. She spent 4 years in Catholic elementary/middle school, but never quite caught the faith. Since I had to put up with my family telling me I was going to hell for being an atheist, I sure am not going to criticize ANY of her beliefs. We recently have had many interesting and entertaining conversations about what faith means to different people; the religions of the world; what it means to be a christian, or pagan, muslim, hindu or jew. It’s truely one of those rare, special relationships that we both can talk about ours, and other’s beliefs. It won’t bother me one bit, what she chooses to believe; as long as she is a good person. I enjoy guiding her, and introducing her to other possibilities. I think the only indoctrinization I’m doing, is teaching her to explore her own beliefs. I’m very happy that she feels comfortable talking to me about it…her mother and grandparents on the other hand… :frowning:

I’m Pagan and don’t have children, so I have to give the story of a good friend. She’s not really atheist, more agnostic - she believes in a higher power, but believes organized religion often does more harm than good. She has three daughters, now 13, 15 and 18, and when any of them have expressed a desire to attend church with friends she has encouraged them to do so. We have discussed religious issues, and she has wondered if she had “harmed” her daughters by not giving them a traditional religious upbringing, but felt she would harm them more by paying lipservice to something she didn’t believe - she is definitely not a hypocrite!

Oh, and my reaction would be, Are they picking you up, or do you want me to drive you?

We’re not exactly hard core atheist, so maybe this doesn’t count. But we just ask our kids to consider all possibilities and then decide for themselves. I’ve told them about comparative religious theologies as bedtime stories. Some of their favorite stories have religious themes, and I’ve offered to let them attend church with their grandmother, although they’ve not been interested. They also have been in Buddhist temples, although I doubt that they actually remember that.

Parents always try to influence their children’s beliefs, religious or not. Why would athiesm be different?

My parents had no interest in churches or passing on beliefs.
We had been to churches a few times, for weddings and funerals and baptisms of relatives, and the only discusssion was weather our clothes were going to stay clean until the event.
I was never asked to church by a friend, and probably wouldn’t have wanted to go - they certainly didn’t want to go.
But no, I got no instruction, zero, of any kind either way. My folks just weren’t into it. To me, baby Jesus and angels at christmas were no different than the fairies and easter bunnies of spring, cute but not real.

We pretty much let Evil Captor, Jr., know what we think about religion, especially the part about getting up on Sunday and going to church when there’s fun to be had. However, last year I did take Evil Captor, Jr., to Sunday services at several churches, so he would know from experience that church people are just regular folk and not burning babies or anything on Sundays (that’s a Wednesday thing, IIRC). He pretty much hated it. The Baptists were OK – entertaining sermons, at least, and some singing. But the Universalists were creepy … he really hated having to give the burly guy sitting next to him (other than me) a back rub.

He may become religious, and we’ll be cool with that, as long as he doesn’t turn into a damned Amway salesman for religion like some of my relatives.

I think it would depend on the family. My parents are agnostic/secular humanist and they had no problem with me trying out church once (it didn’t take). In other cases, yeah, I think there would be problems, especially if the child wound up converting to a religion that told him his parents were going to hell or isolated him from his family. Not that they all do that or anything.

UUs do this? I’ve thought about going to a UU service since they seem accomodating of secular humanism, agnosticism, and alternative spirituality, but ew forced touching ew.

One trouble with rebellious youth is that they can go overboard, especially if someone they see a mentor, like a friend’s mom, tries to make them into a personal salvation project. That happened to my brother, who got coaxed into zen nonsense for a dozen years. Burned candles, shaved head, only ate brown rice and wore goofy robes. Now he’s a banker, atheist again, and just as gullible, but about different things.

on the other hand what? care to finish the tale.

Thats a cool relationship. I was fortunate that my own poorly educated parents had some good sense and it just seemed right to them to allow us to choose our direction as long as we held basic principles. Honesty, hard work, share and help others when the opportunity arrives. I have tried to pass that on to my own kids.
“To thine own self be true” sort of thing.

I am an athiest raised Christian, I have a great relationship with my parents. They influenced me to always think for myself. Its just important to teach your children to think for themselves and how to not be taken advantage of. As long as you do that, whatever choice your kids make ultimately, you can at least be assured they made it themselves after carefully considering all the options.

I don’t know about all UU services, but the one we went to at one point had you give your neighbor a back rub, and then they would give you one. I refused to do it, and no one remonstrated with me about it, but my son elected to give the back rub. I think it was their version of shaking hands and saying hi to the person sitting next to you, which I think the Methodists asked us to do. Or maybe it was the Baptists again. In any event, the thing that had me really scared was the long pitch they had toward the end about how they owed $10,000 for their new building, and they didn’t know where they’d getting, but they trusted in the Whomever to provide (followed by looking pleadingly at the congregation.) I really had some concerns about my wallet there.

I found that last line pretty funny. It’s true. I think a lot of good can come out of experienceing different things and being aware. It’s good to hear that others want their kids to experience other possibilities.
When my kids were adolescent my wife and her mom told them they were catholic, because their family was catholic. That didn’t sit well with me so I intervened.
“You’re not a certain religion by heritage” since they’d been to church only five or six times, you’re religion is something you learn about and choose to be"
When my son was 8 or so some “nice” man came and asked if he could go to Sunday school at his church. I explained to “nice” man that I had no problem with David learning the basic Bible stories but I didn’t want him being indoctrinated with the specifics of their religion. A few weeks go by and I learn that this all started when the "nice’ man had Daivid utter the prayer that saved him, and was telling David he needed to be baptized and that God was useing him to save his family. Imagine, laying that heavy stuff on an eight year old. We had a brief but animated talk the next time he showed up and David stopped going, {by his own choice}

A friend of mine went to church with his wife for a few months {I forget which denomination} and then stopped going. They started getting letters and calls from the church and it;s members asking them to still contribute to the church. At one point my friend got mad and asked the caller. “Why hasn’t anyone at your church asked how we are doing and asked if we’d like to start attending again? All they ever mention is the money.”
response “If it makes you feel better, I’m asking you to attend”

Um…no thanks Mr. Pharisee, and please don’t ever call again. Nice witnessing there.

My father is an atheist, my mother is agnostic.

My Grandmother(on my fathers side) was very religious and she brought me to mass every Sunday. My parents didn’t have a problem with it. In Ireland we have religion class in primary and the first few years of secondary education. This is obviously quite Catholic orientated but there is some discussion of other religions and just basic bible studies. You can opt out if you want but you need a letter from your parents to do it.

I went to my father when I was about 15 and asked him to write a letter exempting myself from the class. Although he is an atheist I had to show him that I wasn’t just opting out to get out of the class work but actually wanted out as religion just didn’t work for me as I found it made no sense to me from a factual viewpoint. He signed the letter and that was my religious education finished.

Again when I stopped going to Mass they wanted to know was I just trying to get out of going so I could hang around the house/play or did I want to stop because of issues with religion. When they were happy that it was because I had personally decided that religion just wasn’t my bag they accepted that I no longer had to go to Mass. My Grandmother was very pissed about it but my mother and father fought my corner.

My parents just let me find my own way. I was unquestionably influence by their opinions but it was a passive influence rather than an active one.

I think it would depend on the parents, and what sort of atheists they were. Atheism ranges from fiery religion haters to people who simply find the diea of God unlikely. Parents from either end of the spectrum would probably raise their kids differently.

In my case, my Mom is an atheist for all intents and purposes. She doesn’t pray, reads the Bible less than I do, doesn’t accept the resurrection, and never goes to church. But she still feels guilty for leaving the Lutheran faith of her childhood, so she won’t say bad things about religion either. We sometimes go to Church around Christmas for the music, which IMO isn’t too disrespectful in the big “touristy” churches like the National Cathedral in Washington. My Dad is an assimilationist non-believing Jew who finds the whole thing absurd, but non-bothersome. I think if I found religion he’d probably try to argue me out of it, but not too strenuously.

Isn’t this a poll?