Do atheists pass their beliefs on to their children?

In My Humble Opinion
21

Of course I will pass on my religious beliefs to my children, same as everyone does. And, as much as it pains me to admit it, I won’t be cool with them finding god, because I think it will cause them terrible problems and misfortune, like [I think] it does everybody who believes. But I won’t disown them or anything.

For a while in, I think, junio high school my sister started going to church with some friends of hers. My parents were happy to let her go, although we all made fun of her for it – in my family, we make fun of everyone for everything. Anyway, she saw the light a few years later when she started drinking on Saturday and realized she’d have to give up church if she wanted to sleep in on Sundays.

–Cliffy

22

Thanks ProTem – your parents seemed to have passed on their beliefs to you very well, nicely demonstrating my point.

Snarkiness aside, my point was that parents influence their childrens beliefs about driving style, race relations, manners, casual drug use, and everything under the sun. Sometimes they do it conciously, sometimes they don’t. Sometimes the children end up agreeing with their parent’s outlook, sometimes they don’t. But in any case, athiesm is nothing special, I would be shocked if there was any significant difference in the way attitudes are passed down from athiests than from any other belief system.

23

One thing I find interesting in this thread, and implied in the OP, is that atheism is a belief. And that some households are therefore atheist households in the same way that they could be Christian households, with the attendant behaviors, holidays and heroes, etc. I would characterize my upbringing as a household of many different values and beliefs, but lacking any belief in God. My folks didn’t make any sort of big deal about it, except for commenting on some particularly silly event that stood out because of someone’s belief in God. I just never developed a belief in a supernatural, because no one ever suggested that I do so. My parents never told me that there is no God. I respected a lot about them, and surely adopted many of their points of view, but also was quite rebellious in other ways. So, no, my parents never inculcated in me a belief called atheism. Rather, they never inculcated a belief in God so I never developed one. And as a thinking adult, I certainly never have, either.

24

York Moore is a friend of mine and he was raised extremely Atheist. I remember him telling me about his house.

They had a sign outside their door that said, “The Moore, the Atheists”. They used to have garbage cans next to their house where they burned Bibles.

I guess he wasn’t raised so much Atheist as he was anti-Theist. I’d say his Father greatly tried to influence his belief. He remained Atheist until he was in his early twenties.

25

I am defining atheism as a disbelief in a deity. Not a belief that there is no deity. This is why I find it hard to think about passing on a lack of something. And why the structure of the thread is a little disconcerting.

26

I like to think I’m passing on a lack of racism, a lack of irrational thinking, a lack of blind obedience to authority, a lack of excessive selfishness, etc… what’s so hard to understand about that? (Or do you want specifics: A lack of belief that 9/11 and Iraq are connected, that Paris Hilton is worthy of attention, that anyone is better than The Who, etc…)

27

My father is an atheist, my mother was more or less Christian because that’s what nice people do, and you meet nice people that way. My sister and I were obliged to attend Sunday School through 8th grade (I suspect so that my parents could have some alone time on Sunday morning) and as a family we went to church maybe twice a year.

The result: I am an atheist, and my sister is born-again (but in a nice, low-key, non-aggressive way). Mine, I think, has to do with learning by example rather than learning by instruction. I thought about it for myself, and came to this conclusion. As for my sister, my opinion is that her religion is a handy emotional crutch she uses to avoid facing the real pains in her life. Both my father and I avoid expressing our real opinions of that for the most part, but she knows where we stand in our own lives, and she also returns the favor for us.

If I had children (I don’t) I hope I would encourage them to think for themselves, and I hope they would not turn towards religion themselves. But like everything else children grow into, it’s really up to them.

28

Maybe this is really odd, but I didn’t know what the religous beliefs of my parents were as I was growing up. My parents were married before I was born, and stayed married. I lived with them both, and it wasn’t until I was fourteen that I learned that my mother has a hodge-podge newagey religion which she takes quite seriously, and that my father is vaguely agnostic.

I say vague because his primary concerns growing up as a porr immigrant were to make enough money to have a home and a familiy, and nothing else concerns him much. He doesn’t seem to give religion much thought. I got quite a lot of moral instruction, but the only one did any talking about religion was me. I’m an atheist. My parents are not. It causes no strife. It wasn’t a banned subject, it’s just that it didn’t come up much.

I will say that I grew up with the attitude that it is wrong to indoctrinate children into a religon that they are too young to understand. My parents wanted to respect my freedom to chose my own religion, and I gnash my teeth everytime I see people sending their kindergardeners to first communion.

29

I don’t see how your definition of atheism differs from agnosticism.

In any case, religion was barely mentioned when our kids were growing up and they seems to have the same lack of interest in it as we did. Actually, that’s not quite true. My wife was raised from 11 years old in the houshold of a stepfather who was quite devout and she learned to love some of the rituals (lighting candles on high holy days, having a seder of sorts,…) without any of the trappings of a belief in god. And our kids differ slightly in their reaction to all this. All three are married to Christians, but only one of the spouses has any interest in religion and I can forsee problems when and if they have children. The other two seem to have absorbed my wife’s interest in the rituals, but all three are uninterested in the supernatural. My believing daughter-in-law simply cannot hear us when we describe ourselves as atheists. She thinks that we are “in denial”, although of what is hard to say. Incidentally, I consider myself as an atheist in the sense that I believe quite strongly that there is no god. However, I never said anything about that to my kids.

30

My wife and I are atheists and we’re doing our best to raise our children to be atheists as well. We’ve taught them about a wide variety of different religious traditions and told them how humans make up stories to explain things they don’t understand. Sometimes these stories are good stories that teach us valuable lessons, but that doesn’t make them true.

I’m not sure if its the lack of superstition and religion in our household or something else we’re doing, but our kids aren’t afraid of the dark, or monsters, or ghosts. I don’t think either one of them has ever had a nightmare. We use the same frame for Jesus and Hercules and Gandalf and the boogeyman – good stories that aren’t true.

Oh, we also tell them that some people still believe these stories and it’s not polite to argue with them. Just like it’s not polite to go up and tell a stranger who’s smoking a cigarette that it’s bad for them.

We’ll see what happens when they’re teens. I have to admit I’ll be disappointed if my kids grows up to be theists, but I’m not going to disown them over it.

31

I was raised by athiest/agnostic parents, who took an open-minded hands-off approach. I had friends that went to church, and frequently attended services or social functions. I made the choice to stop going to church functions around ten or eleven years old, when it was made clear (in a wink wink nudge nudge manner) by the parents and clergy that I was either to join, or stop coming. I was all set to join except that it was also made clear that saying no to the church meant that I would go to hell, and my parents were also going to hell being non-believers.

I said “Hell sounds better” and never went back to church.

32

As a humanist Jew (I don’t really ever use the word “atheist”, for a variety of reasons), I’ve been wondering this myself recently because I’ve been spending a lot of time with a religious Christian girl, who seems pretty intent on finding a man to marry and have children with. We’re not really even dating, but I’ve thought about the prospect hypothetically anyway.

I think I would want to expose the child to Judaism (and, if the mother was Christian, Christianity), and explain why so many people believe in God, using personal stories from my life and those of my friends, the child’s mother, etc. I would also explain that some people do not believe in God (or similar ideals), and why. And I would also explain that whatever the child believes in is OK, but he or she should be mindful that everyone is hated by someone and that they may be more accepted in some circles than others based on the religious decisions they make.

I see a couple of problems with this, though. One is that the mother may stand firm about raising the child definitely as a Christian or a Jew or an atheist or something else. The other is that the child might just end up confused. I grew up going to Hebrew school and attending services at the synagogue, but my parents were never really very observant, and as I grew old enough to make those decisions on my own I generally decided I didn’t want to be observant either. Although I’ve never asked my parents about it, I figure now that they wanted to expose me to religion, but not shove it down my throat, so that I could make an informed decision when it came time to do so. This was easy enough for them because one was a non-practicing Jew and the other was a convert from Catholicism who was just happy not to be Catholic anymore. What scares me is that the world seems to be getting so polarized between hyperreligious offenderati and eye-rolling secularists. Most people seem to be extremely concerned that their kids do exactly as they do in this regard, and since my position doesn’t really call for one or the other, I fear that it will end up getting run over and I’ll be the lonely atheist sitting in the corner while the mother and child are off at church singing hymns and dancing through the aisles. I see so many people on both extremes losing out: so many of my peers have no individuality, no mind of their own and no capacity for self-responsibility because they let God take care of the details of their lives–and on the other hand a lot of my peers feel they have nothing to put their faith in, and experience a “weakness of the soul” in tough situations that the deeply religious seem to rise above.

Most of my friends are shocked when I tell them I spent a lot of time with a pagan trainee in boot camp, and that I’ve watched pagan rituals involving sea salt and went to a Wiccan “service”. I’ve done a lot of things and seen a lot of things that many of my peers are deeply afraid of–within and outside of religion–and I think some deeply religous people are as terrified of having children with me for those reasons as I am of having children with them.

33

Strong atheist here. My daughter loves to go to Morman Temple every Sunday morning with her cousins, “because it’s fun.” She’s well aware of my atheism, and my reasons. I’m glad to get her out of my hair for a few hours. Heck, she’s only 9; I was 30 before I finally made up my own mind.

34

By that definition, we’d ALL be atheists. I mean, I doubt anyone here believes in the divinity of the all mighty Zeus, the Flying Spaghetti Monster AND Zorthon, King of the Zorths. That definition states that by disbelieving in any of those, you’d be an atheist.

As an atheist myself, it really IS a “belief that there is no deity.”

That said, and at the risk of getting this kicked into GD (I think it’s going there anyways), Arthur C. Clarke wrote something that has stuck with me for years. I believe it was in the first RAMA book, but could be wrong. In short, an advanced civilization sends out a satellite to comb the universe looking for other life forms. It finds Earth, spends a few days collecting our signals and learning our languages, and then starts communicating with us, both asking and answering questions.

Somewhere during the dialogue, the satellite lets us know that we are one of the few technilogically advanced civilizations in the universe that still believes in a deity, and it believes it is because our children live with their parents for so long before living on their own. That the process indoctdrinates us to believe in religion from an early age when we don’t know enough to question it.

So I think that OP is a very thought-provoking question, but needs to be looked at from both sides (are we religious only/mostly because of our parents?), even though I think it’s a clearer answer that way.

On a personal level, my parents are, to throw a label at them, conservative Jews. I was raised with that on one side and orthodox Judaism from my school and synagogue. I was still a bit into it in college as well, and took a personal “sabatical” for a few years afterwards to examine my faith, at which point I gradually realized I didn’t believe a word of any of it. Been an atheist ever since, going on 15 years now.

I don’t have kids, but if I ever do, I plan on making an effort to keep them away from joining an organized religion. Not using brute force (I find shackles work best), but by educating them from a young age in science and logic. Just because we don’t know how to answer a question doesn’t automatically mean the response must be supernatural, that sort of thing. So I DO plan on passing my beliefs on to my future kids, just like many religious families raise their kids in the same religion. Not that I know if they will stick or not. Only time will tell, eh?

35

My kids have one parent of each persuasion. I’m an agnostic/weak atheist, hyper skeptical empiricist. My wife is a liberal Catholic. Our kids are both baptized in the RCC and our oldest daughter goes to a Catholic school. So far, my approach has been pretty hands off with respect to undermining my children’s religious upbringing. I participate in an occasional church ceremony (though I usually don’t go to mass with them on sundays) and I tend to go through the motions when it comes to activities like saying grace at larger family gatherings.

While they’re young, I’d rather not confuse my kids by contradicting what they learn at church or at school or from the mother. In some ways, the religious answers to certain questions are simpler and less distirbing for them (especially when it comes to explaining death). When they get older, however, I intend to have discussions with them explaining some of the empirical problems with religion and hopefully encouraging them to think critically about what they believe and ask questions. I don’t want to tell them what to believe or not to believe but I want to impart to them some critical thinking skills and a dose of healthy skepticism.

On the other hand, I do want them to be educated about religion, especially Christianity (not because I think Christianity is better or more special but because it’s such a culturally important institution in the US). I want to make sure that that Christianity is demystified to them and made as ordinary and boring as possible to prevent it from having any ironic allure simply because they’ve never been exposed to it which might make them vulnerable as adults to any of the more predatory and abusive evangelical religious subcultural movements which exist out there.

I was concerned about my kids being raised Christian at first. My wife had to talk me into it. I finally came to the conclusion that almost all atheists, agnostics and assorted “free thinkers” I’ve ever met had some sort of religious upbringing. I went to Catholic schools myself. Being raised in a faith tradition does not mean that my kids will be doomed to be uncritical, mindless fanatics. Especially if they have a father who will model a bit of respectful skepticism.

If they ultimately choose to remain in the Church, I’ll be ok with it as long as they come to that decision by honest reflection and exploration. I will be disappointed if they end up believing in something patently false like creationism or if they become intolerant towards others, but I think the chances of that are small. My wife knows more about evolution than I do (she majored in physical anthropology as an undergrad) and is fiercely pro-gay and culturally tolerant. I think my kids will be ok.

36

I’m an atheist simply because, like most fellow Japanese children, I was not exposed to any religious teachings while growing up. Of course there’s a certain amount of ancestor worship and nature worship, but that’s not truly a religion - more of a way to show respect. So I grew up thinking (believing, if you insist) that logic and reason are enough to explain how the world works.

37

It seems possible to raise a child to be aware of - and even appreciate - the cultural and traditional aspects of his religion and still not believe in God. I think, in fact, that’s how I was raised. My family did not engage in any superstitious thinking or behavior, and therefore the notion of a God that did/could do things or which could be invoked as an explanation for things we didn’t understand was not part of our way of seeing the world. At the same time, I remember my father saying at some point in his later life that he had discovered that he was proud to be a Jew. I never had any religious training - although I did sing in an Episcopal choir as a boy and found the pomp and colors quite fascinating. I never developed an affinity for religion, per se, although I do claim to be Jewish, and I never developed a belief in God. I think my own kids are in roughly the same situation, although they went to Sunday school, in an effort to see that they knew more about their heritage than I ever knew. But they don’t believe in God. I chalk that up to a type of life style that makes no room for superstitious thinking. I believe that one can have both.

38

In my family, my mom was not a church goer but had her own faith, and my father somewhat agnostic.

My parents didn’t object to my visiting a church, or even attending a Sunday school class - because neither were strongly prejudiced against religion - just not very faithful.

My Nana (dad’s mom) was a very evangelical Christian (Full Gospel) and she used to bring me to church without my parents permission all the time. I was not only baptised once, but dozens of times, and they laid hands on me to heal me of everything from the sniffles to a hang nail.

In her belief, the end of the world was coming, and soon (1984 was the date all her books she had said it was - so I would never grow up) - and she would read to me about the mark of the beast, the whore of Babylon, she made sure I knew it was coming soon, and I needed to be saved or I would be left on earth to suffer. I got to hear lovely stories of Abraham bringing his son to the mountain to be sacrificed, babies almost cut in two, that all humans are born evil because of Eve biting an apple, and Satan & God making a bet over Job and all those other lovely biblical stories like that make God look like a real jerk.

My parents had a problem with this obviously because I would have nightmares and became overbearingly guilt ridden even as a preschooler, even though I was not sure it was real because my parents made sure to tell me that Nana’s beliefs were only that, beliefs - and that there was no proof they were real, and my parents told me assuredly that the world would not end in 1984 - and I would see my 14th birthday on earth - and it would not be hell on earth.

Still I had much conflict, because despite my parent’s assurances - I was afraid it was true until I was about 9 years old and my parents has more or less equated my Nana’s belief in God as a grown-up version of an imaginary friend. They more or less had to raise me atheist in order to quell my fears of God.

I still was an overly guilt ridden moralizing child who could not see anything as either black or white, so religion became one of those things that was obviously wrong, and when I had pentecostal friends in grade 6 try to recruit me - I dropped them as friends because they were obviously insane. That year when the bible people came to give out New Testement pocket bibles - I got my dad to write me a note that I didn’t want to take part in it - I had rejected Christianity completely - and I had also rejected my Nana who decided to put her Cancer of the colon in her imaginary friend’s hands instead of the hands of Doctors.

By my teens - my Nana had died and I had become a more of a staunch anti-christian than atheist, because I always still carried a nagging feeling something existed - so I dabbled in learning what Mormonism was, what Buddism was, Pagan beliefs, and just about everything else.

It took me until I was in my late 20’s to settle into a nice agnosticms and stop wondering so much. This is when my parents went back to faith - my father joined the Quaker church - as a liberal non-christian quaker who is more or less agnostic - and my mom went back to the Christianity she had been raised on, and she is now a little too Christian for my liking. This is also when I started seeing the logic of my lack of faith, and became comfortable with my belief that Jesus was just a man if he lived at all/

The way I feel about it is - how can parents teach children that they are born evil and must feel guilt about even existing and live in fear of the punishment of a God if they even doubt the existance of Jesus - even though I know most Christians don’t teach their children a faith of fear like that…

I would like to hope most parents who are Christian and raising their children as such are teaching them in a way which doesn’t do the damage that Christianity did to me by teaching them about a loving good god - but knowing the bible and hearing the hateful rants of christians I have very little faith in some of them doing that.

I still know if I had decided to be a parent, I would have tried to be tolerant, I may have been very intolerant atheist teaching a child that Christians were hateful & brain-washed through my actions not words, even if I hadn’t meant to just because my own experience with faith was so negative.

I even find it hard that my sister who has far less memories of Nana allows my nieces to go to Sunday school & bible camp, and that my half brother is Christian. I tried to keep my tounge tied around them & my mom, but when they ask me about religion - I feel I must be honest and tell them I don’t believe - but it still bothers me that they think I am going to hell because of this - because there is and always be a rift between us because the faithful often look down upon those who don’t believe as if they deserve suffering because of a belief - and those who are not often look upon those with faith as somewhat succeptible to indoctornation.

39

That is THE definition of atheism: lack of belief in the existence of a god or gods. The point you go on to mention is one that some atheists like to bring up for the humor value: you could say to a Christian “look at all the gods you don’t believe in. I just believe in one less.”

That’s what is commonly called “strong atheism.” I’m sure there have been past GD and GQ threads about this, so I’ll quit there.

Back to the topic at hand: here’s another for the “sometimes they do, sometimes they don’t” pile. My best friend comes from an atheist family. Her parents are cool and I’m sure they would have accepted whatever the kids became - they’re all Ethical Humanists - but everybody in their branch of the family is an atheist.
On the other hand, you can look at my family: my mother doesn’t believe in god, and my father has a certain half-assed spiritual side, but he absolutely loathes religion (more so as he’s gotten older). But they neglected to mention this to me until about five years after I became an atheist and had already absorbed my fair share of grief about it.

40

You’re correct. It seems more like you need opinions. So, let’s move it from GQ to IMHO.

samclem GQ moderator