Man, I just don’t know what to say. After 20 years of marriage, I’ve long since learned that marriage is full of negotiations of all sorts.
But her demanding, and your agreeing, that you keep yourself in the closet about this for the first dozen or so years of their lives, to deny something that basic and important about yourself…I’m just shaking my head here.
You guys obviously made this call at a much earlier point in your lives and in your marriage, but I can only say: what the holy hell were either of you thinking?! It’s your life, not mine, but IMHO, it was an unreasonable thing for her to ask, and an equally unreasonable thing for you to concede.
Your marriage and your home should be a place where you can be who you are.
I really think you and your wife might should go see a counselor about this. Not to decide what to do, because there really is no getting this toothpaste back into the tube (thank goodness), but to figure out how to feel about it.
What are your eyes telling you that they aren’t telling me, Bricker? I don’t see anything in that quote that really requires the supernatural. Maybe the ‘rebirth’ thing?
Dio, we’ve had our disagreements her, and I’ve not read the whole thread, but I want to offer my sympathy - this must be a horrible situation. My hope is your daughter will recognise your honesty and deal with it in time, and be grateful for said honesty.
If she’s been brought up to be religious, learning to respect the choice of those who are not will be valuable, and hopefully even if the timing it may still work out well.
I’ve got an arrangement similar to Dio’s, and this exact scenario (the sobbing part) is one I’m most afraid of. My rationale basically goes back to Santa. A 5 year old can believe in Santa and eventually decide on his own that it’s just a story. However, if one parent goes around saying that Santa doesn’t exist, the illusion is going to evaporate pretty quickly.
In other words, my agreement was that we’d raise the kids Christian. That requires a certain level of religious indoctrination. I’m fine with them making up their own minds at some point, but that’s going to be a lot harder for them if every time they hear, “Jesus loves me this I know 'cause the bible tells me so,” I’m right there saying “Also, Jesus isn’t real.”
ETA: in another thread on the subject, I lamented the fact that my wife had left the Catholic church in favor of a woo woo evangelic church. The reason, primarily, is because I feel like the Catholic position on non-believers going to hell is a lot more nuanced than the “you must be saved or burn forever” attitude at this new place. In that regard, I envy Dio. Also, Catholicism can be so over-the-top ridiculous that it almost pushes people out the door. I liked that about it.
I can think of a couple of reasons they might not have wanted to discuss atheism with the kids. If one or both sets of grandparents are really super religious and they don’t want the kids to accidentally “out” dad as an atheist and cause an uproar I can see perhaps not addressing alternatives to god until the kids are old enough to know to keep it to themselves.
It might be that they wanted to really instill a respect for religion into their kids and felt the best way to do that was to truly introduce them to religion before addressing that smart, loving people in their lives actually disagree with the church or religion as a whole.
It could also be that (as we’ve seen in discussions here before) DtC tends to be a bit aggressive in arguments and discussions where he believes he is right. I’m sure he is much more gentle with his family than he is with the board, of course, but I can still see where his wife might have thought that him bringing up the topic of God or discussing why he doesn’t agree with mommy about important stuff like religion might come across as somewhat judgmental and dismissive if he isn’t careful. It might have just been easier or more comfortable to say that he should keep quiet until the kids are old enough to handle having that kind of discussion with him.
There are any number of reasons why someone might make this choice. It isn’t the choice that I would make but that doesn’t make it wrong for them. Since it looks like this decision isn’t working for them any longer now they have the opportunity to change their approach to the situation.
DtC, Did your agreement with your wife allow for what to do if the pre-teen daughter asks flat-out “Do you believe in God?” Because unless the two of you agreed that you should lie to your daughter, you did the right thing by answering truthfully.
It’s like when homosexuals come out of the closet. People freak out for a while but then they (usually) grow.
Not that I don’t have any sympathy for you and the situation, but with the forceful way you are on these boards, maybe this is your comeuppance?
You’re the atheist, you are the rational one, maybe its time you put your foot down on this religion experiment and declare in no uncertain terms in your household that you won’t be subjecting your kids to this bullshit anymore? As I see it, you gave your wife a free pass to indoctrinate your kids for 11+ years with a few more years to be served and you’ve gotten nothing but deception, emotional blackmail, and your kid almost turning against you.
You know why she cried? Because she is taking the Church’s side over yours. Are you prepared to deal with that for the rest of her life? Sure it sounds all nice and crap to say you’re simply letting your kids choose for themselves, but would you feel the same way if they wanted to be Scientologists? Anti-vaxers? Holocaust deniers? Creationists? You’d tell them to cut out the bullshit and explain why its bullshit!
You can try to convince yourself all you want about how you’re doing the right thing by supporting your wife, but honestly, someone who thinks dunking a baby in a pool of water means a damn thing to a dead Jew from 2000 years ago has issues herself. Look at the way you talk about the situation: She wouldn’t compromise with you regarding the UU church; she gets a free pass to raise your kids in the most formative times of their life however she wants; you had a vague agreement that sometime in the future you were finally allowed, like a pet being allowed into the house, to tell her your own feelings??! She should be jumping for joy that you gave her 11 years of uninterrupted brainwashing by one of the biggest cults in the world!
Don’t get me wrong, I’m atheist and it means a lot to me, but if I had been in the same situation, I don’t know that I would act much different than you. Only I would probably come out and say I deserved to be shit on for my complacency in brainwashing my kids. Maybe you believe that, maybe you don’t.
Dio, you’ve given your wife 11 years to do what she wants with your kids’ education. Maybe its time you asserted yourself a little and tell her that you won’t be hiding the fact that you’re an atheist from your kids anymore, and furthermore, you’ll be teaching them more about atheism and how it’s facts are correct in opposition to the myths and stories she’s learning about in school
I’m willing to learn. Why isn’t rebirth a supernatural claim? It’s absolutely central to Theravada Buddhist teaching and belief.
The reason to pursue the Eightfold Path is that it leads you to the cessation of rebirth itself: nibbana, nothingness, no more cycle of rebirth, no more existence.
How is that NOT supernatural? If I’m wrong, please explain it to me. I’m willing to reverse my understanding. I freely admit I’m not on as solid ground with Mahayana, and even less so with Zen, but I have made a very thorough study of Theravada, and I can’t understand the claim that it doesn’t rest on and require supernatural belief in a concept of rebirth.
This situation seems to be more about respect rather than religion. A lot of posters here are questioning Dio’s ability to “tell the truth” early in his daughter’s life, but fail to realize what a strain it would create on the relationship between him and his wife. Yeah, the wife’s demands early on with raising the kids w.r.t. the RCC teachings and Dio’s agreement to it early on seemed shortsighted and unrealistic, but Dio did it out of love and respect for his wife. If he had a do-over, I’m pretty sure he would not agree to it totally, if at all. But Monday morning quarterbacking isn’t really helping his situation at all. I’m pretty sure there is going to be some resentments building on both sides of the relationship. Dio probably already resents the agreement he made a while back and it has been eating away at him for years now; to see the daughter immersed in something that he doesn’t believe in. I also suspect that if the daughter loses her beliefs in God, then Dio’s wife will become very resentful that Dio did not keep his agreement, especially if the daughter rejects the RCC teachings completely.
Dio, as RTF suggested, I too agree that counseling is a great idea to address the issues that have bubbled to surface. This should have been thoroughly addressed even before the kids were born (to me it seemed that the issue was merely postponed when you relented to the wife 10 years ago…it was not addressed thoroughly, and your daughter is paying for that years later with confusion and doubt); it might have been a dealbreaker even before marriage if it was discussed at all. Right now though, counseling would be helpful by just coming to some sort of agreement and how to handle future issues in a respectful manner to avoid future resentments. This is the key to keep the family together. It would make it easier for your two younger kids when they begin to ask questions and the two of you already know how to answer them without creating the situation you just experienced.
As for the thread, it’s not about “Who is right” anymore; it is more about respect for the family’s beliefs and/or non-beliefs.
Well heck DtC, it is a mess but no-one has died and no-one is walking out the door here.
Which of us as parents are totally error free?
If nothing else this has prompted a long overdue discussion with your wife and daughter that hopefully will lead to openness in the future.
Also, your daughter is 11, there is no need for her to have any lasting damage from this. Ultimately the best lesson about being a good person without god is to be a good person without god. I’m sort of assuming that your wife already thinks that? how great it would be if she could confirm as much in front of your little girl.
And you are much better placed to avoid this situation with the younger children.
I wish you the best, don’t be too hard on yourself, this conflict was never going to just disappear and you will be relieved this came to a head.
Do you consider LDS to be a christian denomination? Diogenes uses what he finds useful from schools of buddhist thought and to that end considers himself a buddhist. Disagreeing and trying to prove that he’s not really a buddhist makes you look petty and rude.
Stop this. It’s irrelevant and boorish. This thread is about a conflict within a household as children start to explore the implications of their parent’s various theologies/philosophies. The exact nature of those theologies/philosophies and the degree to which each participant adheres to commonly accepted orthodoxy is completely beside the point. It’s douchebaggy when Diogenes the Cynic pops into other people’s threads and passes judgment on how they are handling their crises of faith or interpersonal conflicts and as tempting as it is to use the sauce on the gander, it’s douchebaggy for you to do it here.
To be honest, I initially wrote that post without the ‘the rebirth’ thing because I didn’t even notice it. I reread it and thought ‘maybe Bricker is referencing this’, hence the edit.
I don’t have enough knowledge to comment, so all I’ll say is that without further knowledge on the topic, I’d concede that rebirth is supernatural.
But it doesn’t have to be that way. My husband wasn’t Catholic when we got married or when our kids were baptized or when they began attending Catholic school in pre-k. Questions like “Why doesn’t daddy ( go to Mass, got to confession, receive Communion )? " were answered with " Because he’s not Catholic” in the same way that their questions about why I didn’t burn incense and paper clothing at my ancestor’s graves were answered with “Because she’s not Chinese”
I don’t recall if there were any questions about my husband going to hell, but if there were they would have been answered with my understanding of Catholic teaching- 1) the only situation that precludes salvation is to know that the Catholic Church is correct and reject it anyway and 2) Only God decides who is saved.