# I was only trying to help not convert your son **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [December 31, 2004, 9:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-was-only-trying-to-help-not-convert-your-son/282404 "2004-12-31T09:17:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![Weirddave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/919ad9/32.png) [@Weirddave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Weirddave)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2005, 7:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-was-only-trying-to-help-not-convert-your-son/282404/141 "2005-01-01T07:47:05Z")
> [@Diogenes the Cynic](#): > > Why should Yahweh be given any more credence than Zeus or Kokopelli? On this one point only, and speaking only for myself: He shouldn’t. It’s all just different words and interpitations of the same thing. A hunchback with a flute is as good a representation of the undefinable as an angel with a sword. Religions are where it all breaks down, not the base concept itself. But again, that requires an acceptance that there are things unknowable. I am comfortable with that. Others may not be. _shrug_ Oh well. ---
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2005, 10:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-was-only-trying-to-help-not-convert-your-son/282404/142 "2005-01-01T10:27:45Z")
The one thing that bothers me about this was that the real Christian line would be much more disturbing… “if your father was saved then he’s in Heaven, otherwise he’s in eternal torment in Hell and you’ll never see him again.” Clearly the OP didn’t know the religious status of the father, so how could he really know the status of his afterlife? He should have known he was potentially telling an untruth. I don’t understand the need to sugar-coat everything. Death is a very sad thing, even with a heavy dose of glurge. Death and sadness are both natural, unavoidable phenomena. I think it’s better to teach a child how to cope with these things rather than sweep it all away with a fairy wand. Lessons for the OP - 1. don’t assume that everyone is the same religion as you. 2. religions don’t have the monopoly on compassion… there are ways to be a good and compassionate person without necessarily using religion to do so. ---
**Author:** ![I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/i_love_me_vol.i/32/521_2.png) [@I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/I_Love_Me_Vol.I)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2005, 10:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-was-only-trying-to-help-not-convert-your-son/282404/143 "2005-01-01T10:33:08Z")
> [@Weirddave](#): > > Santa Claus, OTOH, is supposed to be a magic man who lives at the North Pole. That’s not quite as grandiose as God, and since Santa is supposed to be a part of the physical world, not vice versa, given the lack of evidence as to his existence it’s a pretty fair bet to call him a myth. Who says that Santa is not as gradiose as God? Who says that Santa is part of the physical world? ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2005, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-was-only-trying-to-help-not-convert-your-son/282404/144 "2005-01-01T13:42:57Z")
> [@gobear](#): > > ButThe sad fact is that the only way for an atheist not to draw your ire is for us to deny that we are atheists, to go along with your POV or risk being called intolerant for speaking up against your theology. I think that so long as you’re willing to acknowledge the validity of other points of view, no one who matters will be upset. As I see it, it is only natural for you to be an atheist, given your life experience. For me, being an atheist would be unnatural, requiring me to deny my own experience. Since we each have our own subjective reference frames, there’s no reason why we can’t see things in opposite ways. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2005, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-was-only-trying-to-help-not-convert-your-son/282404/145 "2005-01-01T13:51:35Z")
> [@Diogenes the Cynic](#): > > Expressing a sympathetic emotion is not the same as relating a religious belief as fact. No parent is going to react to a simple expression of sympathy as in your hypothetical unless they are mentally ill. That’s rather easy for you to say, isn’t it? I mean, I think we can presume that you are establishing your own reaction as definitively NOT mentally ill, can’t we? Why isn’t the mother who shielded her child from the very fact that the notion of heaven exists mentally ill? Isn’t she psychotic? ---
**Author:** ![RTA](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b4bc9f/32.png) [@RTA](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTA)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2005, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-was-only-trying-to-help-not-convert-your-son/282404/146 "2005-01-01T15:21:47Z")
This is a very interesting thread; most of what I might say has already been expressed by others. (I am of the “Keep your magical sky pixie out of my yard!” camp.) It is one thing to say that a child would eventually be exposed to various concepts of religion and afterlife. Obviously this is so. It is another to willfully inject your preferred concept directly into the experience of a child who is suffering. The child of a family you barely know. START is a young person who has not yet learned all the boundaries that others sometimes have. Some Christians never learn these boundaries but I think in this case the concept that not everyone’s a believer has made it through. That mother has every right to raise her own kids any way she pleases - much as Christians have every right to raise their own kids to believe all of that business. And yes she did behave with as much “grace and compassion” as she could muster under incredibly trying circumstances. I suspect I would have thrown START out on his ear. ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2005, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-was-only-trying-to-help-not-convert-your-son/282404/147 "2005-01-01T16:54:21Z")
**Liberal** , you really are trying to apply an invalid slippery slope argument: “Why, if we can’t freely describe our version of Heaven to grieving children then what’s next? No discussing anything?” Being told “Don’t worry your dead Daddy’s waiting for you in heaven” is not how most parents would want their children introduced to the “notion of heaven”. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Flying\_Dutchman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/9fc348/32.png) [@The\_Flying\_Dutchman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Flying_Dutchman)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2005, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-was-only-trying-to-help-not-convert-your-son/282404/148 "2005-01-01T17:05:43Z")
> [@RTA](#): > > That mother has every right to raise her own kids any way she pleases - much as Christians have every right to raise their own kids to believe all of that business. And yes she did behave with as much “grace and compassion” as she could muster under incredibly trying circumstances. I suspect I would have thrown START out on his ear. Then you must have some compassion for fundie parents who are forced to send their children to school to learn things that they don’t believe are appropriate. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2005, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-was-only-trying-to-help-not-convert-your-son/282404/149 "2005-01-01T17:07:18Z")
> [@grienspace](#): > > Then you must have some compassion for fundie parents who are forced to send their children to school to learn things that they don’t believe are appropriate. Nope. They teach what they want at home, but they have no right to deprive their kids of an education. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2005, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-was-only-trying-to-help-not-convert-your-son/282404/150 "2005-01-01T17:11:51Z")
> [@CarnalK](#): > > **Liberal** , you really are trying to apply an invalid slippery slope argument: “Why, if we can’t freely describe our version of Heaven to grieving children then what’s next? No discussing anything?” No. > [@](#): > > Being told “Don’t worry your dead Daddy’s waiting for you in heaven” is not how most parents would want their children introduced to the “notion of heaven”. You might not know what slippery slope is, but you’ve got straw man down pat. ---
**Author:** ![whiterabbit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/cab0a1/32.png) [@whiterabbit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/whiterabbit)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2005, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-was-only-trying-to-help-not-convert-your-son/282404/151 "2005-01-01T17:12:36Z")
I was seventeen when my dad died, and one thing that helped me was that NOBODY tried to help by saying “he’s in heaven, you’ll see him again.” Ya see, I was more than a little bit pissed off at God(s). I didn’t care if he/she/they wanted him around, I wanted him MORE. I went through a period of total atheism after that because I couldn’t believe in any God that would deliberately take my dad away from me when he was only 41. Instead, I was left with the fact that he was gone, and that was, well, that. I didn’t care about where he might have gone. There is a lot of difference between seventeen and seven, of course, but since I don’t have a clue about what might happen next (it would be waaaay cool to see my dad again) I wouldn’t bring up Heaven, or any other particular afterlife scenario, to any grieving person unless I knew they (or their family, if a kid) were okay with it. It would have been like knifing me for somebody to try to comfort me that way, frankly, so I tread very lightly in these sort of situations. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2005, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-was-only-trying-to-help-not-convert-your-son/282404/152 "2005-01-01T17:13:05Z")
> [@Diogenes the Cynic](#): > > Nope. They teach what they want at home, but they have no right to deprive their kids of an education. Then shouldn’t the mom in the OP have educated her son about the predominate views of his culture? ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2005, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-was-only-trying-to-help-not-convert-your-son/282404/153 "2005-01-01T17:21:56Z")
> [@Liberal](#): > > That’s rather easy for you to say, isn’t it? I mean, I think we can presume that you are establishing your own reaction as definitively NOT mentally ill, can’t we? Why isn’t the mother who shielded her child from the very fact that the notion of heaven exists mentally ill? Isn’t she psychotic? How is it psychotic _not_ to make up fantasies about magical fairylands in the sky? You seem to be taking the tack that if a majority of a society believes something than the minority has no right to teach their kids anything else or to stop their kids from being prosyletized. It would be irrational to get angry about a simple expression of sympathy because an expression of sympathy is not a religious belief, nor does it conflict with any religious beliefs. If I feel sorry for someone’s loss, that’s an objective fact that can’t be disagreed with. That’s why it would be irrational to get angry about it. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2005, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-was-only-trying-to-help-not-convert-your-son/282404/154 "2005-01-01T17:26:22Z")
> [@Liberal](#): > > Then shouldn’t the mom in the OP have educated her son about the predominate views of his culture? How do you know she wasn’t planning to in her own time and manner? Doesn’t she have the right to decide how to present her children with this kind of stuff herself instead of having a neighbor kid do it? Especially in a manner that’s going to fuck with a kid’s grief like this? ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2005, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-was-only-trying-to-help-not-convert-your-son/282404/155 "2005-01-01T17:26:46Z")
> [@](#): > > **Liberal said:** : > But aren’t there are a bazillion things his mother could have believed that he wouldn’t know about? I mean, practically anything could set someone else off. A simple, “I just want you to know how sorry I am for your loss,” could be met with, “You sniveling dolt! We do not believe that anything was lost, and we do not encourage our children to be sorrowful.” Stawman my ass, you pompous twat. ---
**Author:** ![ninetypercent](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/9de0a6/32.png) [@ninetypercent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ninetypercent)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2005, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-was-only-trying-to-help-not-convert-your-son/282404/156 "2005-01-01T22:48:55Z")
Man. Some of you guys are SERIOUS assholes. There is only one reason your extremist atheist ideology can not be called a religion. Your beliefs could not exist if there wasn’t a stereotyped opposition. WTF is better about living in “reality” versus the “fantasyland” of religion? You can’t prove that Heaven does not exist. You can never prove that it does. So, who cares? Belief or unbelief does not matter. It’s fucked up that a 7 year old should be forced to understand these arbitrary distinctions. ---
**Author:** ![Contrapuntal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e274bd/32.png) [@Contrapuntal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Contrapuntal)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2005, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-was-only-trying-to-help-not-convert-your-son/282404/157 "2005-01-01T23:04:01Z")
> [@ninetypercent](#): > > Man. Some of you guys are SERIOUS assholes. There is only one reason your extremist atheist ideology can not be called a religion. Your beliefs could not exist if there wasn’t a stereotyped opposition. WTF is better about living in “reality” versus the “fantasyland” of religion? > > You can’t prove that Heaven does not exist. You can never prove that it does. So, who cares? Belief or unbelief does not matter. It’s fucked up that a 7 year old should be forced to understand these arbitrary distinctions. Well there really is no atheist ideology, extremist or otherwise. There is one central tenet,i.e, Not God or Without God. Although you are right in one respect. If there were no assertions concerning the nature or existence of a god there would be no atheism. Before there were theists there were no atheists. The only reason a 7 year old was confronted with these “arbitrary distinctions” is because an apparently well-intentioned interloper took it upon himself to introduce them to the child. I will leave it to a gentler hand than mind to explain to you what is better about living in reality versus fantasyland. ---
**Author:** ![1010011010](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/1/ea666f/32.png) [@1010011010](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/1010011010)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2005, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-was-only-trying-to-help-not-convert-your-son/282404/158 "2005-01-01T23:42:15Z")
What? You mean that Christians/other religious people don’t tell the grieving that their loved one is in Heaven, all better now, waiting to meet up with them (the grieving) some day? You mean they _never_ repeat that, over and over, even though everyone already knows it? News to me. [/QUOTE] I’ve never heard anyone spell it out as much as START did. You might get a “He’s in a better place now.” or some other vague allusion. Never “He’s in Heaven. He’s watching you right now. He’s having a great time. You’ll go to Heaven, too, and see him again one day.” I’ve also thought it’s a pretty odd way to comfort someone. “I’m sad and I miss someone.” “Well, they know you’re sad, and they’re having a great time without you.” > [@yosemite](#): > > I certainly got **no** impression that START had the remotest clue that the kid’s family was atheist. So I guess you’re calling START a liar, then? Guess again. I don’t think **START** thought the family was atheist (or necessarily even non-christian), but I do think he had a pretty good idea that the kid had only limited religious instruction up to that point. Even if the kid _was_ being raised Christian, I still don’t think **START** would be entirely in the green with what he did. ---
**Author:** ![yosemite](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/3ab097/32.png) [@yosemite](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yosemite)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2005, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-was-only-trying-to-help-not-convert-your-son/282404/159 "2005-01-01T23:49:33Z")
> [@1010011010](#): > > “Well, they know you’re sad, and they’re having a great time without you.” What a bizarre way to see it. > [@](#): > > I don’t think **START** thought the family was atheist (or necessarily even non-christian), but I do think he had a pretty good idea that the kid had only limited religious instruction up to that point. Why don’t you flat-out _ask_ him what he thought, rather than implying that he’s not being honest with us (i.e. lying)? ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2005, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-was-only-trying-to-help-not-convert-your-son/282404/160 "2005-01-01T23:58:14Z")
The answer is in the OP **yosemite** , the 7-year old got all excited and started asking questions about heaven, clearly not a subject he had gone over. Wouldn’t you agree? My morbid curiousity makes me wonder what other “answers” about “generic heaven” were bandied about before the mother walked in and quite politely told you to cut it out **START**. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-was-only-trying-to-help-not-convert-your-son/282404.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-was-only-trying-to-help-not-convert-your-son/282404.md?page=9)