You have a new-born son, and your initial response to this wonderful mystery of life is to imagine him burning in hell forever??. That is some fucked up shit.
As a new father I saw both my sons as explaining the mystery of Life, the Universe, and Everything, all in their pudgy little fingers. It reinforced the idea that I do not have the answers, and never will.
I’ll give you my opinion, since this is the section for that. Lighten up Francis! Go back to church with your wife and son if it will make her happy. You might find that there are other guys there that are doing the same thing. Or she may decide to take him anyway and leave your angst behind.
I don’t really think that God is planning on frying him up anytime soon.
What you’re feeling is completely normal. I feel like congratulating you both on your new baby and your internal moral sense that has led you away from faith, but I understand that this is also very scary and saddening for you. If you leave your church, you are losing a social and psychological framework that helped you cope with life and interact with other people. Of course it’s going to be traumatic to contemplate that!
But take comfort that countless other people have weathered this and come out feeling like it was a net positive. I highly recommend checking out a Unitarian fellowship, and you might also like the writing of Dale McGowan. Hang in there, and keep posting here too!
I too am curious about this God that would allow your small baby to burn in hell. What sort of theology does your church teach? And where in the scripture that you have been tought does it say that?
My daughter was unbaptised when she died and I asked my Methodist Pastor about the whole “the road to hell is paved with the skulls of unbaptised children” belief. Her answer was, “I believe that God is bigger than that.”
Yep. Go back to church, because it sounds to me like that’s what you (“you” being the OP) want, and what your wife wants. It won’t hurt the kid, so long as you aren’t a dogmatic fundamentalist hard-ass about it. Teach the kid what faith means…but soft-pedal the whole hell bit.
Hell obviously doesn’t make sense to you – does it make sense to anyone who is sane? Hell, philosophically, is a stand-in for death: it’s the “worst thing there is.” So teach your kid (when he’s old enough) what symbols are for. God is a symbol for love, creativity, proper parenting, the law, the King, and nature.
Give the lad the intellectual basis to make his own decision. He’s going to hear such trash from other kids at school! He’ll meet everyone from atheists to hyper-fundamentalists, to Wiccans. And he’ll be influenced by TV, the internet, etc. Serve as a good role model – as you said your grandfather was for you.
You can weight the dice, but the kid is the only one who can throw them.
When I entered this thread, I was expecting that something horrible had happened to your baby. I’m so glad I was wrong. Congratulations! There is nothing like seeing your baby for the first time - especially the first. Love just pours into you.
I was raised Jewish, and in my religious education hell was never mentioned. I lost belief when I found out how the Bible was really written, and realized how all the stuff I was taught about Moses being real was phony.
I have two girls, both grown, and both wonderful. I taught them logic, I taught them how to think, and I taught them how to question. That meant I had not problem with letting them go to religious activities with their friends. Also, be a role model for them. Show how virtuous and good you can be without god.
However,. hating God is a terrible reason to be an atheist. There are lots of versions of God who are nicer. Go and research the history of God and religion, and compare what the facts are to what you were taught. If you can read the Bible with an open mind, especially Genesis, its contradictions and absurdities become very clear. And you will that hating God is as silly as hating Darth Vader of Voldemort.
Thanks for the suggestions and opinions, folks. It makes me feel better.
To clarify, my church doesn’t suggest that babies burn in Hell under any circumstances. My church is fairly progressive for, you know, a church, and most of the attendees are well educated (doctors, lawyers, engineers–one from MIT even–etc). I’m referring to general idea that my son could ever burn in Hell. I mean, you worry about yourself and others going to Hell too, but this is my kid for crying out loud.
Dallas, it wasn’t like he popped out and I instantly had a mental image of him writhing in flames. The thought came to me when I was contemplating the insane security at the hospital and the idea of kidnapping, which lead to the :eek: realization: people actually hurt children! You always recognize that child abuse is evil, but it really hits home when you have a kid yourself. After that it was like, criminy, God supposedly willingly lets people hurt too. Eternally, even. And potentially my own son :dubious:
Also, I’m not really a *new new *poster–I’ve been around for a year or so. I just don’t post very often (not much free time, as you can imagine). So please, I beg you, don’t mentally lump me in with the current batch of noobs
Cinnamon, Yarster and Trinopus, good advice. Trinopus, you guessed correctly, I suppose I do want to go back, I just want it to mean something to me spiritually, you know? I may simply need to go for the social purposes and take whatever else I can from it.
I would have never have been pushy with regards to indocrination with my son anyway, but I would have gladly elaborated as appropriate on theology when/if he showed interest. I’d have to keep it much more broad and vague now.
My unsolicited parenting advice: keep it short and sweet and then turn the question around on him, “Some people think that after you die your spirit goes to live with Jesus in heaven. Some people think you’re born in a new body as a new baby. And other people think other things. What do you think?”
You learn so much cool stuff when you ask little kids about their theology.
That statement is not really logically/semantically supportable. A true atheist does not accept the possible/likely existence of a god, how can one hate a thing that is absent, short of being angry that it is absent?
The problem with evil is its very subjective nature. If a god allows one person to suffer, it also allows another person to prosper in light of the suffering. Death makes room for more life, existence really is a zero-sum game.
Congrats, it sounds like the whole experience was very profound!
I think I see how you want to raise him to understand the beauty and magnitude of something that is larger than yourself, larger than humanity. That isn’t necessarily the christian god.
There is plenty of beauty and what you could call “spirituality” in the world as it is. Here, look at Carl Sagan explaining it. Or watch Brian Cox explain about the universe.
To me, that is absolute beauty. Something so much larger than ourselves. It’s so humbling how insignificant we are, and simultaneously empowering to know how our knowledge and understanding of these things is racing forwards. It makes me so excited to be part of the understanding (even though my understanding is ridiculously small). It makes me excited to be human, and to discover. I love trying to stretch my mind the infinitesimal smallness of the quark, to the incomprehensible magnitude of the expanding universe. It makes me feel a little dizzy.
There is so much beauty. The world, the universe, humans, animals, particles, nature, all of it is so fantastically wonderful, who needs a god?
Like Laplace, all I can say is: “I have no need for that hypothesis.” I really think that in time, and as you get used to your new reality, you will feel that your son will not need that hypothesis either. Of course it will be good to expose him to your old religion, just as it would be good to expose him to any other religions and ways of life. I don’t think he’ll need it.
PS My papa said something similar about me being born: he spent 2 days crying. But being an atheist, it was about the vastness of world, the smallness of me and the terrifying magnitude of his task. Daddies are the best sniff sniff
Excellent answer. My ex was devout Catholic and insisted on our kids going to church every Sunday and holy day, etc. They grew up resenting all of it and walked away from the church as soon as they left home. Fine by me, as I have no affiliation whatsoever and consider it all to be mysticism and superstition.
I’m also a Unitarian-Universalist, and I strongly recommend visiting one or more congregations.
The thing is, each congregation has its own flavor. The one I attend is almost completely secular. Sermons explore human nature, philosophy, theology, history, psychology, and whatever else is relevant at that time. There’s another congregation that leans towards neo-Paganism. Another is closer to a very liberal Christian church. So, even if the first congregation you visit doesn’t do anything for you, try another.
There’s a lot to be said about being part of a faith community - even if that faith is ill-defined, squishy, or completely absent. There aren’t many facets of our lives which bring us into community with people we’d otherwise never meet. Congregations have people of every age, people from different backgrounds - and in UU people of many different faiths or no faith at all. The Religious Education program is top notch. It doesn’t proselytize or indoctrinate. It questions, it discusses, it shows, and it does truly educate.
One warning, though: UUs don’t escape the crazies, and we are far from perfect. I’ve seen members give up and walk away because their political views weren’t respected. I’ve seen politics, small and nasty. I’ve seen turf wars and all the other silliness that can happen in more traditional congregations. What separates UUs, I think, is that we don’t kid ourselves about it, and we make an effort to address it when it does happen.
Of course a child can be atheist. If a child is never introduced to any gods, he may not believe in any gods. Or he may invent a god to believe in. But a child can certainly be atheist.
For everyone saying, “What religion teaches that babies burn!?” I think the OP meant that he looked at his son, who is an innocent sweet babe right now, and questioned any god who would allow his son to burn eternally ever. Even as an adult.
And I don’t think it is as simple as the OP finding a form of christianity or other religion that doesn’t teach hell…the OP is saying that the God he believed in DID send people to hell…he has lost faith in *that *god. Not so easy to just snap up another god.
Lastly, I don’t get this whole idea that we have to offer children a choice. No I don’t. I don’t have to run up on my kid with anyone’s non-scientific explanations for the universe. I can teach my children about logic and reason and skepticism and thinking skills. I can teach my child that everyone chooses their own path for understanding the world around them. But I don’t have to offer my child a choice of god vs. atheism, a la, “Some people believe in god. Some people don’t. What do you think”
To go that route with a small child asking questions would be the same to me as saying, “Some people believe humans can be taught to levitate objects with their minds, and some people don’t. What do you believe?” Now, sure, I can ask her that, but if she answers, “I believe I can learn to levitate objects with solely my mind,” I will tell her that is utter nonsense. That is the same way I treated christianity in my house, as utter nonsense. I don’t see why anyone has to treat it as worthy of a serious option for belief unless they do honestly believe in it.
And for the record, I know chrisitans who do sincerely believe in their faith and they are awesome people and I’m sure they teach their kids that a loving god is looking out for them and I would totally get it if they didn’t say, “We believe that you burn in hell for your sins for eternity. Some people don’t believe that. What do you believe?” without trying to sway the kid if he gives the undesirable answer.
[QUOTE=Dallas Jones]
You have a new-born son, and your initial response to this wonderful mystery of life is to imagine him burning in hell forever??. That is some fucked up shit…
[/QUOTE]
If you were raised being taught a form of Christianity that teaches an eternal burning hell, you might feel where the OP is coming from a bit better. I was taught that as a child. It seriously traumatized me. When you have a new baby, and your emotions are higher than they have ever been, strange things pop in your mind. I remember when I was having labor pains, they were so bad that I began to weep for the fact that I was having a girl and she would have to feel that pain someday. I’m not kidding at all. By that time, I was free from the trauma of believing in a burning hell, but if I did, I could totally relate to the OP’s feelings. The OP as a whole, I can’t really relate to, not gonna lie. But the part about being traumatized by a burning hell, I can feel that.
Teach them Love, Love as a living being as Love is God.
And your right God does not condem people to eternal suffering never has never will. Love will never have it that way - you can disregard any god that says else wise.
Encourage him to be a scientist. Not only will he improve the world for everyone more than any church ever did, but very few scientists are devoutly religious. To paraphrase Pierre Laplace, “They have no need for that hypothesis.”
Popping in from another angle - if your wife wants to go to church, and you don’t go, that can (not saying that it has to) make for some hard feelings and some mom vs dad choosing on the kid’s part, which is something that you don’t really want to get into.
As much as possible, you parents need to present a united front - which means that either you find a congregation (Unitarian Universal, liberal Christian, deist, whatever) that you **all **can attend and feel relatively happy about it, or both you and your wife need to really hash out whether kid is going to church with her, and whether he will have any choice in the matter or not.
Because as much as she may claim not to care (and really believe it) when the time comes when junior tells her he wants to stay home with dad and watch football instead of going to church - that might be a very hard thing for her. She’s already “lost” you to an extent, and then to have her son joining you… I just want you to be very aware that this can become a very fraught decision on everybody’s part.
