Question with 6 notes
Anonymous asked: You said you have a child? Is this the right Atheist blog? Either way, how do you, or would you, raise your child without religion when it's such a big part of our country (unfortunately)? This is something I've been thinking about lately and I don't want my kids to be ridiculed when something like Christmas and Easter roll around and they don't believe in god.
Yes, I do have a son. He is nearly 5 years old at this point so I really haven’t had too many issues with it yet. There are times where certain topics have come up that I struggle to explain to him in a non-mystical way, like what a “soul” is or how to describe “heaven” without getting in to a long talk about god and death. Other than that there really haven’t been a lot of issues.
I am a little bit worried about how things are going to go once he starts school in the Fall. He is going to likely encounter more things and have more question. When we toured the classrooms he is going to be in next year they all have posters plastered with Ohio’s state motto on the wall, “With God All Things Are Possible”. I am sure my cringe was noticeable when I first saw it because until then I didn’t even realize it was the “official” state motto.
I am going to attempt to be as honest with my son about religion as possible as he grows up. I will do what I can to answer his questions and he will learn about various religions in the world. I do have a soft spot for some religious pictures/books/art work so he will have plenty of it available. He is already quite clever and I hope that he is able to avoid much conflict with religious classmates. That isn’t a bridge I’ve come to yet.