Advice for family ganging up on black sheep atheists?

recedite

Birroc wrote: »

Our children go to a Christian school (no choice) but they will not be doing any of the sacraments, including a communion this year............... "you are using your children to push your views/anger with the church" etc etc

Assuming your kids have agreed to skip communion, all you have to do is point out that its their own decision.
However you are up against it in that school, because communion is timed to occur at a stage when peer pressure is important, yet mature philosophical views have not yet been developed. Also there is the blatant bribery of communion money.
You can only balance the situation by promising some other equivalent treat or holiday trip if they decide to skip it. If they still want to go ahead with the communion, let them. It will all be forgotten in another year or two anyway, unless they feel they were pushed into something against their will.

Hotblack Desiato

recedite wrote: »

Assuming your kids have agreed to skip communion

I think atheist parents are fully entitled to insist that their children do not take part in sacraments of any religion, until they are adults (and even then I'd damn well not approve)

If they're not baptised they can't be communed or confirmed anyway. And woe betide any church man who tries to do that without my permission.

recedite

ninja900 wrote: »

I think atheist parents are fully entitled to insist that their children do not take part in sacraments of any religion, until they are adults (and even then I'd damn well not approve)

"Entitled", yes, and in practice you can force your own views on your kids (in a situation where they don't agree) for a certain length of time, but ultimately it is bad parenting.

jackofalltrades

recedite wrote: »

Assuming your kids have agreed to skip communion, all you have to do is point out that its their own decision.
However you are up against it in that school, because communion is timed to occur at a stage when peer pressure is important, yet mature philosophical views have not yet been developed.

So you're saying it's their decision, and at the same time saying that they're not mature enough to make that decision????

Dave!

Tell them you feel more affinity for the Muslim faith, so will next year be sending your child to a Madrasa. Watch them sh*t themselves.

fitz0

Dave! wrote: »

Tell them you feel more affinity for the Muslim faith, so will next year be sending your child to a Madrasa. Watch them sh*t themselves.

Sending them to a curry? Madness.

dan dan

Just place your family in their hands. Offer to attend classes in your home as the family gives lessons and instruction on being a GOOD catholic.

Well armed with statistics and carefully chosen passages from the bible, you reserve the right to ask and demand full answers from them. I wager you will not be recieving tuition. A smart priest teacher will not answer that challenge.

Tomk1

Could say you feel a bit like how Jesus Christ must have felt, being hounded & persecuted by the crowd, because you have moved onto the next evolution level of enlightenment, like the Greeks & their many gods, then the christian religions with a single god, the next evolutional step is accepting there is no god, and finding peace of mind in that.

Often people who protest too much, are having serious doubts, it scares them & are trying to reaffirm their belief. If they can draw you into an aurgumentive debate, and find objectional viewpoints to you, like you=bad ...they+religion=good, but for this they also need an audience to show their belief to and get support from, they won't go one & one.

A line from SG1 comes to mind, "the only way to win is to deny the battle"

Thwip!

Just shout "ONLY GOD MAY JUDGE ME" and exit the room like a boss

seriously though tell them that youre upset by their actions and remarks towards your parenting. the baptism thing is a nightmare though. i know ill be raked over the coals for not wanting any eventual children i may have to have one until they can decide for themselves

ShooterSF

If you want to give them an explanation you could suggest that as there are many possible gods, all of which are as likely to exist as one another in your eyes; And given that many of them are angered by people worshipping other gods you have to protect your kids as a parent by not letting them pick one to worship as the odds are heavily against picking the right one.

Hotblack Desiato

recedite wrote: »

"Entitled", yes, and in practice you can force your own views on your kids (in a situation where they don't agree) for a certain length of time, but ultimately it is bad parenting.

It is good parenting to protect your child / adolescent from falling under the influence of religious whack jobs, and instill in them a healthy sense of scepticism Cults and religions (no real difference) both prey on the vulnerable.

Birroc

recedite wrote: »

Assuming your kids have agreed to skip communion, all you have to do is point out that its their own decision.
However you are up against it in that school, because communion is timed to occur at a stage when peer pressure is important, yet mature philosophical views have not yet been developed. Also there is the blatant bribery of communion money.
You can only balance the situation by promising some other equivalent treat or holiday trip if they decide to skip it. If they still want to go ahead with the communion, let them. It will all be forgotten in another year or two anyway, unless they feel they were pushed into something against their will.

They have not been baptised and as atheists we do not bring them to mass. My oldest is fine about not doing communion because we have explained our reasons and would never have seen us take communion. There are several others in the class not doing communion and to be fair, the school are perfectly fine with it. When they get older, they are free to choose any religion they want if any.

Bannasidhe

Birroc wrote: »

They have not been baptised and as atheists we do not bring them to mass. My oldest is fine about not doing communion because we have explained our reasons and would never have seen us take communion. There are several others in the class not doing communion and to be fair, the school are perfectly fine with it. When they get older, they are free to choose any religion they want if any.

Back in the day my son had a minor sulk about not getting a load of money making his communion but now, as a grown man, he has thanked me for keeping him out of the clutches of religion. He does study theology as a hobby with a general air of 'how do people believe this bat**** crazy nonsense?'.

His kids are baptised (as an unmarried father he was simply overruled by their mother who claims to be an atheist but still wanted to keep her opus dei father quiet/have a big party) and we were all horrified to hear his 3 year old son spout 'God made the world/God punishes bad people with fire/Baby Jesus died for me cos I was bold' crap last week - he is 3 years old for feck sake!! Even my Theist OH was outraged by the blatant brainwashing evidenced by a 3 year old making statements he obviously has heard so often he knows them by heart.

6 year old granddaughter has declared she doesn't believe there is a God and has told her teacher (teacher confirmed this) but goes along with it in school as she finds it easier to just tell them what they want to hear :mad:

It near broke my heart to hear her say 'I don't believe what they say Nana but they talk about baby Jesus all the time and I know the answers they are looking for so I give it cos otherwise they just keep asking. Maybe if they get the answers they want we can talk about something else like how tornados happen. I told them I don't believe it but they say I am young and I don't understand - but I do and they say my brother does understand but he is three and thinks Jesus is a superhero like Spiderman and they let him think that and it's all lies'. She then asked me if I would Home School her .

Zillah

How tornados happen

Nodin

Dave! wrote: »

Tell them you feel more affinity for the Muslim faith, so will next year be sending your child to a Madrasa. Watch them sh*t themselves.

...and make sure the wife has the hair covered and he has the start of a beard when he tells them.

shortie_chik

Invite them to pray for your return to the church. They can ask God to bring you back to the fold, even set a deadline for him or ask him for signs or whatever they like. They feel like they're helping and you can get on with your own life. If he can do all the fire & brimstone & other tricks, surely God can manage something as simple as finding one lost sheep?

And until God works his magic on you, any time it's brought up, I'd tell them that they're upsetting you and it's not open for discussion, and leave the room. Good luck with this!

Hotblack Desiato

Bannasidhe wrote: »

It near broke my heart to hear her say 'I don't believe what they say Nana but they talk about baby Jesus all the time and I know the answers they are looking for so I give it cos otherwise they just keep asking. Maybe if they get the answers they want we can talk about something else like how tornados happen. I told them I don't believe it but they say I am young and I don't understand - but I do and they say my brother does understand but he is three and thinks Jesus is a superhero like Spiderman and they let him think that and it's all lies'. She then asked me if I would Home School her .

It's maddening isn't it.

Our 4.5 year old daughter is getting this in school too. She recently asked when was her mammy going to heaven :rolleyes: cue fobbing her off with that it wouldn't be for years and years and years.

Next time the subject of heaven or god comes up I'm going to just tell her I don't believe in it.

Bannasidhe

ninja900 wrote: »

It's maddening isn't it.

Our 4.5 year old daughter is getting this in school too. She recently asked when was her mammy going to heaven :rolleyes: cue fobbing her off with that it wouldn't be for years and years and years.

Next time the subject of heaven or god comes up I'm going to just tell her I don't believe in it.

That's what I say too.

3 year told old me saying you don't believe in God is a sin. Once my blood pressure returned to normal and steam stopped coming out of my ears I told him I don't believe in sin either.

recedite

jackofalltrades wrote: »

So you're saying it's their decision, and at the same time saying that they're not mature enough to make that decision????

I'm just saying its better to persuade kids about these things rather than to just impose your own views. And its unfair of the religious owned schools to put kids in that situation, where they have to choose between going with their classmates or their parents.

pauldla

Bannasidhe wrote: »

...

His kids are baptised (as an unmarried father he was simply overruled by their mother who claims to be an atheist but still wanted to keep her opus dei father quiet/have a big party) and we were all horrified to hear his 3 year old son spout 'God made the world/God punishes bad people with fire/Baby Jesus died for me cos I was bold' crap last week - he is 3 years old for feck sake!! Even my Theist OH was outraged by the blatant brainwashing evidenced by a 3 year old making statements he obviously has heard so often he knows them by heart.

6 year old granddaughter has declared she doesn't believe there is a God and has told her teacher (teacher confirmed this) but goes along with it in school as she finds it easier to just tell them what they want to hear :mad:

It near broke my heart to hear her say 'I don't believe what they say Nana but they talk about baby Jesus all the time and I know the answers they are looking for so I give it cos otherwise they just keep asking. Maybe if they get the answers they want we can talk about something else like how tornados happen. I told them I don't believe it but they say I am young and I don't understand - but I do and they say my brother does understand but he is three and thinks Jesus is a superhero like Spiderman and they let him think that and it's all lies'. She then asked me if I would Home School her .

Vile and inisidious indoctrination. To fill a young mind with such nonsense infuriates me, it really does. Fair play to her interest in tornados, though!

I was reading a post elsewhere about a Christian woman telling her friend that she was going to stop reading the Bible to her young daughter: the girl, it seems, was getting the 'wrong' idea from some of the stories (i.e. God as a nasty, vindictive piece of work), so the mother had decided to just concentrate on prayer and song for a while. Chanting is better than thinking, eh?

Galvasean

pauldla wrote: »

I was reading a post elsewhere about a Christian woman telling her friend that she was going to stop reading the Bible to her young daughter: the girl, it seems, was getting the 'wrong' idea from some of the stories (i.e. God as a nasty, vindictive piece of work), so the mother had decided to just concentrate on prayer and song for a while. Chanting is better than thinking, eh?

I never encountered the nasty stuff until I got my hands on an actual Bible. It was some culture shock alright. "Woah, this is the same guy we've been singing about for years!!??!"

LittleBook

Birroc wrote: »

"you are using your children to push your views/anger with the church"

recedite wrote: »

I'm just saying its better to persuade kids about these things rather than to just impose your own views

I genuinely never understood this impression some people seem to have of atheism. Surely pushing and persuasion only come into play if someone has a doctrine they want to instil/teach. We simply had an absence of religion in our house.

Reading this thread makes me so glad my daughter was lucky enough to grow up (for the most part) in a secular country. She didn't even know she was an "atheist" until she started attending an Irish school and her religion teacher informed her of this.

Come to think of it, I doubt she even knows the French word for "atheist"! :pac:

kylith

Galvasean wrote: »

I never encountered the nasty stuff until I got my hands on an actual Bible. It was some culture shock alright. "Woah, this is the same guy we've been singing about for years!!??!"

Oh yeah, they keep very quiet about what a pair of dickheads Jesus and Yahweh were. In a way I kind of wish my parents still tried to push me toward religion, then I could have the readings at my wedding be the passages where rules for selling your children are set out, and the second reading the one about Jesus damning the tree for not bearing fruit out of season, and the gospel could be the one about lusting after her hung-like-horses lovers. I'd save the child-eating bears story for any baptisms.

The bible, it's a barrel of laughs.

Bannasidhe

LittleBook wrote: »

I genuinely never understood this impression some people seem to have of atheism. Surely pushing and persuasion only come into play if someone has a doctrine they want to instil/teach. We simply had an absence of religion in our house.

Reading this thread makes me so glad my daughter was lucky enough to grow up (for the most part) in a secular country. She didn't even know she was an "atheist" until she started attending an Irish school and her religion teacher informed her of this.

Come to think of it, I doubt she even knows the French word for "atheist"! :pac:

My granddaughter first encountered this concept of a 'God' when she began school. Being an inquisitiveness kind of child (and stunningly literal minded) she asked questions of the adults in her life.

Everyone was asked the same question. 'Do you believe in God and why/why not?'
She was like a dog with a bone with this issue!

She later complained that the only people who actually answered her questions were the people who don't believe. That they explained why they didn't believe and also told her something about what people with different beliefs believe, plus - and she thought this was important - when they didn't know the answer they said so. For example:
'Nana - what is heaven?'
'Heaven is where some people believe we go after we die if we have followed the rules of God.'
'Do you believe in Heaven?'
'No. I also don't believe in God remember.'
'So where do you think we go when we die?'
'I don't know. Different people say different things but the reality is no-one really knows what happens after we die and people who say they do are only saying what they have been told happens.'
'So no-one has died and come back and told us what happens next.'
'Some people believe Jesus kinda did.'
'Are these the same people who say Jesus is God?'
'Yup.'
'hmmmmmmmmm....but they don't really know do they? They are just saying they know....'
'Yup.'

The religious adults either dismissed her as too young to understand - which made her wonder why she was old enough to be taught about this stuff if she was too young to understand it - or gave her what she considered very unsatisfactory responses:
'Do you believe in God?'
'Yes.'
'Why?'
'Because.'
' Because what?'
'Because God made us all.'
'How do we know?'
'Because it says so in the Bible.'
'Who wrote the Bible?'
'God.'
'How do we know?'
'Because it says so.'
'Where does it say that?'
'In the Bible.'
'Did God actually really write the Bible?'
'No, he told people what to write.'
'So people wrote the Bible?'
'Yes, but they were told what to write by God.'
'How do we know that?'
'Because it says so in the Bible.'
'They could have been lying when they said God told them to write it...grown-ups lie. Are there books that say there is no God?'
'The people who wrote the Bible were not liars. The people who write books saying there is no God are the liars!'
'Well, is there any proof there is a God apart from the Bible?'
'The world is proof. God made the world'
'How do you know that?'
'It says it in the Bible.'
'Are there any dinosaurs in the Bible?'
'No.'
'Then who made the dinosaurs?'
'Stop bothering me!'

After about 3 months of this she concluded she didn't believe in God. She spoke to atheists, agnostics, á la carte Catholics, opus dei Catholics, Anglicans, Buddhists and Wiccans - then decided for herself. Which is exactly the way it should be. She may change her mind as she gets older, but as long as she keeps asking questions, weighing the responses and then drawing her own conclusions based on what she has learnt - that is the important thing.

Sarky

My nephew ended up being baptised for the sake of a day out and easy school access, but I hope he turns out like that kid.

Bannasidhe

Sarky wrote: »

My nephew ended up being baptised for the sake of a day out and easy school access, but I hope he turns out like that kid.

You won't when I start PM'ing you her questions about Marine Biology.

I have already had to recruit a geologist and if anyone knows an expert in climatology I would like to make their acquaintance quite soon.

Beruthiel

Bannasidhe wrote: »

I have already had to recruit a geologist and if anyone knows an expert in climatology I would like to make their acquaintance quite soon.

If she keeps this up, she'll be graduating college by the time she's 15.

Bannasidhe

Beruthiel wrote: »

If she keeps this up, she'll be graduating college by the time she's 15.

Fortunately I will be unable to be one of her lecturers as I have a 'familial interest.'

mistress_gi

If it were me I would say they are getting all the information about religion at home but you would like your children to be given a choice to do religious or not when they are older and are able to make that decision by themselves, from my experience this always works with the most religious person. How do I know? My aunt is a catholic nun in one of those new catholic movements and I've been the only one that has been able to talk to her about anything in these last few years!

Sarky

Bannasidhe wrote: »

Fortunately I will be unable to be one of her lecturers as I have a 'familial interest.'

That just means she'll bug you outside of office hours. :pac: