How are you raising your children religiously?

[Medusa]

Re: How are you raising your children religiously?

I'm not a parent. So I feel I have no right to make an opinion without actual parental experience. But...
As a parent you are 'raising' your inexperienced human being. Raising. It doesn't mean look I popped a thing. let us just see what it does. You raise it. I wish people would stop being so frightened to actually put imprints on their children. I mean you are the parent. You are supposed to teach it. Not just let it roam about without a diaper and let it eat spiders all damn day. Grow a pair. Or please don't have kids. I would appreciate if parents would in fact teach their kids things. How to be decent. How to add. How to not kill each other. Stop being fucking hippies.

[DanieMarie]

Re: How are you raising your children religiously?

But, how do you raise kids religiously when both parents clearly have opposing views? Does one parent "lose"?

And does it really matter if kids are raised religiously when religion isn't that important to you? I know it sounds weird as a religious person, but I honestly do not care if anyone else in my life is religious. I'm actually totally alone in my beliefs as it is. The only people I know who are pagan are people from here. Everyone else I know is atheist, agnostic, or non-practicing Christian or Jewish (basically, they believe in their religion, but don't really go to church or pray or anything).

I'm geniunely asking. I really don't want to be wishy washy with my kids, but if I let that slide, would they be missing out on something?

[Noir]

Re: How are you raising your children religiously?

I'm not a parent. So I feel I have no right to make an opinion without actual parental experience. But...
As a parent you are 'raising' your inexperienced human being. Raising. It doesn't mean look I popped a thing. let us just see what it does. You raise it. I wish people would stop being so frightened to actually put imprints on their children. I mean you are the parent. You are supposed to teach it. Not just let it roam about without a diaper and let it eat spiders all damn day. Grow a pair. Or please don't have kids. I would appreciate if parents would in fact teach their kids things. How to be decent. How to add. How to not kill each other. Stop being fucking hippies.

I second this, severely.

[nbdy]

Re: How are you raising your children religiously?

I'm not a parent. So I feel I have no right to make an opinion without actual parental experience. But...
As a parent you are 'raising' your inexperienced human being. Raising. It doesn't mean look I popped a thing. let us just see what it does. You raise it. I wish people would stop being so frightened to actually put imprints on their children. I mean you are the parent. You are supposed to teach it. Not just let it roam about without a diaper and let it eat spiders all damn day. Grow a pair. Or please don't have kids. I would appreciate if parents would in fact teach their kids things. How to be decent. How to add. How to not kill each other. Stop being fucking hippies.

I am baffled by this post. I can't see that it responds directly to the OP, and I can't see that anyone has said anything on the thread to which this is a legitimate response. Did something happen in chat or ??? To whom is this directed? Perhaps it belongs in Rants? Just baffled.

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But, how do you raise kids religiously when both parents clearly have opposing views? Does one parent "lose"?

And does it really matter if kids are raised religiously when religion isn't that important to you? I know it sounds weird as a religious person, but I honestly do not care if anyone else in my life is religious. I'm actually totally alone in my beliefs as it is. The only people I know who are pagan are people from here. Everyone else I know is atheist, agnostic, or non-practicing Christian or Jewish (basically, they believe in their religion, but don't really go to church or pray or anything).

I'm geniunely asking. I really don't want to be wishy washy with my kids, but if I let that slide, would they be missing out on something?

If/when you have kids you will do as you will do. No matter what you choose to do, your children will "miss out on something" because to say 'yes' to one option is to say 'no' to all the others. Every family is different, so you will hopefully do what works for your family whether other people think it is the correct thing to do or not.

[Ula]

Re: How are you raising your children religiously?

I am baffled by this post. I can't see that it responds directly to the OP, and I can't see that anyone has said anything on the thread to which this is a legitimate response. Did something happen in chat or ??? To whom is this directed? Perhaps it belongs in Rants? Just baffled.

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If/when you have kids you will do as you will do. No matter what you choose to do, your children will "miss out on something" because to say 'yes' to one option is to say 'no' to all the others. Every family is different, so you will hopefully do what works for your family whether other people think it is the correct thing to do or not.

Sounds like they are saying if you don't force your kids to participate in your faith or religion they will be immoral, stupid, illiterate morons. Guess they think very little of atheist. Since teaching one to read, write, know right from wrong can't go well unless you do it in the context of religion. I hope all of you remove your children from public school if you actually agree with that. It's a pretty secular environment they can't learn anything that way seems.

[Noir]

Re: How are you raising your children religiously?

Sounds like they are saying if you don't force your kids to participate in your faith or religion they will be immoral, stupid, illiterate morons. Guess they think very little of atheist. Since teaching one to read, write, know right from wrong can't go well unless you do it in the context of religion. I hope all of you remove your children from public school if you actually agree with that. It's a pretty secular environment they can't learn anything that way seems.

I feel you're taking Duce's post out of context.

It's more of, don't be so afraid to pass on your morals to your child. Whether it's religion-based, or secular-based. Parents tend to be afraid to etch their life-styles and beliefs on their children because they fear they'll make insecure, confused carbon copies. That usually isn't the case. I'm a healthy example of this. Even though I was taught everything my mother knew, I became my own person with different beliefs eventually. But in the time she was raising me, she wasn't frightened to make me grasp her experiences and perceptions through her firm teaching. She didn't let me just go about doing whatever I pleased, I would have become a brat. Instead she planted a strong foundation of humane morals that taught me to make my life decisions wisely. If it wasn't for that, I couldn't ended up doing very foolish things that may have ruined my chance at being successful in life.

[thalassa]

Re: How are you raising your children religiously?

I am baffled by this post. I can't see that it responds directly to the OP, and I can't see that anyone has said anything on the thread to which this is a legitimate response. Did something happen in chat or ??? To whom is this directed? Perhaps it belongs in Rants? Just baffled.
.

Because in years past, this debate inevitably has come down to the idea that parents who take their kids to church or temple or whatever with them are some sort of religious nutjobs because "raising kids in religion" is automatically equated to brainwashing indoctrination child cruelty by those that think that kids should never ever be exposed to anything that they themselves don't choose.

...and apparently shouldn't be sending their kids to public schools.

Medusa's been here long enough to see this topic through a half dozen incarnations.


ETA:

I feel you're taking Duce's post out of context.

...especially since, as a Laveyan Satanist, she is an atheist...

[Ula]

Re: How are you raising your children religiously?

Because in years past, this debate inevitably has come down to the idea that parents who take their kids to church or temple or whatever with them are some sort of religious nutjobs because "raising kids in religion" is automatically equated to brainwashing indoctrination child cruelty by those that think that kids should never ever be exposed to anything that they themselves don't choose.

...and apparently shouldn't be sending their kids to public schools.

Medusa's been here long enough to see this topic through a half dozen incarnations.


ETA:




...especially since, as a Laveyan Satanist, she is an atheist...

Well aware of that, she let's us all know once in while how dumb people who believe in gods are. I came to religion late in life since my parents were not religious in any way. I was still able to be given a moral code and have lived by that without faith. If I was worried about whether or not I was view as a religious nut job I would hide my faith, go to church and blend in. None of the things that we poor morons were called out on has anything to do with what religion we practice and not a single person said they don't teach their kids anything. My son has autism and is still learning at 9 to talk, write and play with other kids. Trying to explain a soul and gods are not even part of the plan at this point. No one here has said their child can't participate but would not be forced to.

[Azvanna]

Re: How are you raising your children religiously?

Sounds like they are saying if you don't force your kids to participate in your faith or religion they will be immoral, stupid, illiterate morons.

Ula, how did you get this? I can't find a place where this is inferred anywhere.

I can see some people saying they want their kids to make their own choice in regards to religion and are trying to raise their children unbiased either way. Other people are saying that before a certain age, children need adult guidance in order to make those choices. I see no one advocating forcing their children to do anything.

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Oh wow I was late to the party, sorry.

[thalassa]

Re: How are you raising your children religiously?

I can see some people saying they want their kids to make their own choice in regards to religion and are trying to raise their children unbiased either way. Other people are saying that before a certain age, children need adult guidance in order to make those choices. I see no one advocating forcing their children to do anything.

I don't even think its that...I think the problem is that people (religious or not) have a very small idea of what religion is, and usually define it on the basis of there being god/s that people believe in that they based some form of services or ritual around. Personally, I take a functional approach to the question (a la Paul Tillich, whom I shall let explain this in his own words):

And this fact is so fundamental that, although we shall need to discuss it more fully, an over-all comment should be made here: If religion is defined as a state of "being grasped by an ultimate concern" — which is also my definition of faith — then we must distinguish this as a universal or large concept from our usual smaller concept of religion which supposes an organized group with its clergy, scriptures, and dogma, by which a set of symbols for the ultimate concern is accepted and cultivated in life and thought. This is religion in the narrower sense of the word, while religion defined as "ultimate concern" is religion in the larger sense of the word. The distinction of the larger concept provides us with a criterion by which to judge the concrete religions included under the smaller, traditional concept.

source

And, by "being grasped by an ultimate concern" he means this:

I have sometimes explained it successfully, to people who are shocked by the term or not readily able to comprehend it, as taking something with ultimate seriousness, unconditional seriousness. That is a useful translation. It is not as good as "concern," but to "take seriously" is a kind of concern. And the term is in some cases easier than the word "concern." If people tell you, "I have no ultimate concern," which all of you have probably heard, then ask them, "Is there really nothing at all that you take with unconditional seriousness? What, for instance, would you be ready to suffer or even die for?" Then you will discover that even the cynic takes his cynicism with ultimate seriousness, not to speak of the others, who may be naturalists, materialists, Communists, or whatever. They certainly take something with ultimate seriousness.


That deals with one question. The other problem is that of being grasped. When you find what it is that a person takes so seriously, then and there you can say, "He is grasped by it." This means that, as his life has developed, this seriousness was not produced by active, reflective, voluntary processes, but came to him, perhaps very early, and never left him. Take the scientist. If he has matured in the scientific tradition, he is willing to give up every particular of his scientific findings (they are all preliminary, never final), but he will never give up the scientific attitude, even if a tyrant should demand it of him. Or if he were weak enough to give it up, he would do it with a bad conscience. And every Communist youth who takes communism seriously would be the same. That is how we are grasped. We cannot produce it, cannot say, "I will make this or that a matter of my ultimate concern." It has already grasped us when we begin to reflect on it.


Now if it comes to religion proper, or religion in the narrower sense, there are two ways in which this grasping happens. The one way is exactly the same way as with the scientist or Communist, or the nationalist, or the American liberal humanist: they have grown up in it. It has meaning for them. They would fight for it. They wouldn't give it up.


On the other hand, it sometimes happens that some other form of ultimate concern, different from what we grew up in, comes to us from outside. This is the missionary situation, or the situation we usually call conversion. And there are less dramatic ways. Suddenly, in a lecture or in a talk with a friend, something clicks with us; before that it was meaningless. We had heard it before, we perhaps understood it to a certain extent, but it failed to click — and then suddenly it does. This is a more intellectual type of conversion experience, but it can have great consequences in the long run.
The word "grasped" is a translation of the German. Perhaps it is too strong, and your friends may have the feeling that it always means a dramatic conversion experience. Not at all. It means only that we did not produce it, but found it in ourselves. It may have developed gradually, it may sometimes be the result of a dramatic experience. But it does not really occur — and here is my criticism of pietistic conversion ideas — through the establishment of a method for achieving it. This criticism, incidentally, has nothing to do with the Methodist church, where this type of conversion is as rare as in all other big churches. But I have used the word "method" as did the Pietists and the revivalists, to mean that, in order to be grasped, we must go through this dramatic experience. I am against all this. Of course it may happen, but if you make a method out of it and insist that it must happen that way, then our friends are right in saying they don’t understand it. I myself cannot speak of this "grasping" as a dramatic event.

(under a functional definition of religion, atheism is a religion too...and if that makes some atheists mad, they ought to reconsider because that is the criteria the Supreme Court has used since the 1960s to determine who and how folks are covered under the Free Exercise clause...course, if you aren't in the US it might not matter so much, but I'd be willing to bet that many Western courts use a similar idea)

[Medusa]

Re: How are you raising your children religiously?

Well I see a caused a ruckus. Go me!

Let's break some stuff down.
~Thal is right. I've seen this thread over and over.
~Parents teach their kids things without ever thinking they are teaching their kids. When you allow your kid to make any decision they want without giving them some form of guidance, you are making hippies.
~I don't like hippies.
~I'm an atheist.
~I think dumb people are dumb. Religious or non. Take your pick.
~I am sorry you think I think religious people are dumb. Usually there are other reasons I think people are dumb besides their religion.
~I didn't say force your kids into your religion. If I did, I was momentarily abducted by aliens whilst writing that. I do believe that you should MAKE A DECISION. Don't be all I'm going to just let my kid decide whatever they want. You end up with kids making shit up and having absolutely no idea how the world works. You need to give them guidance. You need to say this is what I believe. This is how I came to believe it. You are the best role model for truth. I mean it's not like you are going to be a Catholic and then say yeah, who cares about the story of Jesus. You aren't going to be a Pagan and be like 'yeah, eff the earth. I won't tell my kid anything about my beliefs. If they are so real to you...spread the knowledge. No one picks a religion to be wrong. You pick it because you believe it to be true and right for you. Why would you do a disservice to your kid? Nah, they don't need to know. Just let them roam about figuring stuff all out on their own. While we are at it, let's not talk to them about sex. Just let them believe the stork story. But we don't. When a kid believes in something we know not to be true or correct...fucking correct them. Yeah, billy, that's how you spell cracker. KRAKAR. Yeah. I don't want to oppress my kid by spelling correctly. You wanna see kids that have no guidance? Check out those poor kids who have parents who don't give a crap about them. See how well they are doing in society. Just look at prison. You think they had parents who guided them in anything?

In conclusion. Be a parent.

Also I wasn't calling anyone out in particular. I was bringing up an issue people have. That is of either being complete brainwashers or being complete hippies. Extremes do no one any good.

And to add because I had to re read some stuff:
I don't think all religious people are morons. I was in love with a Muslim and had experiences in reverting to Islam. I had made the decision to raise our children as Muslims. Because I respected the religion that much. If I think someone is a moron it's because who they are..not the religion they believe.

So now that's all cleared up. :=):

[DanieMarie]

Re: How are you raising your children religiously?

I get what you mean. I do think it's important to teach kids about what religion is and the place that it has in the world.

In public schools where I come from, you also learn about world religions in schools. But I think it's important to not just leave it up to the school.

[anubisa]

Re: How are you raising your children religiously?

I don't have children because i'm still having health problems that I hope to resolve soon. I would like to adopt in maybe 4 or 5 years after I get a stable job and apartment for a child to live in. When I do have a child, I would practice Egyptian Wicca with the child, but not force my religion on him or her. If they wish to be Christian that is fine, Hindu, Buddhist, Catholic, etc... It is fine with me. No religion is superior in my eyes and I plan to teach my future child that.

[anunitu]

Re: How are you raising your children religiously?

Look away for just a second,and blam...ya miss the big bang in action...Checks the recorder...nope,missed it completely...sigh..

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Having been married in a mixed belief marriage...How it went..my ex wanted them in a religious school,so that is where thy went,at a certain age my son decided he wanted public school,so he went to public school..I myself would never expect my kids to follow my beliefs just because I wanted them to...they decide their own path in life.

[thalassa]

Re: How are you raising your children religiously?

I get what you mean. I do think it's important to teach kids about what religion is and the place that it has in the world.

In public schools where I come from, you also learn about world religions in schools. But I think it's important to not just leave it up to the school.

The confirmation program at the church I attended as a kid actually included a short (middle school level) course on world religions and the history of religion (not sure if they still do this, but considering their adult RE classes did, it would suprised me if they stopped). As part of that section of the program (which is a about a month of a 10-month long program that met twice weekly), we attended services for a number of religions (Catholic, Jewish, Bahai, and Hindu) and had guest speakers and clergy (an imam--we went to the mosque for this, a Buddhist nun, and a couple of more conservative Christian denominations). But then again, the UCC is a very liberal and progressive denomination in general, and our congregation in particular, extra-so...I doubt you'd find this in most Chrisitan denominations.

I think that religion (whether you like it or not) is functionally a huge part of human society and culture. While I think you can teach morality from any cultural perspective (which includes religion) or combination of perspectives (and that that morality can be functionally the same), part of the reason I identify as Pagan is because of my morality (and part of the reason for my morality is because I am Pagan). Even if I had the same morals with a different religion (whether that be a religious belief with or without deities), the reason for them and the level of motivation, and the choices I decide to make as a result of them wouldn't necessairly be the same.

If I teach my children my morality in any sort of thoughtful way, I'm explaining the how and why of why I believe something to be right...I'm automatically sharing my religion with them. If my expectation of behavior is based on this morality, I'm automatically raising them with my religious beliefs--regardless of any ritual or deity or whatever that I may or may not bring them along for. If you *are* ________ (and not just as lip-service) your kids are being raised as __________, because it informs everything you do...the idea that you wouldn't pass that on to your child...well then, why be ________ in the first place? Why be something that's not good enough for fo you to teach your kids about?

For example...I pick up trash on the beach as an active devotion to Psamathe (whom Chickadee and Sharkbait call Blue Girl, and yes, they help pick up trash too, because that's how I "force" religion on my kids) on a regular (weather willing) basis. My religion is based upon my bioregion--quite literally, I worship the ground I walk on, the waters I swim in, and everything in between. My gods are the features of my ecosystem, personified. Littering (among other things) is human conceit--its hubris (the ancient Greek religious kind). My motivation for picking up trash and for not throwing things on the ground when a trash can/recycle bin isn't handy and for not using disposable plastics is quite different from why someone that environmentally aware, but a differint religious outlook would be. And, for that same reason (ecological health=the literal well-being of the gods), I support things like hunting and local sustainable livestock production.

As a pragmatist, I fully accept that the end result of my actions are no different than someone who just loves sea creatures or someone that doesn't like the aesthetics of a trashed beach. But the lesson my kids learn is that all of the world is alive in some (non-biological) way, that what we do a hundred miles off shore or a thousand upstream matters, and it matters not just on the level of water chemistry and food chain and animal health, it also matters in ways that aren't tangible--aesthetically, emotionally, and even spiturally.

Plus, its a good work out.