Good Boy Scouts don't need God: Column

Tom Krattenmaker, a speaker at the AHA’s upcoming annual conference, has an article in USA TODAY undercutting the idea touted by the Boy Scouts of America that morality and religion is a required connection.

(For information on the AHA’s annual conference, May 30-June 2, click here: http://conference.americanhumanist.org/)

My son would love to be a Boy Scout.  Many of the activities they do fall right in line with his interests and getting him involved in a nationally recognized group would be great.

But in order for him to join, he would have to lie about his religious beliefs… which, I’m pretty sure, is frowned upon.  (Wrote about that HERE if you’re interested.)

I sincerely do hope the organization continues to evolve and the focus will eventually be solely on the qualities that make a good Scout rather than who they love or whether or not they were indoctrinated into a religion as a child. 

Scout Law:

Trustworthy, Loyal, Helpful,
Friendly, Courteous, Kind,
Obedient, Cheerful, Thrifty,
Brave, Clean, Reverent

Good stuff there…except maybe the obedient part.  I personally like my kiddos a little feisty.  :-)

Q:About the times when relatives make comments "Jesus loves you...", etc. How do you handle these moments? How does your children?

thevalidfallacy

They don’t do it in front of me anymore, but when it happened in the past I would just smile noncommittally and my son did the same.  It’s really not worth starting a fight over since it happened so rarely.

It’s irritating, to be sure, but most of the time they don’t mean it in a snarky way.  Many of my relatives (despite all the complaining I do about them) really are good people and they don’t pull the “Jesus loves you” and “I’ll pray for you” card in a negative way like some of the religious do.  They really do mean they are praying fervently for…whatever.  And they think it helps.  And since THEY like knowing when people are praying for THEM, they feel they ought to let me know.

They aren’t harming me or my kids in any way and it makes them happy, so…   *shrugs shoulders*

corbinolivia replied to your link: Christianity and the pressure to believe
My mother-in-law took it upon herself to teach my then four year old daughter about God while she was babysitting one night. When my daughter brought it up later, I was livid. Please don’t indoctrinate my child. I want her to know the beauty of biology!
We had a couple of similar experiences when my son was younger.  And I’m certain they all still try to sneak in “You know Jesus loves you even if you don’t believe in HIM, right?” comments.
I try REALLY hard to focus on the fact that they care about the kids and want the best for them, but it’s still infuriating.  It’s the equivalent of me inviting my nieces and nephews over and then giving them all…I don’t know… “magical crystals” and telling them that they need to trust and believe in in the power of the rock if they want to live forever, because the rock loves them and shows it’s love by the beauty of the crystal.  Or something.
Freaking ridiculous.

Christianity and the pressure to believe

Yup.  All of this.  If you don’t have time to read the whole thing, I copied a few of my favorite paragraphs below.  ~JJ

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I’ve been asked by some of my own Christian peers if it would bother me if my kids grew up to be Christian.  I guess the truth is that yes, it would bother me.  To accept such big, profound “truths” that have no evidence to back them up – well, some people call that faith.  But the fact is that buying into Christianity requires a departure from rational and critical thinking.  In any case, if my kids make up their own minds and Christianity is the conclusion they come to, then of course I’ll have to accept it.  But I certainly hope it doesn’t come to pass as a result of peer pressure or wanting to fit in.

It’s very sad to me that kids even think about this sort of thing – god and hell and sin and all of that.  It robs them of some innocence, I think.  Kids should be able to get through the growing up phase of life with their exuberant curiosity about everything intact – without being burdened with thoughts about some invisible, all-knowing, all-powerful being who demands devotion and doles out favors and punishments at his whim.

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I’m glad he’s questioning things, I really am.  But it’s made me realize that it’s possible that he (or any of my kids) might eventually adopt Christianity out of a sense of peer pressure – in order to fit in.  Because we live in the Bible Belt of Southern California – it’s a very conservative, predominantly Christian, right wing community.  At their tender young ages, a couple of my kids have already been told by their friends that it’s a sin to not believe in god, and that they will go to hell.  That pisses me off.

Yet Another Study Shows Low IQ And Right-Wing Ideology Go Hand-In-Hand

“Reality is complicated and messy. Ideologies get rid of the messiness and impose a simpler solution. So, it may not be surprising that people with less cognitive capacity will be attracted to simplifying ideologies…

“…From here, perhaps we should try to teach children how better to reason and extrapolate as well as to empathize with others. Hopefully, those who have a vested interest in keeping people stupid won’t be able to block these efforts. And if they do, then parents, it’s up to you. Teach your children well.”

Secular Parenting and Discussing Religion

*This is a work in progress, but I’m throwing it up now in case anyone has any feedback (positive or negative!) or thoughts they’d like to share.  I’ve gotten a bunch of requests to expand the “secular parenting” link on my blog so people can use it as a resource, but it’s taking a lot longer than I thought it would.  :-/  ~JJ

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How do you show your children the ridiculousness of religion so that they won’t fall into its trappings, but then also instill the necessity of tact when discussing it with people that hold their faith to be the most important aspect of their life?

How do you explain to a child that yes, Grandma DOES believe that 2 of all the animals in the world did voluntarily climb into a boat right before God flooded the entire world? (“But Mom, the story says that FOURTEEN of all the animals, the clean ones, got on the boat… not TWO.”)  And yes, that story is absurd and untrue, but don’t tell Grandma that or you’ll hurt her feelings.

Secular parenting requires you to teach a child to be cautious of certain topics but NOT to be afraid of discussion (many subjects need to be handled delicately, but no subject should be avoided entirely); to be respectful of people but NOT to be respectful of all beliefs (beliefs SHOULD be questioned!); to be agreeable/easygoing if you wish but NOT to be compliant (it’s okay to go along with something if you simply don’t feel like arguing about it, but not at your own expense).

So that being said, I have never told my children that they SHOULDN’T talk about religion or myths or science with relatives or religious people.  I think making a topic off limits makes it seem like there is something to hide or be ashamed of, and that is certainly not what I want to instill in them.  

The only thing I ask of them is to question.  Question everything.  Question all that is asserted as Truth.  If someone can’t answer a “why” or a “how” question thoroughly, don’t trust the source.  And if they don’t feel comfortable asking the questions at the time, bring it back to me and I’ll always answer honestly.

And that’s usually what they choose to do.  ”Grandma said this, is that true?”  Then we’ll talk about why she might believe whatever it is that she asserted, what (if any) evidence there is regarding the assertion, and then we come to our own conclusions.

In short - Evidence before Acceptance.  ~JJ

Why My 7-Year-Old Is An Atheist (And Why I'm Okay With That) | Babble

I LOVE THIS.  Seriously, go read the whole article if you have time.  If not, I’ve copied a few of my favorite paragraphs below.  ~JJ

# Secular Parenting

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Yup, my kid’s an atheist. And she pretty much has been since she was 5.

It’s not for lack of exposure to God or god or even gods and spirituality, because she has attended Church and church and a UU “church” and it has made no impact. We’ve prayed together. I talk about God sometimes, in a good way. When I asked her recently why she doesn’t believe in God she told me, succinctly, “Because I know too much about science!”

And there you have it — an evangelical’s worst nightmare. Science trumps God. My daughter is like a mini-Darwin who had a spiritual awakening before she was old enough to stop having potty accidents. And she was able to do so not because she was indoctrinated by the Church of the Holy Dissected Frog, but because she wasn’t fully indoctrinated by the Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Because the idea that a man lives in the sky who can see everything you do hasn’t been pounded into her head since birth, she thinks the whole concept is just silly.

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I so admire my daughter’s scientific mind. I’m an artist, and an emotional one at that, which is not to say that my daughter isn’t an emotional person, because she is. But I love the way, at such a tender age, she’s able to make a decision like that for herself. To own her thoughts so fully that they are her feelings. “I don’t believe God exists.” Unquestionably. Because she hasn’t been taught to need God to get through her daily life. In spite of the fact that she struggles with things, she has this great understanding that the person she must learn to rely on is herself.

I love that.

I only wish I had been taught self-reliance as a child. Instead I was taught that there was no one in my family that I could rely on, in fact no human in the world I could expect reasonable treatment from. I had to look to God in order to be treated well, to be forgiven, to be embraced and to be loved. God, some phantom father in the sky was the man who loved me, and so of course I spent my life chasing phantom people with half-open or fully-closed hearts, seeking from them what only ghosts can give: nothing. A fantasy. A fallacy. A lie.

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What if, by raising my daughter well, by giving her the attention and fortification she needs, by teaching her to trust her instincts, by letting her know help is always there and that she should feel free to ask a real live flesh-and-blood human being for it, what if that means she won’t need God? Because the shit won’t catastrophically hit the fan? Because she has coping skills and can get through life without it being a horrible tragedy that is only made significant by eating the body and blood of a dead dude and then going to heaven at the end? Yeah. How ’bout that?

On Knowing

My son had to spend Easter weekend with the in-laws.  Yup, THOSE in-laws.  The ones that support the Creation Museum and Answers in Genesis and Focus on the Family (ugh, I gagged a little just typing that).  On Monday evening, while we were reading a story that referenced a Mayan creation myth, my son said hesitantly, “Well, we can’t really KNOW there isn’t a god…right?” 

I smiled and said, “That’s true!  There are a gazillion things we don’t know.  Could there be some type of deity out there moving things around?  Sure!” I shrugged my shoulders.  “But what we DO KNOW is that everything in our universe can happen WITHOUT a deity.  Without any type of god.  The stories written about gods were used to explain something people didn’t understand yet.”

My son nodded slowly, “Like lightening.  People made up stories about Zeus creating lightening because they didn’t know what lightening was or where it came from.”

“Right, exactly like that.  We KNOW that a god named Zeus, that is married to another god named Hera, that likes to chase after human women and create half-god babies, and that uses lightening as a weapon, does not exist.  COULD there be some type of deity that shoots out lightening?  I suppose so.  But does there NEED to be a god for there to be lightening?”

“No,” he shook his head emphatically.

“Correct.  No.  And another thing we know is that every single book or story of myths is full of things that we KNOW did not happen, could not happen or are simply wrong.  We KNOW that the entire world was not flooded.  We KNOW that humans evolved and were not formed whole from dirt like it says in the Bible or corn like the story we just read.  We KNOW many of the locations and events described in the Bible simply were not there or did not happen the way the authors described them.  You still with me?”

“Yeah.  We KNOW rainbows are caused by the sun reflecting on raindrops.”

I smiled and nodded, “Exactly.  So… because we KNOW these things, does that mean there is no god?”

My son thought for a moment, “…um…well…no?”

I held up my hand for a high five, “That was kinda a trick question and you got it right.  We KNOW that there is certainly not a god as it is described in the Bible or in Greek myths or in Mayan myths.  Those were just stories told and written by people trying to figure out their world.  We KNOW we don’t need a god for us to exist.  We KNOW there is no evidence for a god.  But, like you said, that doesn’t necessarily mean there isn’t one… or 10… or billions.”

“Oh!  Like Superman!  Or Thor!” he grabbed a blanket off the couch and pulled it over his little shoulders like a cape.  “They were just from different planets!  They had superpowers on Earth, but were mostly normal on their planets.  So humans thought they were like gods, but they were just a different species!”

“Ooo!  I like that!  … interesting.  What makes something into a god?  What is the definition of god?”

“Umm…Mom?  Can we talk about this later?  I KNOW I want to play Super Heroes now.”

“Ha!  Sure,” I put my hands on my hips and stood tall.  “Can I be Wonder Woman?”

“Yeah!!  Let’s spar!  I’ll go get my hammer!”

~JJ

Glorious

A tiny bit of background info: Due to some unavoidable family issues, my 8-year-old son ended up spending this past weekend with my in-laws who, of course, took him to the Easter service at church on Sunday. 

Me:  So, how was the church?

My son:  I liked it!  They sang funny songs, we got to stand up and sit down a bunch, they gave me cookies and juice, and the guy at the front told a cool story about a fish.

Me:  What kind of funny songs?

My son:  Well, not funny REALLY, but funny because they believe it.  Like… “come into my heart oh god.”  They were SERIOUS.  They wanted a god to come into their heart!  And there was one that went “my god is your god is our god is my god” or something.  That one made me laugh because it just sounded funny.

Me:  And what was the fish story?

My son:  Glory?  The guy said to think about things that bring glory?  What’s that mean again?

Me:  He probably meant things that make you very, very happy.

My son:  Yeah.. that makes sense.  He showed a picture of a mountain and said we get glory from seeing the mountains that were made by god.  Even though mountains are made from volcanoes or tectonic plates…maybe he didn’t know that?

Me:  Maybe he didn’t.

My son:  And then he showed a picture of himself holding a HUGE fish and said it was one of the most gloryests moments - is that the word?

Me:  Probably most gloriOUS.

My son:  Most glorious moments of his life.  And he said that god gave him glory by helping him catch the fish!  Like he believes in a fish god or a sea god!  Poseidon, maybe!

Me:  Ha!  Can you image like… Thor… going “here fishy fishy fishy…go bite this guy’s hook!”

My son:  No way!  I think Thor would have better things to do. 

Me:  I think you’re right. ~JJ

Atheist Mama

I don’t think about being an atheist very often.  I blog about atheism and secular parenting, yes, but if I were to define or describe myself to someone new, “atheist” would not likely pop into my head as a primary identity.

On Monday I started a new Mommy/Daddy and Me class with my daughter.  I hate these classes but my kids have always loved them, so I put on my happy face and go “make friends.”  (Side note, I DID meet my dear friend C. at one of these classes - she’s the one tiny breath of fresh air I have in this super conservative area of rural MN - so the classes haven’t always been unbearable).  Anyway, at this particular class there were 7 parents, myself and six others.  As part of the “getting to know you” section, we had to tell the group what we most wanted our children to remember about their childhood.

Four of the seven said, “Their faith in Jesus” or “Their love for God.”

They had no clue, of course, that there was an atheist in their midst.  But as each person said these words I sunk lower and lower in my chair.  There are the obvious reasons why this would bother/annoy me, but it didn’t occur to me until tonight why their words HURT.  Why I felt attacked.  Why it took every ounce of willpower I had to stay in that room and continue chatting with my happy face.  Why, when I finally got out of there, I sobbed in the car on the way home.

It’s because my mother would have said the exact same thing.

My mother who still has not said more than a few words to me since November.

My mother who no longer seems to want me in her life in any capacity.

So this week… yeah.  I’m an atheist.  I’m an atheist that hopes what her children remember most about their childhood is laughter and music, sunshine and smiles, struggles and successes.  I’m an atheist that hopes her children remember to always ask why, always question, always challenge authority.  And most importantly, I’m an atheist that hopes that her children always remember their mama loves them absolutely unconditionally.  ~JJ

The Beginning

My 8-year-old came rushing into my bedroom at 11:14 last night, “I’m so glad you’re awake!”

“Why?!  What’s wrong?”

He held up a book, “Did you know that there are galaxies 13 BILLION light years away from the Milky Way?”

“I did not know that, no.”

“DO YOU KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS?”

“The universe is enormous?” I asked.

“Well, yeah, of course.  But it MEANS that if there is life in those galaxies and if they have super powerful telescopes, they could WATCH THE EARTH BEING FORMED!”

“Huh?  I don’t understand.”  (I actually did understand, but I wanted to be sure he did.)

He sat down on the edge of my bed, “Okay, so light travels really really fast, right?” His hands flew through the air to illustrate the point.  “And a ‘light year’ is how far light can travel in a year.  Got it?”

“I got it.”

“These galaxies,” he pointed to a picture in his book, “are 13 BILLION light years away.  It took their light 13 BILLION years to get here.  Got it?”

“I got it.”

“So if there are creatures there, looking over at us, our light would take 13 billion years to get THERE too,” he jumped up from the bed and looked out the window.

“But the earth isn’t 13 billion years old.  It’s only about four and a half billion years old,” I said.

He spun around and smiled hugely, “EXACTLY!!  So in…” he furrowed his brow and counted on his fingers, “about eight and a half billion years, they can look through their telescopes (if they have them) and watch our sun explode and create the earth!  From DUST!  STAR DUST!  They could WATCH IT HAPPENING.”

“That is really, really cool.  I suppose that means we can watch planets being created as well, huh?  Watch the beginning of new life?”

He grinned and nodded then turned to look out the window again.  “That’s what I’m going to do, Mom.  I’m going to go to the stars and watch new life begin.”  ~JJ

He died because of you vs He died for you

I’ve been seeing a lot of posts and messages related to the child abuse post ihateallyourgods reblogged yesterday (this one).  Two super quick things I’d like to make clear:

1)  The messages I received as a child varied depending on who was giving the sermon, who was leading the Bible studies or Sunday schools, and who was in charge of the camp in any given year.  Sometimes the message was “Jesus died BECAUSE of you,” sometimes the message was “Jesus died FOR you.”  So yes, I know all about the “He did it for LOVE” argument - you don’t need to explain it to me.  :-)

2)  Does the way the message is spun really even matter?  “He died BECAUSE of you” implies that my sin caused Jesus to be tortured and killed.  “He died FOR you” implies… that my sin is worthy of being tortured and killed, but Jesus took it instead.  Is there really that much of a difference?  And the “My God, My God, why have thou forsaken me” line makes it pretty clear that he changed his mind while hanging up there.  So again, the blame falls to the “sinners.”

No matter what, teaching a child that a guy was tortured and killed because of her/for her and then trying to water the horror of that message down with stories about love and rainbows and friendly whales is a pretty damn shitty thing to do.  ~JJ

My 8-year-old son: Mom?  We read in that book this morning that gas and dust come together to create stars.

Me:  That’s right.  Hydrogen and dust condense and form protostars.

My son:  Then it heats up and EXPLODES.  And the extra dust and gas turn into planets.

Me:  Yup!

My son:  And then the planets can grow life, like us.

Me:  Over billions of years, yes.

My son:  So I’m actually made out of star dust.

Me:  Ha!  Yes, Neil.  You are.  (That went over his head, but I showed him the above video to help explain.)  ~JJ

Dust to Dust

A bunch of people on facebook posted pictures of themselves with ash on their forehead last night.

My son saw one of the photos and said “That’s awkward.”

“Ha!  Remember when we talked about Ash Wednesday the other day?  When people go to church on Ash Wednesday, sometimes they get ash crosses on their forehead.”

“WHY?”

“Different groups do it for different reasons.  For some people it signifies mortality.  Mortality means knowing we will all die eventually.  The ashes, for those people, means…well, that they know that they will become dirt someday.  For other people it means repentance…that means they say they did something wrong and they are saying sorry.  They confess to doing something they think is bad and then the priest or pastor puts ash on their forehead and says their god forgives them.”

He stared at the picture for a moment longer, then shrugged.  “Oooo-kay.”

My thoughts exactly, kiddo.  ~JJ

The New Pope

First, some background… a few days ago my son made a comment about wanting to get rid of taxes (he wanted to buy a lego set, but with tax it was out of his budget). We had a conversation about taxes and all the different things the money can used for like building roads, making sure water is clean, health insurance for children, food programs, etc.

Fast forward to this morning. There was a story on MPR about the pope resigning and my son asked me what they were talking about, “What’s a pope?”

“He’s…okay, you know people who believe the Bible is true are called Christians?”

“Yup! They think Jesus was a real guy that died and then came back to life and turned back into a god. Or whatever. Right?”

“That’s the gist of it, yes. Okay, so they are Christians. But then that group, ‘Christians,’ is divided into hundreds of other groups. X and X [names removed] are called evangelicals. Y and Y are Methodist. Z and Z are Lutheran. W and W are Catholic and Catholics are the largest group within the Christian groups. You with me so far?” I asked him.

“Lots of groups. Catholic biggest. Yup.”

“The pope is the leader of the Catholic group. He’s kinda like the president of the church - he’s in charge. Some Catholics believe that he can actually talk to god and then he’ll pass god’s mesages along to the rest of the Catholic group.”

“God isnt real though…so… is he just pretending?” my son raised an eyebrow.

“Well…you know how sometimes when you’re playing and suddenly you get a really good idea? Maybe a way to fix something, or just feeling inspired to play something else?”

“Yeah.”

“Well if you believed in a god, you might think those ideas CAME from that god. That god was talking to you.”

“Ha! So they think god just tells them what they want to do anyway?”

“Pretty much, yes. So anyway, the pope might actually believe that his ideas are messages from god… but what’s more important is that other people believe. And they do. That’s why it’s a big deal that the pope is resigning (that means quitting). When someone is elected to be the pope, he’s supposed to stay the pope until he dies. He’s supposed to be able to talk to god, be the leader of the Catholic church, tell the church what to do. But now he’s quitting and they will need to elect a new pope.”

“Why is he quitting?”

I shrugged, “We don’t know.”

“If I was the pope, I would just pretend to talk to god and then tell people what to do,” my son said, grinning.

“And what would you tell them to do?” I asked.

My son sat quietly for a minute. “I would go into a room by myself, then come out and say ‘I have a message from god.’ Then I would tell them that god said they could only spend their money on taxes.”

I laughed, “Huh? On taxes? Why taxes? What do you mean?”

He gave me a look that suggested he pitied me for being oblivious. “They can only use their money for stuff people need. Water or food or clothes or roads. Like what taxes are for.”

“Your message from god would be that the Catholic church should start paying taxes?”

“Yeah!”

He smiled widely, then went back to playing with a Transformer. ~JJ