FFRF Debuts ‘This Is What An Atheist Looks Like’ Campaign

That’s why I said it’s technically true, but for practical purposes, children are incapable of truly understanding religion or the lack thereof. One might as well say that children who believe in Santa Claus are Santanists for believing in an imaginary being who rewards them for being good or bad — are those letters to Santa really innocent, or are they a form of prayer ritual? Hmm, must remember to investigate this North Pole business further — possible homoerotic sublimation…

Ahem. It’s not until abstract reasoning skills kick (which Piaget estimated to be in the 11-16 age range) in that a child can make decisions and understand why they’re made, rather than simply accepting “Because Mommy/Daddy/Teacher/Priest told me so.” Moreover, if the child in question hasn’t made that decision on their own and is only parroting what their parents have told them about the nonexistent god, then how is that different from indoctrination?

That’s why I’d say it’s more reasonable to wait until you can be truly sure that what the child is telling you is of their own mind, and that they’re aware of the meaning of it. I’m not even sure that 12 or even 16 is a safe age for that, to be honest! That’s the age when we’re still figuring out who we are. Even at my age, I’m still occasionally picking at a realization and discovering something about myself that I hadn’t been fully conscious of, which is why I wound up going from a full blown atheist when I was 16 to a sort of pantheist as of about a month ago.

True, and this is real criticism that’s been applied to Piaget’s stages of development, especially in recent years when some have argued that the age of adolescence is growing beyond 18 (when it was the norm that the teenager would move out on their own and begin living as an independent adult) well into the  mid-20′s. For that matter, some people never seem to fully learn how to reason and remain in what Piaget called the concrete operational stage for much of their lives. For that matter, there are earlier stages that Piaget never touched on, such as the age when infants begin grasping basic world logic (what’s dropped will fall down, what changes color from red to blue may turn back to red again, etc.)

On the other hand, I don’t think it’s illogical to draw a distinction between a child who still believes in Santa and a young adult who believes in Jesus (let’s be fair here and NOT say they’re on the same page), or the other side of the coin – a child without imaginary friends and an atheist. Different stage of development, different cognitive abilities.

Does that mean we shouldn’t start educating our children early on about religion? Mmm, still thinking on that one. Young kids can retain facts, but they’re a little fuzzier on why they need to retain facts. I don’t  know how you’d approach the subject and know that your child fully grasped what it was you were talking about, but I think I’d want my children to have at least a basic understanding of why religions exist and how the Abrahamic ones conflict with science, at the very least.