What Beliefs Should Atheists (Not) Teach Their Children?

The book is no longer free (although you can borrow it free on your Kindle if you’re a Prime member) but $1.99 is a tiny sum for a book. Buying it now, thanks! 

Now the big question: What not to teach my (hypothetical) children. I think as long as i’m instilling in them the scientific method, critical thinking skills, and the knowledge that I don’t believe in certain things but do believe in others it will be okay. I guess I’d just let them know that it’s important that they don’t just think certain things because of authority figures, but try to understand the world as it is. But that’s the Cliff Notes version.

I think you’ve just guaranteed that your children will become Scientologists. (Assuming you weren’t just kidding when you said Scientology was off-limits to them.)

I have raised my 3 children using the above list and want to say that honesty is definitely the best policy and will pay off in a million ways. They are 14 to 19 now and I am thrilled and proud of who they are. And as they are solidly in their teen years, I can happily report that the oldest two have specifically told me that they think we (their dad and I) are better parents because we have always been honest with them. (We also decided not to lie about Santa either!) I feel like we have a great relationship with our kids that is full of trust because we decided nothing was worth lying to them and that has paid off big time. I highly recommend the truth route!

I would explain to my children–in fact, I already have–that the doctrine of Original Sin is fraught with absurdity and contradiction. How? God judges Adam and Eve’s act of eating the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil as an evil act that summarily imposes death and divine judgement on all mankind, however it could NOT have been an evil act (or intentionally insolent, impertinent, or impudent, etc) since Adam and Eve lacked knowledge of good and evil prior to eating the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil (their knowledge of good and evil only came AFTER they consumed the fruit and not before). This is akin to punishing you and all your descendents for knowing what Brazenberry Tea tastes like before you ever once tasted Brazenberry Tea. Of course, there is no way for you to know the unique flavor of Brazenberry Tea until you actually consumed it, but you find yourself being punished for knowing its taste before tasting it, an act judged more heinous then your subsequent knowledge of the tea’s taste itself. Removed from etiological or ethnological analysis, this Bronze Age logic makes no sense (in my humble opinion) and I’m not even going to discuss the talking snake that the Grand Inquisitor has allowed to to slither freely in so-called Paradise whose silver tongue is permitted to tempt the innocent/naive/gullible who as yet lack the knowledge of good and evil. Really? And people consider this turn of events–and subsequent damnation of the entire human race to the atrocities of Hell–the height of ethics and morality?

Some of these are “impositions”, some are in response to questions. I don’t care much for the concept of “imposing” something on children.

I’d keep things simpler than these long lists.

1. Teach natural science. That is, teach how things in nature work.

2. Of religion, I’d teach almost nothing at all, merely answer questions if asked. When asked, I’d explain that gods and religion are made up nonsense that some people believe, like the Easter Bunny or Santa Claus (no BS there; kids should not be told those things are real, either. That doesn’t mean they can’t enjoy a game with them as make believe creatures.)

3. I’d never teach them to automatically respect the beliefs of others. I would teach them to respect the right of others to have their own beliefs, and the importance of being civil and polite to others, regardless of their beliefs.

I don’t think there are any beliefs you should not teach your children. I just think it is on how you teach them and how you teach them to think that is important.
People get things all mixed up, they think as a parent their job is to protect their children. That is not what parenting is about at all, the job of a parent is to prepare their child to face the world.
As a parent your job is to prepare them to face anything, including the bad shit. As a parent it is your job to subject your children, at sometime, to everything that they will face as an adult and teach them how to deal with it. We need to throw them to the wolves and teach them to fend them off. Then when they become adults they will have a repertoire of experience to draw on to face the things that life will throw at them.

This silly idea that we need to protect our children is the main cause for the ignorance that creates gullible people that fall for all the bullshit that places like churches teach.

We need more experience, coupled with critical thinking skills, not the ignorance that protection breeds.

Something I’ve been teaching my kids that seems to be absent in much religious and non-religious teaching: Nobody’s perfect. When I told my son that his Dad had made some poor choices in his life, he was astonished.  Since then though, he hasn’t been anywhere near as hard on himself as he used to, and he seems to be more thoughtful about everything.

You certainly don’t have to be a Buddhist to be taught humility or understand the flawed nature of humans, including one’s parents. I’d always thought that a realistic perspective about people would be more common among atheists, but it hasn’t been in my experience.

This is worth printing and saving for our own children to consider when they become parents. Bravo, Mr. Phillips.

I would teach any child to never go anywhere alone with a priest….or Michael Jackson for that matter, but the latter is kinda moot, where as the pedophile priests are a real danger today.

I’ve recently had conversations with my young child (upon her asking questions and also in teaching her about life) and I feel as if I could have written most of your first list as that’s pretty much exactly what I’ve discussed with her.  OK, except the part about Santa and the Easter bunny.  We do practice that secular bit of stuff at her age.  Sorry.  But so did my nonreligious family, and I didn’t feel betrayed or lied to, etc., and she enjoys it at this age.  That being said, the rest is pretty much exactly what we have discussed.  She has never seemed to worry about monsters, ghosts, etc., as I have always told her there are no such things.  (She was worried about coyotes at one point, but at least those can be valid concerns…)  I stress being kind to others, being a good person, and respecting others’ rights to have certain beliefs (so long as they aren’t harming anyone) even if we do not share the same beliefs.  Whenever she has a question about something, we discuss the causes and look up more information online or at the library — helping her learn to research answers to questions and learn about science and the world.  And creativity is part of our everyday journey.

Your second list is very scary.  Since I did grow up in a nonreligious household, some of it is quite shocking. I know about a lot of it, of course, from having lived and having been curious about others’ beliefs and having been curious why “religious” people quote certain things in the bible, and why they seem to be the ones who actually “cherry pick” what parts of the bible they practice while touting the bible as a whole to the rest of us.  I’m sure it’s one part hypocrisy and one part not having actually read the whole bible, themselves, which I find quite bizarre.  How does one espouse something that one has not even read fully?  It’s not like the bible is a 300-volume set.  It’s just one volume, and yet most religious people don’t even know the content much less the actual history of it — and even fewer practice exactly what is said in the bible, of course.  So why espouse this book as the basis for all one’s beliefs and then decide to do this or that and not the other?  How does that work?

I will continue to teach my daughter as she grows the importance of ethics, of learning, of being a good, kind, and caring person. 

Why not change this:

I impose on them that there are no such things and ghosts, monsters, fairies, witches, devils or gremlins.

to this?:

I impose on them that there are no such things and
ghosts, monsters, fairies, witches, devils, gremlins or gods.

Don’t get me wrong, I understand that gods requires a longer conversation than all the other myths because lots of people believe in them and they could run into trouble if they assume they can outwardly treat gods the same way as fairies. However gods are just as credible and have as much supporting evidence in their favor as fairies (and arguably less than witches, which do exist in Wicca but don’t actually have any powers). So there is no reason to give a substantively different answer to a child asking about the existence of fairies or gods. “No sweetie, that’s just make-believe.” In the case of gods you then have to explain that a lot of people think gods are real and progressively teach them about religion, but that shouldn’t affect your initial answer. We can’t expect kids to treat gods like any other unsupported notion unless we do it ourselves first.

Thanks for the recommendation, Hemant. Even for $1.99 this is a good read and is well worth a look.