This thought has been lingering in my mind for quite some time now, and it's actually causing me to not get any sleep so I thought I'd post it here.

Recently me and my girlfriend had a long talk about where we are in our relationship and if we see us getting married sometime in the future. Somewhere along the line the topic of kids came up and with me being openly Atheist and her being a closet-Atheist (only her closest friends know, her family is very very religious and intolerant of Atheism), we discussed how children with Atheist parents are usually raised. The problem is that when I made the long and painful transformation from my former religion to Atheism, I went through a great deal of panic attacks and long nights where I stayed awake and pondered what the point of life is, why we exist and what it'll feel like not existing, etc. and I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy, let alone little children. Although I guess most of my pain was with letting go of my former religion that was hammered into my brain as a little child, and it would be different for my children being raised religion-less and all.

My main question what answer could I possibly give to the question "What happens when we die, Dad?" to my children at an innocent age. Help!

You may find this useful.

just tell them what you believe. it shouldn't be harder than teaching a religion.

Let em listen to the Skeptics Guide instead of a bedtime story..

I don't really see why you have to be truthful, anyways... most parents lie about Santa, why not make some story up until the time is right?

Well I wasn't raised athiest exactly, as neither of my parents are, but they tend to avoid organized religion. Essentially as a child I was never really told of god in any way that changed my life profoundly. Really, religion has basically not been a part of my life at all, at the least this holds true for the years where I can really think for myself. I've never had any moral crises, nor have I ever questioned the point of life.

If anything, I think that because there is no afterlife it's important that we live our lives to the fullest. I don't buy the argument that athiests have no "moral compass." If anything, I believe that because we only have our life on Earth, that we should strive to be nice to others and not ruin anyone elses life. Life is precious, for it to have occurred at all.

As far as questions of "where do we go after we die," I'd say just tell the truth. We break down, we become recycled into other life. The circle of life! In a way, we really do have the potential to "live forever" (until the eventual heat death of the universe, haha). It's a nice thought, really. No fear-mongering of living life in eternal suffering for those who are "bad" by the standards of a script written thousands of years ago. Times change, values change..

I was raised with church until I was about 7 until I announced to my parents that god couldn't possibly exist with how shitty the world was for so many people. I also realized pretty early that making the argument of "it just IS" or "the bible says so" or "god works in mysterious ways" is ridiculous.

When it comes to raising kids, I'll let them believe what they want to believe to a certain extent. I will say that I'll never take them to church unless it's for my religious family members, and that I'll do my best to teach them to think logically. My parents left me pretty much to learn my own lessons once I hit high school, and it's the best thing they ever did for me.

Originally Posted by TedMosby

Recently me and my girlfriend had a long talk about where we are in our relationship and if we see us getting married sometime in the future. Help!

Who's your girlfriend Ted Mosby? Just tell us now so we can stop watching your crappy show.

Originally Posted by ShouldBeStudying

Who's your girlfriend Ted Mosby? Just tell us now so we can stop watching your crappy show.

bahahahahahahahaha

Hmm, answering their questions may be more difficult. For example, "why do trees look like that?" wouldn't be answerable by "because magic man made them that way".

I kid, I kid. But only a little.

I will say that I'll never take them to church unless it's for my religious family members, and that I'll do my best to teach them to think logically. My parents left me pretty much to learn my own lessons once I hit high school, and it's the best thing they ever did for me.

I see a contradiction here. If you teach them to think logically, then you're not really leaving them to learn their own lessons - you're forcing (without any violent connotations or anything) your thought-paradigm on them, just as a Christian would force their thought-paradigm on their child by going to church, etc.
It's unfortunate that 'thinking logically' is assumed, by social convention, to be synonymous with 'thinking straight'.

EDIT: There are some complicated logical nuances to that last sentence, if anyone cares for clarification. Only read this part if you haven't eaten anything yet and/or have a strong stomach, as I've heard that logic can make one violently ill:

When 'logic' is used in a general social context, what is typically meant is a hodgepodge of inferential techniques that include the methods of first-order logic, along with natural induction. First-order logic is also the primary focus of mathematical logic, because it has only two truth-values (that is, there is a function called an interpretation that maps each sentence of first-order logic to the set {0,1} (or generally any set with 2 elements in it)) and does not permit so-called 'self-referential sentences', where whose sentences can be 'substituted' for instance-variables. For example, we can't construct something like "this statement is false" in first-order logic without using a sophisticated translation technique called Goedel numbering. This corresponds to our social use of 'logic', because such a sentence would be thought to either be 'undecidable' or 'logically invalid' (or maybe, in other words, 'trippy').

However, it is the case generally that 'thinking straight' is not the same as thinking along the lines of what we defined as 'socially-conceived logic'. We use a multitude of logics and transition between them seamlessly while thinking and speaking - the codomain of the interpretation function is variable and understood semantically (i.e. we can differentiate between a probabilistic logical statement and a Boolean logical statement, where the first has 'degrees of potential occurrence' (the codomain would be, say, [0,1]) and the latter is the same as the set we described earlier.

"Do you remember what it was like before you were born? Death is kind of like that. The important thing is not what death is like, son/daughter, the important thing is what your life is like. If you do your best to live a good, honest life you will live on in the memories of the people whose lives you touched. So just focus on doing your very best to live your life the best you can, and everything will be okay."

seems like a good answer to me.

Originally Posted by Mahratta

Hmm, answering their questions may be more difficult. For example, "why do trees look like that?" wouldn't be answerable by "because magic man made them that way".

I kid, I kid. But only a little.



I see a contradiction here. If you teach them to think logically, then you're not really leaving them to learn their own lessons - you're forcing (without any violent connotations or anything) your thought-paradigm on them, just as a Christian would force their thought-paradigm on their child by going to church, etc.
It's unfortunate that 'thinking logically' is assumed, by social convention, to be synonymous with 'thinking straight'.

I'm curious as to what you mean by thinking straight then?

I believe just tell them why you converted into atheism i hope it wasn't for love it should be for other reasons

When they are young just tell them things of what you believe

also tell them why you converted and why you feel atheism is the right path for you


I am Muslim btw and I believe that Islam is the right religion for me

it is very hard to teach people about religion now because its a serious issue especially with how the media can affect it


wish you best of look and May what ever you believe in guide you to the right path

gl

Originally Posted by Freak705

I'm curious as to what you mean by thinking straight then?

See the rest of my post, haha.

To sum it up (and take away a bit from the point of it): we use lots of logics. We tend to use particular collections of logics when we speak of 'thinking in X way'. Language misleads us when we say 'thinking logically'. The phrase connotes a correct collection-choice, while all we're doing is arbitrarily selecting a collection of logics in the same manner as, say, a Christian would select their collection when 'thinking religiously'.

I'm an agnostic and I've had very similar thoughts about children and religion. I think children need a comforting and beautiful idea surrounding death. May be talk about the circle of life and your body and soul being "at rest" or "peace"? I know a few people that have told their kids that they become something new...could be part of a tree...soil...a bird...etc. If you glorify the wonderful aspects of nature and the circle of life, I'm hoping that it may comfort a child.

I've only ever tried to comfort a child over the death of a cat...so I'm no expert, but the above is my plan.

I also think it is important to expose children to what various religions believe. Just because I choose not to identify with a religion doesn't mean my children should be atheists. They should choose whatever path they want.

Originally Posted by TedMosby

This thought has been lingering in my mind for quite some time now, and it's actually causing me to not get any sleep so I thought I'd post it here.

Recently me and my girlfriend had a long talk about where we are in our relationship and if we see us getting married sometime in the future. Somewhere along the line the topic of kids came up and with me being openly Atheist and her being a closet-Atheist (only her closest friends know, her family is very very religious and intolerant of Atheism), we discussed how children with Atheist parents are usually raised. The problem is that when I made the long and painful transformation from my former religion to Atheism, I went through a great deal of panic attacks and long nights where I stayed awake and pondered what the point of life is, why we exist and what it'll feel like not existing, etc. and I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy, let alone little children. Although I guess most of my pain was with letting go of my former religion that was hammered into my brain as a little child, and it would be different for my children being raised religion-less and all.

My main question what answer could I possibly give to the question "What happens when we die, Dad?" to my children at an innocent age. Help!

You don't have to worry about this for at least 15 years, now is not the time to be stressing over stuff like this, take a xanax and just chill.