Is it ok to tell young children God doesn't exist/does exist?

DocK said:

Have you actually discussed your quandry with your sister? They are her children and she has a right to raise them within her faith. Unless her newfound religion is a radical one the kids will come to no more harm than the multitudes of people like myself who were raised as christians and made up our own minds once grown.

You have a right to be true to yourself and imo should not be made to pretend to believe something which you disagree with. If you see a lot of the kids I assume you have a reasonable relationship with your sister? Can you not have an adult conversation with her about the discomfort you feel and try to reach a solution to suit you both? There is usually a way to deflect questions such as those examples you gave with a remark along the lines of "lots of people hold different views about God, but the important thing is to try to be a good person" or something to that effect. Unless the kids are totally cut off from children raised differently they will see this for themselves before too long.

It's great that you have such concern for your sister's children, but at the end of the day they are her children and not yours, and unless she is an absolute fanatic they are unlikely to come to any harm by being raised to believe in a God. You may need to decide whether it is more important to you to remain silent on the subject and remain a part of their lives, or cause a rift between your sister and yourself that results in you seeing far less of the children.

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Sound advice Dock

Be truthful in your discussions with the kids, be honest and when the inevitable questions come be gentle while being honest and the kids will make up there own minds, some people struggle with the irrational and some don't.

Tysonboss1 said:

Sound advice Dock

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You have an obligation to open the kids eyes imo tyson. give them choice so they aren't trapped and brainwashed by their parents from the get go. You have a small window of opportunity to open these kids minds and let them think for themselves. That doesn't meant ell them god doesn't exist, but let them know it's possible he/she/it doesn't exist.

I will be letting my kids(when they come along) think for themselves, as i have been allowed to. I can only hope they don't fall into Christianity, and I will go out of my way to ensure they aren't exposed to it at school. Everyone should be allowed to arrive at their own views without anyone else FORCING beliefs on them from the day they are born.

religion in all forms is a stranglehold on society. It always amazes me the whole heaven and hell thing. do people think that they have a doppelganger vessel just sitting there waiting, ageing as they do, and the moment they die their soul transfers(possibly through dimensions) into this new vessel that is either burning for eternity(along with anyone else who has carried out wrong doing, or has un-repented sins, or thought about a woman/man in-appropriately, or looked at someone the wrong way), or alternately playing checkers with jesus with a pina colada?

we're all just part of one big energy. jmo of course perhaps I will write a book about it and start a new religion, I could make up whatever I want, so long as it can't be proven or disproved, sounds lucrative.

Just tell them the truth. Nobody knows for sure.

You don't believe and it's fine that they do. They may or may not change their minds when they're older, like Mammy did.
Give them a hug, slip them 20 bucks and tell them this conversation never happened.

Great post Dock, agree, talk to your sister, they are her children.

Off topic -- I know quite a few would be really upset if you told their kids at a young age about Santa, take away the joy of Christmas in their childhood.
Might be something you feel strongly about but not all -- think before you speak.

Tink said:

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Off topic -- I know quite a few would be really upset if you told their kids at a young age about Santa, take away the joy of Christmas in their childhood.
Might be something you feel strongly about but not all -- think before you speak.

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Off topic- I don't run around telling people santa isn't real.

But if someone from my family asked me, I would feel uncomfortable lying for two reasons.

1, They probably already suspect it, hence the question. So it would be a deleberate open lie, to try and maintain a childs faith in somthing it is rational for them to question

2, I think if it becomes known to them that I am willing to lie about big issues ( to them santa is a big issue ) as they get older they may have a distrust on other topics such as drugs, drink driving etc etc.

OK, was just commenting on some of the conversation you said here --

Tysonboss1 said:

They were told santa exists, am not sure if they still actually believe in it. That hasn't actually come up in conversation with me yet. But I guess that would create some ackwardness to.

As far as my own opinion goes on the subject, I don't plan to tell my kids santa is real.

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Tysonboss1 said:

Off topic- I don't run around telling people santa isn't real.

But if someone from my family asked me, I would feel uncomfortable lying for two reasons.

1, They probably already suspect it, hence the question. So it would be a deleberate open lie, to try and maintain a childs faith in somthing it is rational for them to question

2, I think if it becomes known to them that I am willing to lie about big issues ( to them santa is a big issue ) as they get older they may have a distrust on other topics such as drugs, drink driving etc etc.

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I would never lie to a kid, as it seems you don't want to. If a kid asks me if Santa is real I'll always say that I don't believe so. Many will hate me for that, but I'm just not going to lie. I think it's really bad that one of the first messages we teach kids is that their parents are not going to be honest with them. There are so many genuinely wonderful and 'magical' things in this world, we don't need to substitute the real thing for some fictional fat man.

I don't have evidence that Jupiter isn't actually hollow and filled with aliens who run our government. I don't have evidence that there aren't invisible elves whispering in your ear when you sleep, guiding your dreams. I don't have evidence that there isn't a god, a Heaven or a Hell, but I can certainly see that it is overwhelmingly more likely that all these things are not the case/don't exist. Religion is Santa Claus for adults.

We're kidding ourselves if we think that most people are able to make their own mind up when they grow up. A few can, but *most* people in the world still follow the religion or lack of religion of their parents. If people had independent thought there would be no correlation between people's religion and their parents, can anyone even try to make that claim? Let's not kid ourselves. Convince a kid of something when they're young and it is very difficult to talk them out of it once they've grown up. The seed of independent thought needs to be planted early.

It's a difficult situation when a child is being told something by a parent which you disagree with. I think you need to respect the wishes of the parent and not tell the child that they are wrong, but I respect the child more than the parent. While I generally wouldn't go as far as directly opposing a child's parents (I would if they were in some suicide cult or whatever), I would I would always freely say that I believed something else and that it's okay to think about things and make up your own mind. Let them know that other ideas exist and that they're not forced to follow anything (any parent should already be doing this anyway rather than *forcing* their children to have the same beliefs - a very common practice).

Encouraging free thought isn't something everyone agrees with, including many of the people who claim they do, but if it's something you believe in, encourage it. It will piss some people off, but what positive change in the way people think hasn't pissed some people off? And isn't it usually the religious people being pissed off by positive changes in awareness and thought?

This is the kind of rubbish I don't want kids to be exposed to without having any competting ideas.

These guys actual believe the world is 6000 years old, and the bible is 100% true and correct in every way.

I think the best advice is talk to your sister first. Religious beliefs tend to have the power of splitting families apart if you go putting your foot in it just to satisfy you. Simply saying "I have different beliefs" should suffice. You don't need to rub peoples face in the fact you think god is bs. I don't see how that is much better then religion. You can educate around the issue on so many different topics. But then that involves a bit more effort then "Hey Santa and God are BS, pass me a beer". You then make a liar out of their parents and their faith (whether misplaced or not) just to force your beliefs on them. Then watch the family fallout from that little home truth.

Sure I would be fine if there was no religion. But good people find strength and conviction through their faith and I'm not really interested in giving them the proverbial poke in the eye just so I can let my ego feel good about educating the zealots. Personally I still turn to God in my weaker moments, but bad indian curries will do that to you.

Re: Is it ok to tell young children God doesn't exist / does exist

prawn_86 said:

Do you have proof for the part in bold? If so a lot of people would be interested

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How does one prove something mythological doesn't exist?

Tyson if asked then I feel you should explain that many people believe in different religions and give examples of varies belief systems eg that Buddhists believe in reincarnation or that the Mormons believe we existed as a spirit before birth and of course atheists who don't believe in a diving being. You may need to educate yourself before engaging in this conversation. This is the capacity that I feel religion should be taught in schools, if children are educated in religious diversity then they can decide for themselves which one they like if any as children shouldn't be pigeon holed into a belief system.

Interesting topic.

Of course, there have been hundreds of deisms and theisms and scores of organised religions throughout the ages, and of course many offshoot religions take a twist from a core belief. And that is just in Western countries.

If you take into account feudal beliefs and traditional spiritual beliefs of the East, Asia, Japan, Africa and Latin America, and before them Aboriginal spirituality, it is obvious that man/woman forms a yearning wherever a community are rooted in time/space. Carl Sagan called this desire, man's yearning to return to that from which we came - star dust. This neither proves/disproves anything, but it is a fact that from the earliest times, our first community necessity was to secure a food source and our second was to invest our fears/hopes into something more powerful, that the community's food supply would be overseen and protected.

And I wrote that paragraph above very deliberately, because I feel that as communities got larger the same concepts were at play. And as the industrial Age kicked in, and as physical laws were proven and we came to understand the relation of Earth to the universe around us, we fundamentally realised how infinitely small and inconsequential our little planet really is. IF you look at the Pale Blue Dot photo, it is truly humbling. We can barely be seen from our own backyard; indeed we are just a speck of a speck of a speck. The unfathomable vastness of the universe and time once again plays to this "star dust" yearning that we should invest our fears into something more powerful "out there", that we can pass on the unanswerable to a being who has all the answers. We are indeed Whos without a Horton.

If you look at the next 100-200 years, it will be an interesting time. Granted, there is inequality in the Information Age but we presume that our lives and all information will be vastly indexed. Google is already the "what". The internet was not intended to be our brain but it is looking like that is what it will become. Computers will inevitably pass the Turing test in the next 100 years. And it is also inevitable that computers will eventually process information faster than humans can comprehend - i dont mean faster than we can think - I mean we will no longer be able to COMPREHEND any computation due to the potential complexity and speed. The information will be output in a "dumbed down" version that can be comprehended by mere humans. What happens to God then? We will no doubt have artificial intelligence. We will have computing power that is capable of processing unknowable stuff. Do we then invest our hopes/fears into the artificial? Nothing will really have changed - "all that was and ever will be" happens here "on a mote of dust, suspended in a sunbeam".


Inquiry and rigorous debate is good for the soul. Not that this helps you much, Tyson. I understand your predicament.

But you can encourage inquiry without stepping on parent's toes. Depending on age, buy them this -

Spectrums

looks like a great little book that will get you and them thinking about the world around them ( out in Nov)
And of course, a little Carl Sagan never goes astray!

I agree previous posters the best approach is to talk to the sister (if she is amenable.)

The exact example questions you gave, you could ask her for some advice on how to handle those matters, presumeably she is well aware you are a non-believer. At least she will see your dilemna and know you care

I was bought up in a fervent Christian environment, but from age approx 10, I began to question, based on Science. By my late teens, no-one would argue with me. Its no good arguing with beleivers, as it is a matter of faith to them.

As you seem to have a good relationship with your family, I would be wary about introducing conflicting notions in a childs mind or being "percieved" to have, as that may cause more harm than good to all.

( I still have post-trauma from when I was disabused of the notion of an Easter bunny, aged approx 5, handled badly)

In addition, if you are thoughtful, it is possible to compose a very moderate answer to even the most tricky question.

Less thoughtful, but more commonly used (at least by me) "Dunno"..or "ask your mother"

ps probably shouldnt mention that you disapprove of bringing her kids up believing in that crap