How Am I Going To Explain This To My Kids?
Whenever there is a sex scandal or just about anything at all having to do with sex or sexuality, Christians are often quick to complain, “How am I going to explain this to my kids?” I never really understood their complaint until somewhat recently. Don’t get me wrong, I still don’t understand the complaint in relation to sexuality, but lately I have been asking the same question about a different subject matter… Churches!
With a church on practically every street corner and church bells sounding every day at noon, my two and a half year old often asks, “What’s that Dada?” How am I going to explain that to my son? It’s a building people go to listen to make-believe stories? He’s start thinking that churches are libraries when they are pretty much the opposite of libraries. People go to libraries to learn and churches prevent learning.
I know I have to explain religion to my son at some point, but I was thinking that when he was old enough to understand and think logically, I would take him on a tour of various religious houses of worship and have him talk to various religious leaders about their beliefs. That way he could ask reasonable questions right from the source and he could compare what they say with what other religious leaders say. My hope of course is that he would see them all as equally ridiculous.
The thing is that right now, he is not old enough to really understand what is being preached. He is too young and his brain hasn’t developed enough for such an exercise. So what do I tell him in the meantime without indoctrinating him in my own lack of belief? I want to educate him in an unbiased fashion, but because religion is so focused on indoctrination, it makes it nearly impossible for me to educate my son about religion without some form of indoctrination.
So when we see a church on the street corner or hear the church bells cause noise pollution at noon, how am I going to explain it to my kids?
Related articles
- Indoctrination and Brainwashing (dangeroustalk.net)
- Atheism 101: How atheist parenting differ from religious parenting (examiner.com)
- How to grow an atheist (honjii.wordpress.com)
- Why Are Atheists Atheists? (jansimson.wordpress.com)
- 13-Year Old Atheist Explains His Beliefs [Dispatches from the Culture Wars] (scienceblogs.com)
Filed under: Alternative Worldview, Church, conversation, culture war, education, Parenting, Personal, Religion, Religious Manipulation
