A recent discussion over at Friendly Atheist regarding what non-religious parents should tell their children about God and tangentially the concept of death has me thinking. Hemant Mehta quoted blogger Adam Wolstenholme from an article titled “You’d have to be a brutal atheist to tell a child there’s no god,” in which Wolstenholme concludes that the comfort that God imparts to children who must deal with death, the comfort of heaven, is enough impetus to compel all but the most stone-hearted atheists to teach their children about the myth of heaven just like they teach the myth of Santa Clause. He cites the instance of his coworker, who lost her father at 9 and was comforted by the idea that her father was waiting for her in heaven—that they would someday be reunited. The coworker’s story was so moving, that Wolstenholme decided to “take the path of pragmatic hypocrisy” and tell his young daughter that when people die they go to heaven. He rationalizes this decision saying, “I can appreciate that religion is a comfort for children, a romantic fantasy, like Father Christmas.”
Heaven is a romantic fantasy indeed. But I have to wonder, why does Wolstenholme stop there? Wouldn’t it be equally as comforting to tell children that their dead loved ones aren’t dead at all, but that they just went on a vacation and will be back some day? Or we could tell them that their dead loved ones turned into magical fairies who constantly sit at their shoulder, offering guidance and protection. There is no end to the silly yet incredibly comforting myths we could think up to help children deal with death, and yet, I believe that if I seriously suggested my fairy model that people, even religious people, would decry the purposeful delusion. This is because heaven has what my ghost faries lack: a large population of believers. It doesn’t seem so bad for an atheist parent to hypocritically teach something that they believe to be a lie to their children if the majority of the world actually believes said lie. Regardless of the argument ad populi, I do not believe teaching children a supernatural lie, even a comforting one, is a good way to help them cope with the reality of death.
Implied in Wolstenholme’s article is the idea that Christian (or religious) children are better off than atheist children who have to deal with the cold hard reality of death directly, without any buffers or comforts. The argument that religion provides much needed comfort is one of the best that religion has going for it, and it is a justification for faith that I often hear. Even among de-converted or skeptical Christians, there is a reluctance to take away the fantasy of heaven from children, because it is seen as such beautiful and comforting concept. But is it really?
I grew up a Christian child who fully believed in heaven, but I do not believe it helped me cope with death. First of all, the idea of heaven implies the idea of hell. Any child who learns about heaven will inadvertently learn about hell. I’m not an expert in religious studies, but I have never heard of a religion with a heaven-like afterlife where a hell was not also present, or where everyone was allowed into heaven. Children develop early on a very keen perception of good and bad (usually embodied in the phrase “No fair!”), and so they understand that if heaven is the place where good people go, that there must be a place for the bad people. As a Christian child and adolescent, I was afraid of hell just as much as I was comforted by heaven. I never experienced the loss of a loved one, but if I had, I can only imagine the sleepless nights I would have spent worrying that they weren’t the right sort of Christian and were therefore suffering in hell. The older I became, the more I feared hell, because I understood that to God, the distinction between good and bad was quite blurry. God might turn to even devout believers after death and say to them, “I never knew you.” I spent the majority of my life afraid of the afterlife that was supposed to be my greatest source of comfort. I was actually so afraid of death, due to the uncertainty of my final location, that I found myself wishing that instead of living on we just went out like candles.
As a child and adolescent, I never had to cope with the death of a friend or family member, but that did not save me from learning about death. When I was 12 years old my horse had a filly. I was so incredibly excited and I absolutely adored the baby. I named her Felicity because she was my happiness. The summer after she was born we put her and my mare into a large pasture where the filly could really run around and kick up her heels. I was a little bit nervous about having my baby away from the barn, but when I saw how much fun she and the mare had in the open space I knew it was the right decision. Not long after, a pack of coyotes attacked the filly. She ran into a barbed wire fence and got so tangled that she broke her neck and died. That was my first experience with death. The life of a beautiful, strong, vibrant young animal was cut short violently and unexpectedly. It completely broadsided me. I cried for days straight. I just couldn’t believe that she was gone. And the worst part of the ordeal was that my faith in God and the afterlife taught me that Felicity, because she was an animal, was not valued enough to be admitted into heaven. I loved her so much, but I felt like God did not love her or care about her at all, because I knew from church and Bible class at my Christian school that God did not given animals souls, but only to people, and that only people with souls redeemed by Christ were let into heaven.
The supposidly comforting myth of heaven gave me no comfort when I first experience death. I had to deal with it the same way that atheists do: I had to come to terms with the fact that Felicity was gone and I would never see her again. It was difficult, but eventually I moved on. I do not believe that there is any real way to shield children from death, or make death any less difficult. The Christian concept of heaven did not shield or comfort me. It did not ease my mind when I thought about death. Contrarily, it caused me pain and anxiety. I think that before anyone decides to lie to their children in order to give them comfort or protect them from the harshness of reality, they should question whether such lies actually give comfort, or if their comfort is as mythical as that which they espouse.
December 28, 2008 at 9:54 pm |
“First of all, the idea of heaven implies the idea of hell.”
Not necessarily, it could be just a neutral place like the original Greek Hades.
I don’t remember exactly how we dealt with death when my daughter was little. We did do the whole Santa Claus thing, but I don’t really recall talking up heaven at all.
I remember once when she was about three, we were watching a nature show on the Discovery Channel. A first-time lioness mother put her cubs in a bad place, right next to a snake’s lair. When lion-mom went out to get her babies some food, snake-mom cleaned her nest.
My daughter cried, not like bawling, more of a wide-eyed concern and empathetic pain for the mother and her babies, with tears streaming down her face. I asked if I should turn the channel, she said no. The lioness kept sniffing her cubs, nudging them to no avail to wake them up.
In such a sad, tiny voice, my daughter asked “Can she have more babies?” I told yes, she could have more babies, and next time she would put them in a safer place. She said “Oh, that’s good,” still with the tears, but obviously relieved.
It was one of the most touching moments I’ve had with my child, and exciting, in a way, to ride out this tragedy with her instead of shielding her from reality.
December 29, 2008 at 12:29 am |
When my 6 year old daughter’s pet rabbit escaped and was eaten by the cat next door I explained clearly what had happened. She cried, but so would any child no matter what you tell them. I also explained that everything is born, lives, and dies…that it is natural. She accepted that. She asked more questions about death and I answered them as well as I could, honestly.
I think it is always best to be honest with children. They are not stupid. They know when they are being lied to. What sort of trust can a child have in an adult after they find out they have been lied to?
December 29, 2008 at 12:38 am |
There is a gigantic difference between lying about death and lying about any of the other childhood myths.
When you lie to a child about where presents come from(Santa), when they discover the truth, the presents still come.
When you lie to a child about where their teeth go in exchange for money, when they discover the truth, they still got the money.
When you lie to a child about who hid the eggs on an arbitrary day in April, when they discover the truth, they get to think up all new hiding places for their younger siblings.
When you lie to a child about where people go when they die, when they find out the truth, they have to grieve all over again.
Julia Sweeney talks about this in her fantastic book Letting Go of God. Her brother dies of cancer and she thinks “ok, well I’m sad God decided to take him from me so young, but at least he’s up in heaven”. Then a few years later where she started questioning religion she was faced with having to mourn her brother all over again because he was dead. Not in heaven. Not waiting to see her when she passed on. Just dead.
December 29, 2008 at 1:14 am |
An imo similar thought as Zachary’s occurred to me, one which I think is for itself principally equal to that of Freud’s idea of melancholy: When one believes that people do not die, that they always remain in one form of spiritual ghost or another, one is never actually able to deal with the loss, to let it come to rest, overcome it, face reality and move on. It might be suppressed, but it may and probably will come to continually haunt oneself. The unnecessary terror this can cause is plainly vicious in my eyes, especially since we are talking about small susceptible children.
December 29, 2008 at 1:16 am |
One of my earliest childhood memories (but not THE earliest) was when I was 3 years old.
Let me give a quick background… my mother was a member of “The Community”… not sure which as she doesn’t say. It’s some Catholic organization she was involved in During the late 60’s in New Jersey. She was considering becoming a Nun for a very long time, but instead decided her calling was to be a nurse like her mother. She left the community and was ostracized. She had lost all her closest friend, she says. Years later when she had me, she wasn’t quite sure how to handle religion.
My father had always been an idealist. He was raised extremely Catholic, but when he went to college he discovered rational thinking and figured that Christianity was probably a bunch of hooey. He still claimed to be “spiritual, but non-religious”… whatever that means.
Fast-forward to when I’m 3 years old. I’m standing by the family fish tank crying as one of our fish had just died. I was begging my father for answers, and as he and my mother decided the best course of action was to present the religion option to me and let me decide, he told me, “Well, some people believe that when you die, you grow wings, and go to Heaven to be with God and Jesus as an angel.” This immediately stopped me from crying as my interest was perked. I began to ask more details and more details, and finally it came back around to the fish. “So did the fish go to Heaven, Daddy?”
“Well, what do you think, Collin? Is he in Heaven?”
“I think that’s a funny story, but what really happens?”
My father confirms this account, as well.
Basically, what I draw from this is, if you teach your kids to think as soon as you can, the question of religion becomes moot.
By the way, they could never sell me on Santa Claus either.
December 29, 2008 at 1:16 am |
That was very well written! It is so sad that the main theme of almost every religion is fear. Fear is the main underlying method used to control the mind. Fear that if you doubt you will be punished.
I think it is absurd for a person who doesn’t believe in god to teach their children that their is one.
I found this from Reddit.
December 29, 2008 at 2:20 am |
Interesting points. I wonder why we just don’t tell children the truth – no-one knows what happens when we die. Then go on to tell them all the things people believe. There is evidence that suggests that we may (MAY) not be just the sum of our neural-firings in this sea of space-time contained quantum muck – but rather the “drivers of meat cars”. I would call into attention the work being done by scientists who are looking into the strange reports from thousands of hospitals citing out of body experiences that produce “information” that could nly be gleaned by floating above or around the hospital room during near death and in some instances during death. We just don’t know – we feel strongly – but we don’t know. I think we owe it to our children to let them know.
December 29, 2008 at 2:36 am |
The best way to comfort children is with the truth. Not the “cold, hard” truth, but same truth we have as adults. My step-father is very close to his end and my 5 year old son will be asking about him. I plan to tell him that his Grampa has past away but that he will always live on in our memories, and we can look at pictures and tell stories about him whenever we need to. We can even think about what he might do if he were here.
These things are comforting, and there is no lie or myth involved. It’ll be even more comforting in that he won’t have to wait many years until he dies to re-join his Grampa. I’m not sure why anyone thinks that “You won’t see him again in your lifetime” is any more comforting than “You won’t see him again.” It is not the *never* that is the problem. It is the near future that causes the pain. If anything, I think that telling them they’ll meet up after death is the same as saying “You’ll be miserable most of your life but happy again after that.”
The truth is far more comforting.
December 29, 2008 at 3:29 am |
And, yet how does anyone know there is a heaven or not? If there is no way to know then how can it be a lie to tell children such a thing. Atheist are simply espousing a materialist point of view, a theory, and not a fact. So is it lying to say there is a heaven? Unfortunately, empirical evidence isn’t even on their side. Science and materialism (invented by political fascist) has failed to disprove the existence of at least a creator force in the universe. Instead, it continues to prove such a force must exist. Theories of evolution for example have been thoroughly disproven as impossible over and over again, by not only anthropology, but bio sciences and molecular sciences, and all areas of science converge on the fact that there must be a creator force. And, now, how many hard scientist types are admitting there must be a God force? Why is it so popular to denounce an idea of a God or heaven today in America? Simple, the same reason that the communist in Russia tried to wipe out religion and put in it’s place state-ism and ugly abstract art in every town square, because spirituality empowers human beings, and when you are trying to control people you don’t want them empowered. You want them spiritually dead. It’s the same reason that America’s bill of rights is given to us by “God” and not by the state. When the state is given the highest say-so in what is moral and right, instead of something far greater than man, then the state will always take advantage of this power and begin to destroy the people it is supposed to protect. Materialism is a political invention design to disempower human beings. It’s where America is headed, if not there already, clutched by facsicm created by central bankers. All past non-modern cultures on the planet have been spiritual, not superstitious as the materialist have brainwashed us to think, but actually touching and experiencing the spiritual and the world beyond. These cultures’ beliefs based on real spiritual experience are not vastly different, they are thoroughly consistent and complete. Yet, today, partially through blindness being so separated from nature, and having hardened hearts thanks to the horrible mind numbing onslaught of media we find it very hard to have any sense of this connection with a world beyond us. And, this is engineered to be this way. It is by design, because those who issue this propaganda know just how to make it work, because it works time and again. So at the very least Athiest cannot know if there is a heaven or not, it’s a belief, a theory, no different than the belief in a world beyond our material world. And, besides, the athiest belief is not even close to well founded. It’s not empowered by real science, and it’s a repeated political manipulation to more easily control people. In light of this, and you can do your own research to see the truth, how could telling a child that there is no heaven ever be considered a lie? Instead, you can teach them that spiritual belief can empower them and make them kinder and more loving. This doesn’t require dogma–it at the very least, requires getting in touch with nature and asking the question “why?” that materialism dismisses. Read to them about “Anastasia” in the taiga instead, let them know there is a spiritual world too and at the very least let them begin to make a decision for themselves. Denying the existence of such a perspective would be a lie, wouldn’t it?
December 29, 2008 at 3:45 am |
Correction in sentence: In light of this, and you can do your own research to see the truth, how could telling a child that there is no heaven ever be considered a lie? Should obviously read without the “no” in it. Also, for anyone interested, there is a good summary of where the sciences have empirically shown the necessity of a creator force in the book “A Case for Faith”. Again being aware and sharing such perspectives is being truthful.
December 29, 2008 at 4:06 am |
Michael,
“And, yet how does anyone know there is a heaven or not? If there is no way to know then how can it be a lie to tell children such a thing. Atheist are simply espousing a materialist point of view, a theory, and not a fact. So is it lying to say there is a heaven?”
You missed the context of this post. It was regarding an atheist who planned to lie to their child and tell them they believed in heaven even though they did not. The atheist said specifically that they wanted to give their child a comforting myth. Since you missed the context so completely, your entire post is a non sequitur. Not to mention the fact that it is completely factually erroneous.
To everyone else,
Thanks for the thoughtful feedback!
December 29, 2008 at 4:39 am |
Hey orDover, it’s your blog, have it your way. Best regards, and thanks for the opportunity to spout. However, it’s far from “factually erroneous” just because you say it is. This wasn’t written for you, but for people who are on the fence and searching for the truth.
December 29, 2008 at 4:49 am |
Our daughter is 6, when she was 3 she started asking about death. We told her the facts, that when you’re dead you’re just gone. It bothered her a little, but after a couple of days of asking about it in different ways, she fully absorbed it and was at ease with the idea.
Children have no pre-conceptions. We assume that they will be scared of death if there is no myth of heaven to comfort them, but that’s simply not true. Children have no reason to be scared or not scared of death. If you aren’t scared, and you explain the truth calmly, they will not be scared.
If you are personally afraid of death, you will transmit that to your child, and they’ll be scared too. But it’s better to deal with that then to tell them a lie, and leave them living in a fantasy their whole life, so they are never able to make rational decisions about life and death.
December 29, 2008 at 5:45 am |
@Elijah: wow, i’m an atheist but i know for sure that “the main theme of almost every religion” is not fear. At least for every major religions.
December 29, 2008 at 6:17 am |
[...] a response to that conversation from orDover, a former Evangelical Christian turned [...]
December 29, 2008 at 6:22 am |
Lying about death distorts a child’s worldview, and that stays with them throughout their life – a problem not worth the vague comfort it provides.
Fantasies belittle the experience of living. If this is all the time I have with any person, place or thing that I love, then every moment is precious and should be savoured, in case it’s my last. That urgency is the message I want to pass on to children.
December 29, 2008 at 7:39 am |
The scientific method is pretty simple but hard to adhere to.
1. Propose a theory/hypothesis.
2. Come up with ways to test said theory (experiments) — this is the hard part.
3. Actually carry out experiments.
4. Analyze results.
Depending on results you go back to 1 and refine the theory and do the remaining tests again or move on to more interesting things.
It seems that your theory is that children should not be lied to and one must explain the truth to them early on. But no evidence is provided. Perhaps faith was of no use to you — that’s not proven, perhaps your early faith _was_ the reason you had a stable childhood. However to say that your personal faith was useless to you does implies it will be useless to others is a leap of faith. Hardly scientific.
You cite no evidence supporting your case. Why don’t you get scientific and put your evidence where your mouth is?
December 29, 2008 at 9:47 am |
I can’t remember when my first grandpa died, i must have been about 6 years old.
My parents where honest with me and told me there was nothing after death.
My mother told me i was very curious about death then , and asked a lot of questions.
I don’t fear death , and i wasn’t harmed by the facts.
When i was a little older i tried to imagine the vastness of infinity and nothingness.And I remember that well.
Experiencing that is a real “magic” memory.
I lost the ability to imagine that far, but it’s a crime to take something like that away from a child.
December 29, 2008 at 11:11 am |
@Michael…Theories of evolution have been disproved? When did this happen? I fail to understand why religious fundies keep bringing up examples of how aspects of the Theory of Evolution are wrong. The Theory has evolved over the last few decades. With new knowledge and advances in science, every theory we have is improved upon. Unlike the Good Book, which is ‘infallible’ in every-respect and never changing, scientific theories are ever-changing. Fundies used to reading the same crap in the Good Book for years can’t believe that scientists do this. What? they mutter…You wrote that in 1960. You WROTE it! How can you change it now…HOW????
The Church has had an almost perfect track record of being about a century behind science. Besides the classic example of insisting that the sun revolved around the earth, the new diktat of the Pope that the advance of those ‘evil’ gay/lesbians is comparable to the loss of the rainforest comes to mind. Yeah, the loss of the rainforest will wreck the economy, while gays and lesbians being allowed to live their lives without persecution will lead to…a fairer society??? Yeah, THATS comparable.
Religion is only unifying if you belong to the same religion as the majority. If not, its a Big Boy’s club and you’re shit out of luck.
December 29, 2008 at 6:06 pm |
jesus saves!
December 29, 2008 at 7:51 pm |
The world is a cruel, harsh place a lot of times. It is important for children to learn to value life itself as sacred and precious. Life isn’t fair, and the world is a big place sometimes beautiful and sometimes ugly but there is no place that is always beautiful and there is no place that is always ugly.
The day I learned in my late teens that life wasn’t fair was the hardest lesson I’ve ever had to learn in my entire life.
I’ve had to experience that lesson a few times in my life, and I would still rather skip comfort for reality. I’d have been better off learning it earlier rather than later.
December 29, 2008 at 8:42 pm |
Michael, I know you mean well, so please don’t be offended by my suggestions.
Don’t do a “wall of text”. Paragraphs are useful and necessary; they allow others to read disparate ideas separately and evaluate each on its own merits.
Similar spiritual / after-death experiences do not prove that there is an afterlife. If anything, it indicates that human brains, at the moment of death, manufacture similar comforting vignettes. For example, the “light” – we are diurnal, and instinctively view light as good. What would be more compelling evidence would be everyone seeing a tunnel of darkness.
I take issue with your statement that
America’s bill of rights is given to us by “God” and not by the state
No. The Bill of Rights was the brainchild of a bunch of Enlightenment-era guys who were annoyed about money, and were steeped in philosophies from Rousseau, Locke, and others. You do not get to start claiming that a deity had anything to do with it, as if Washington and Jefferson wandered up a mountain and came back down bearing tablets of stone.
December 30, 2008 at 2:04 am |
I haven’t read everything above and I don’t intend to write a long response unless I were guaranteed that it would be read. Short story is this: my biblical-scholar wife and I discuss Hell once in a while and we both fit into the minority view of Christians that you mentioned: Uncomfortable with the idea of Hell, but also unable to find enough basis for an “Everybody goes to Heaven” view, called Universalism. Let me know if you’re interested in talking more about it.
~VP
December 30, 2008 at 2:04 am |
I am only 18 and I grew up in a community and family that was really founded on religion and the belief in god. And over the last few years, I have lost a grandpa, uncles, aunts, and my one of my best friends.
At first I truly believed that I will see them again in heaven, yet it never phased me. Their deaths only brought a second of shock and it passed. With the exception of my best friend, I never took death seriously because everyone kept telling me that this was not a goodbye, but just a break from being with them.
Then it hit me in fifth grade when I lost my best friend to suicide and the church told me that people who commit suicide do not go to heaven. It was weird, I refused to believe in them and sooner I started questioning religion in general. Slowly I grew angry and fell apart from religion, I no longer wanted to believe in it.
I believed in God still and kept wondering how could life be judged so unfairly. I kept telling myself that religion was flawed because it was man-made. And from that point I started respecting and cherishing life. I started loving people at that moment because I could no longer believe in the idea of heaven or hell. It could not possibly be true, well at least I hope it did not.
Without religion, I started living life and cherishing others more than before. I honestly believe that kids need to learn about how wonderful life is rather than how sad death is about.
I praise and cheer you for this article. Because I hate the notion that adults have for trying to sugarcoat explanations for kids and that most kids are not smart enough to understand the concept of death.
They are our next generation, let’s make them honest and give them the ability to think about everything, good and bad.
December 30, 2008 at 2:06 am |
[...] excerpt from his post: Heaven is a romantic fantasy indeed. But I have to wonder, why does Wolstenholme stop there? [...]
December 30, 2008 at 2:09 am |
I find this discussion intriguing in light of the recent death of my son.
My family is split between those who are atheists and those who believe in God and heaven. When my son died, we were suddenly put in the position of having to explain death and what happens afterward to our young daughter. Part of the family told her she’d see her brother again in heaven. The other part said she would never see him again — he would turn into grass.
We ended up explaining that people believe many different things, including her parents, who disagree. Ultimately, nobody knows definitively what happens. All we know for sure is that her brother would not come back to life.
The most important lesson I can share with parents of young children is that it’s important to think ahead about what you’re going to say in the “death” discussion. That includes how you will respond if your children ask about alternative ideas they hear from others. We were not prepared but tried to be as honest as we could.
My daughter does not appear to be traumatized, although she is clearly very sad and misses her brother. In her mind, she has been working through the many things she has heard and repeatedly asks us about death. Her reality is that of the present. The idea that she will see her brother some day, a long, long time from now has not resonated when she hears it from relatives who believe in God. Her reality is the present, and she no longer shares the present with her brother. That she understands.
Thanks for raising the topic of death and children.
December 30, 2008 at 2:11 am |
I find it slightly disturbing that you take for granted that the concept that heaven is merely a “romantic fantasy” is a non-disputable fact, much, I assume, as you find it disturbing that believing Christians take the concept that Heaven is a literal place as fact.
Perhaps the truly enlightened parent would tell their child, regardless of what they believe, “This is what I believe… but some people believe that…”
Until science proves or disproves any position, does not any other response demonstrate an egotism that your belief is right, simply because it is your belief?
December 30, 2008 at 2:14 am |
A simple naturalist viewpoint does well for my children. Just tell them that the loved one will become part of the earth, the oceans and the air again.
December 30, 2008 at 2:15 am |
I find it a common thing for people to freely interchange “what is true” with “what I am comfortable with”–if considering the question relates to the nature of truth. Religion is a formalized version of the latter (i.e. I am comfortable with what my priest/church tells me).
But where we dichotomize between truth and comfort (i.e. the truth is occasionally painfula and uncomfortable)–whether to prioritize and what priority to assign between them is an individual decision. How to offer that choice to children, who are still forming their own rationales, ideas, and ideals, is a tricky one.
Most people for instance, never got to choose their religion in the first place–arguably geographical location determined their beliefs. By this same virtue, what is “comfortable” for people is also predetermined by circumstances of their birth.
December 30, 2008 at 3:05 am |
@Christopher
not believing in heaven is not a belief, it doesn’t involve any leaps of faith or anything. it’s not egotistical, it’s neutral, it’s pragmatic. I might tell my child “some people believe this…” but, as an atheist, I don’t have to say “I believe,” I can simply explain the reality (and maybe some science) of death
December 30, 2008 at 3:22 am |
I like your non-pompous, personable approach. Too many people want to “share” their beliefs or education, so it is refreshing to read through a rationalising, thought-journey. Thanks for that.
My contribution is to say just two things (a) that each child is different and will respond uniquely to a given stimulus. The basis for this is personal observation and common sense. Some kids, for example, respond well to discipline, other rebel against it. Similarly, some, but not all kids will find find useful the concepts of heaven, purgatory, limbo, hell or whatever. I guess you would need to know the child in question before making a decision about the comfort it might give.
Having said that, there is a lot of generalisations and commonality in bringing up kids — for example, they ALL need clearly defined rules and boundaries (it’s just that the rules and limits are particular to the child and situation). One thing is for sure, kids do not think things through like a rigorous scientist, theologian, or philosopher (things do not have to “add up” for them).
(b) One role or aspect of parenting is to bring up kids to understand and fit into society and culture. So you are obliged to explain heaven, hell, venial sins, predestination, Santa Claus, Pandora/ Eve and so forth. that way they will understand art, they will see the beauty and creativity in myths and fables, they will possibly be able to see the ethics behind them, the value of the common bond these cultural symbols provide. Santa Claus is a shared cultural experience.
I don’t think children are scarred by all this, but enriched! Once they are in on the secret, they feel bonds of shared experience as well as marking points of growth and development (becoming more adult). heck I’ve met adults who were told religion was all baloney, and brought up on a diet of facts who took up Catholicism in adulthood. More commonly, I have met people brought up in religion who have abandoned it as they got older.
This is not really important an issue I am afraid (interesting though it is).
Nice blog, keep up the good work!
December 30, 2008 at 3:44 am |
O, I just thought up something else…
Religion and superstition is all about controlling the unwashed masses, the ignorant majority.
It is not about comforting them, but making them afraid of punishment, so they behave a certain way.
December 30, 2008 at 4:30 am |
Ah Adam, I find your retort interesting. “Not believing in heaven is not a belief.”
The choice to not believe something most definitely belays a belief, for not believing something must mean something else is believed to not believe the original “belief”. You have a belief that life ends at death. That, my friend, is a belief.
The problem is that your belief that there is no life after death is neutral to you because it is your belief. Surely science has not found a way to demonstrate life does not continue after death any more than it has found a way to show that there is life after death. Science simply cannot answer some questions. That does not make the question irrelevant, for then all philosophy would be irrelevant. It means there are some things science won’t be able to develop a theory for, for it cannot be tested.
We all have world views. The egotism comes in when we assume our world view is the only one, or the right one.
You demonstrate the egotism I was referring to (and I don’t mean this in a way to slander you, I mean “egotism” simply by the dictionary definition, with no judgement applied) that for you, atheism is reality and not a belief.
Remove the egotism, and you’d be forced to admit that atheism, just like theism, deism, and any other ism… is simply a belief.
You say that you would just tell your children about the reality of death. But unless you’ve read some scientific journal that has escaped the notice of society at large, science has offered nothing as to what does or does not occur after we die.
Which just leaves you with a belief.
And until science figures out something clever, there’s only one way for us to know who’s right ;)
December 30, 2008 at 5:43 am |
chris–
believing that life ends at death is not the same as believing it doesn’t. it’s neutral because there’s nothing to suggest otherwise, it’s not a religious belief because death is real…
i don’t know what death is like, or what it’s like after death, but if i were explaining it to my child i would try to give it as straight as possible—which is why I don’t think I could present “both sides of the argument.” I would not present the reality of death and the belief of heaven on equal terms to my child—it’s disingenuous to say “I believe in death, but other people believe in eternal life in heaven or hell” because death is not a religion, it’s verifiable. A child can understand how heaven might not (or might, to be fair) exist, but you could never tell her that death isn’t real.
And science may not know even _how_ we die yet, but I could explain that grandma can’t come back to see her, and how when we die we break down and go back into nature, etc, and how old the earth is, how it’s been around so long before us and (hopefully) so long after, and the universe, and The Cosmos. All of that is right
December 30, 2008 at 6:42 am |
Angelo:
If you or others are interested in how Darwin’s theory has been disproven not by religious belief but by science itself the research isn’t hard to find. I like this particular site because it addresses every angle of the theory very thoroughly but is still very readable and acts as a good stepping stone for your own research: http://www.darwinismrefuted.com/
Regarding the church and science. Throughout the dark ages the catholic church protected and fostered science which then made the Renaissance possible. For example, it wasn’t clergy who refused to look into Gallaleo’s telescope it was other scientists with competing views who refused. Galileo got into some quarrals with the Church regarding some of his views about what his findings meant, but he continued to go to church and was buried in the church. The Catholic church despite it’s flaws has supported science.
By the way I’m not a religious “fundie” as you say. I hardly read the bible.
Abra:
You misread my intent regarding my mention of the Bill of Rights and “God”, or maybe I wrote unclearly. I don’t mean that “God” had a hand in creating the Bill of Rights, but that it was important that the moral values in the Bill were considered “God” given and not “State” given. Read what I wrote again to see why I made this point, if you’re interested.
Lisa:
I liked your story. That at least is an honest approach.
December 30, 2008 at 8:02 am |
If any one is interested in Michael’s claims, I would also suggest reading Talk Origins.
December 30, 2008 at 3:23 pm |
Adam-
I appreciate your counterpoints.
I still come back to my original statement, however, that our worldview gives us our starting point, and what is “neutral”.
“Believing that life ends at death is not the same as believing it doesn’t. it’s neutral because there’s nothing to suggest otherwise, it’s not a religious belief because death is real…”
I agree that death, the absence of electrical pulses in the brain, the heart failing to pump, the decay of cells, is all verifiable. And while science can’t “prove” what does or does not happen after death, I disagree with your statement that “there is nothing to suggest otherwise”.
Later you go on to say (when describing how you would explain death to your daughter) that the earth will be around “hopefully” a long time. Really? Why hopefully? If you are nothing more than electrical impulses in gray matter, and when you die, it’s simply the absence of those impulses, what care do you have for what happens after you’re “gone”?
Emily comments much earlier than me and calls life “precious and sacred”. Now how is that possible, for an athiest? How is the firing of neurons in the brain any more sacred than a flash of lightning? Read the comments above that agree with the author’s well written point of view. You will see they agree with the post. But look deeper and in most you see at least one sentence that belays something else… statements that indicate that they believe life is truly something more than just happenchance; a hope, or an inner knowledge that human life is something greater than just the chemisty and physics of the natural world we live in. It’s something innate in all by the most die hard of athiests. A sense of good and bad (“What is good or bad, but thinking makes it so?”), a sense that human life is somehow more precious and sacred than chemical reactions, a sense that, “I think, therefore I am”.
That, to me, is perhaps the greatest evidence.
And now we’ve left the realm of science and moved into philosophy. But again, science alone is limited in what it can prove.
December 30, 2008 at 6:05 pm |
Emily comments much earlier than me and calls life “precious and sacred”. Now how is that possible, for an athiest? How is the firing of neurons in the brain any more sacred than a flash of lightning?…But look deeper and in most you see at least one sentence that belays something else… statements that indicate that they believe life is truly something more than just happenchance; a hope, or an inner knowledge that human life is something greater than just the chemisty and physics of the natural world we live in. It’s something innate in all by the most die hard of athiests.
In my opinion, life is precious and has meaning because we give it meaning and assign it preciousness. Our thinking brains are able to realize the finiteness of our existence. To realize its limited nature makes it special. That’s how it’s possible for an atheist. We don’t need anything but and understanding of mortality to see that life is a precious thing. I don’t believe that my life or existence is anything more than happenstance, but that doesn’t mean my life looses some of its preciousness. In fact, it gains preciousness because I realize the sheer statistical unlikeness of me existing at all. To me, it is much more “sacred” and special that the forces of the universe happened to converge in such a way that produced human life, and my own life, than to think that some God just willed me into existence.
December 30, 2008 at 7:00 pm |
Well written, orDover. I wish I had your ability to convey my thoughts so concisely.
I do have two more points before I leave this argument that won’t be won by either side, though I have enjoyed the civil debate.
You raise an interesting concept when you call your own life precious. In doing so, you failed to call life, as in human life on a global scale, precious, but instead focused on your own existance. I believe this may bring us closer to my point about egotism when considering the universe around us, and again, I don’t mean that in a negative way. Surely, even to an atheist, their own life is precious, as is the life of their family, because, I’m assuming you’d argue, biology and evolution has left us with a strong desire to preserve our own DNA.
But is Oprah Winfrey’s life any more precious to you than the life of fruit fly? Is Brad Pitt’s life more sacred than a flash of heat lighting over a Midwestern sky? What about the bum at 117th and Halsted, is his life more precious than that of the pigeons that beg beside him? How could it be, to an atheist? Why would the firing of neurons in another creature be more precious than any other common act of nature?
But perhaps you assign that value. Very well. You choose, in your framework of firing neurons, to assign someone else’s firing neurons as “sacred”. Essentially, you become the decider. Or god.
But what if I don’t? What if I don’t assign value to someone else’s gray matter at work? And what if I kill them? How can it be wrong? Sure, society says it’s wrong, because we create laws and rules against murder essentially for one egotistic reason, so it is unlawful for someone to kill us. But what if I know I can get away with it, at least in my own mind, without discovery, and the murder benefits me. How can that be “wrong”, for atheist? How can anything be “wrong”, asside from us randomly assigning something value? And then what happens when our values differ?
Unlike you, I do find comfort in believing that a God chose to create me, to assign value to my life, as much as He did yours, and every other occupant of this planet, and that somehow it fits into His grand design.
The thought we are all just statistical anomolies, when broken down to its most base points, leaves us without frameworkwhere each reasoning person is a god unto themselves, and there can simply be no right or wrong.
December 30, 2008 at 7:09 pm |
And my last point to Adam.
Imagine, Adam, we are in a sound proof, totally sealed room, lit by a single light bulb. In that room, you have the opportunity to expouse your views on society and religion, but I am not allowed to reply, only listen. Now imagine, in the middle of our very interesting but one sided discussion, someone on the outside cuts off the electricity, and we are enveloped in total darkness.
At which point I here you say to no one, “Well, Christopher has ceased to exist, for I can longer see him.”
To me, the egocentric view that because we cannot see anything beyond death, so it simply must not be, is somewhat akin to my oversimplified analogy.
In many ways (and I’m not defending “fundies”, believe me), atheist are more closed minded than the fundies they are so annoyed by. Agnostics at least acknowledge the possiblity of a Creator. Atheist, however, leave no room for a god or an after life.
What a self-centered world view to believe that because I cannot see it, or verify it, it simply cannot exist!
December 30, 2008 at 10:50 pm |
I enjoyed this blog, and all the comments. Everyone seems to be in control, which can be a rarity in these types of discussions.
One argument that many religious minded people make quite often, and that I believe is cheese, is that science has not disproved the existence of god, or an afterlife.
The argument speaks of either a fundamental misunderstanding of how science gleans information, or an understanding and manipulation of the loopholes of an empirical system.
The fact is that science can not “prove nonexistence”. It’s impossible.
One can only observe that which can be observed. One could observe that no previous observations have suggested the existence of the possible nonexistent, but this is still conjecture.
There’s just no way around it. It’s an argument that is as flawed as “Because I said so.”
December 31, 2008 at 12:01 am |
[...] Dealing with Death A recent discussion over at Friendly Atheist regarding what non-religious parents should tell their children about God [...] [...]
December 31, 2008 at 2:27 am |
Christopher,
I focused on my own life to explain my own experiences, but I don’t find the life of any other human less precious than my own. This is explained by my biological impetus toward empathy and altruism. I value the life of my own family group and my own species more than a fruit fly for the same reasons. It is evolutionarily beneficial for social species to care about each others’ well being. There are no supernatural forces needed to explain it.
December 31, 2008 at 2:53 am |
Mate- very valid point. Science cannot “prove” non-existance. So the “religious person” who says that since science has failed to prove there is no God or life after death is evidence for God and after-life is in error.
But at the same time, the athiest who argues that because science cannot prove non-existance, that is somehow evidence of non-existance, is equally flawed.
Or another way, the religious person who says, “There is a God, but he cannot be detected, if He so chooses”, cannot be proven wrong by science. And the athiest who says, “There is no God, but science cannot prove non-existance”, is at a disadvantage, because if right, they will never be proven right.
But here lies the rub: science’s inability to prove that an after-life does not exist does not negate the possibility of an after-life.
No different than prior to the discovery of the atom, scientists could theorize the possibility of the atom, despite science’s inability to prove the existence of such a small particle at the time. It seems extremely egocentric to me to argue that since we, using our archaic science (imagine the reader 500 years from now reading this… our science, to them, will truly be archaic), cannot detect something, it cannot exist.
Further more, Adam argued that it does not take faith for the atheist to believe life ceases at death. If your point is true (and I believe it is fair and valid), that science cannot prove non-existance, I think it must take faith for the atheist to believe something that their science cannot prove. That, my friends, is faith indeed, for it requires you to believe what you can never prove. You’ve chosen your religion!
You see, both sides of this fence require faith. Admittadly, much of the religious crowd’s faith seems greatly flawed. But blame the person, or the religion, not God for that.
I understand the man who says he believes in God for this or that reason. I understand the agnostic who says there may or may not be a God, but he has no way to definitively tell. I cannot understand my atheist friends who believe there can be no God because science has thus far failed to prove His existance and can’t possibly prove His non-existance.
It sounds to me like my three year old who closes her eyes when she’s in trouble and somehow thinks that because she cannot see me, I have dissapeared!
Friends, science has always been limited. Think about how much we could not prove to exist a century ago, but can now.
orDover, I’ve already taken up too much space on your comment section, but I will only say that if your previous comment is true, then we have difficulty explaining man’s ability to murder on an individual level or to go to war on a societal level. You’d be hard pressed to convince me that caring for each other’s well being is evolutionarily beneficial or biologically programmed. As a police officer, I’ve risked my life to save another’s on more than one occasion, and I promise you I wasn’t doing it out of biological impulse so some happenstance gray matter of someone else’s could continuing firing electrical impulses a little longer.
Ok, seriously, I am done monopolizing this conversation. But it’s been fun!
December 31, 2008 at 6:23 pm |
But at the same time, the athiest who argues that because science cannot prove non-existance, that is somehow evidence of non-existance, is equally flawed.
It is not the same. Science deals in probabilities. It cannot prove non-existence, but it can gather information that helps deal to a conclusion, even if that is a tentative one. Scientific evidence suggests that there is no supernatural forces or deities. Each person can do with that information what they will. They can ignore it, say it’s wrong, rationalize it, say it doesn’t matter, or accept it for what it is. There is no real empirical evidence for a God, so I don’t believe in one. God hasn’t been disproved by science, but the evidence points to “no.”
…if your previous comment is true, then we have difficulty explaining man’s ability to murder on an individual level or to go to war on a societal level. You’d be hard pressed to convince me that caring for each other’s well being is evolutionarily beneficial or biologically programmed.
How does believing in a God explain those “problems of evil” any better? We have biological impulses for selfishness and altruism. Usually altruism wins out, but think of it as a bell curve. With any trait, there are people on the extreme ends, but most people fall in the middle. We have to have both impulses because if were completely altruistic we wouldn’t have survived very long as a species, and if we were completely selfish we wouldn’t have survived as the social species that we are. Everyone has the capacity to be “bad” and commit a selfish acts, even extreme ones like murder, but most people don’t, because that wouldn’t be beneficial to a social species. War is much easier to explain. Family group comes first. Tribes of apes also go to war over food and territory, but they very willingly share food within their own tribe.
January 2, 2009 at 4:28 am |
Christopher,
“No different than prior to the discovery of the atom, scientists could theorize the possibility of the atom, despite science’s inability to prove the existence of such a small particle at the time.”
This sounds very compelling, but again, it ignores the scientific method.
At the time, science couldn’t yet ’show’ an atom, but it could observe its effects, hypothesize different aspects of its existence, and then conduct repeatable experiments with measurable mathematical results that suggested and eventually confirmed its existence.
And you’re right about science being so very limited. These are the limits and constraints that science has burdened itself with in order to rigorously sort fact from fancy. This is the cross that science bears, if you’ll pardon my humor.
But the fact that science welcomes and flourishes under such scrutiny, unlike quite a few faith based systems, combined with how very far science has come in so little (relatively speaking) a time, speaks to me.
It tells me that even if Science, by its own nature, can never encompass the whole truth of existence, it is surely the most reasonable and appropriate path to said truth.
January 2, 2009 at 4:29 am |
orDover,
“How does believing in a God explain those “problems of evil” any better?”
Apples, of course.
January 2, 2009 at 8:03 pm |
Mate-
You actually had me chuckling. We have a similar sense of humor.
I like your explanation of earlier science being unable to “show” the atom while being able to hypothesize its existence.
Kind of like… the Intelligent Design theory, eh???
See, I still think you are allowing yourself to be limited by your world view by declaring intelligent design impossible. A truly scientific perspective would acknowledge an intelligent creator as a possiblity, if for nothing other than science could “observe its effects, hypothesize different aspects of its existence, and then ((eventually)) conduct repeatable experiments with measurable mathematical results that suggested and eventually confirmed its existence.”
Oops… did I just steal your words? :)
I’m not arguing that God exists here. I’m arguing against a philosphy that says God can’t exist. I find it extremely closed minded for a group of people, as a generalization, pride themselves in being open-minded, and truth be told, I believe most atheists have reasons for being athiests that aren’t based on science. Science has never been in contradiction of a theory of an intelligent creator.
Admittadly, science has been and is in conflict with certain religions or faith based systems. But blame man and his curious religious customs for that, not his Creator.
January 3, 2009 at 12:22 am |
And Mate, based upon orDover’s about me section, I tend to believe she is well aware how believing in God explains the problem of evil, and it has more to do with free will than fruit ;)
April 17, 2009 at 4:04 am |
It’s been a few months since the last posting. So much thought was written. Being burned by the death of a loved one … it hurts and the answers are not easy to spew forth. The realty exists in those that participate today in eternal acivities … oh no, faith. Not really. Faith is good and necessary, but revelation of the eternal is beyond the fathomable. That is – GOD exists. Not in our mind, rather in truth. It is our choice and always has been to participate or not.
May 14, 2009 at 11:32 pm |
[...] with Death, Part 2 By orDover A few months ago I wrote a post about Dealing with Death. It was inspired by another blog I had read that suggested not telling small children that there is [...]