Passing religion onto to your children ?

[citizenzen]

It's also kind of funny how you point out that these agnostic and atheist children are being brought up in agnostic and atheist homes. If those agnostic and atheist familes were indeed as UNBIASED as we religious types are, wouldn't probability say that more of them would eventually use their own free minds to explore spiritual things?

I was raised in an agnostic home. I was free to attend church as a child, which I did 3 times around the age of 10 when I had a religious friend. From this open and unbiased home my non-believing parents produced:

1 Mormon (older sister)

1 Buddhist (me)

1 Agnostic (younger sister)

Both my older sister and myself adopted our current faiths in our late teens / early adulthood when we had enough life experience to make an intelligent and informed decision. I was lucky to be born into a family that supported our freedom to choose for ourselves.

 

[Marsh]

Well you live in a very different country to me. Here a newscaster signing off with god on his lips would be a sensational outrage. With the exception of a Polish girlfriend I know no one, with the notable exception of two criminals, who attend any church. I know religion has no bearing on the ability to excel and no matter your experience my belief will remain that way.

It is reasoning like that which is driving the West into the ground. Take a good look at history, Tao: civilizations rise, decay, and fall. Why do they fall? Because people stop believing in things. Say what you want about institutions, but can you name me one country that went backwards in their development during the years in which Christianity was a strong factor of daily life?

I find it very ironic that someone from the UK, who is enjoying the fruits of a thousand years of progress during which his society's soul was a Christian one, can declare with certainty that religion is useless.

 

[wil]

It is reasoning like that which is driving the West into the ground. Take a good look at history, Tao: civilizations rise, decay, and fall. Why do they fall? Because people stop believing in things. Say what you want about institutions, but can you name me one country that went backwards in their development during the years in which Christianity was a strong factor of daily life?

I find it very ironic that someone from the UK, who is enjoying the fruits of a thousand years of progress during which his society's soul was a Christian one, can declare with certainty that religion is useless.

Funny, I would have used the UK as an example.... They were a powerful nation...'The sun didn't set on England' so were they on the Christian downturn in 1776 when we US'ns broke away...and then when India did and the end of their era of colonization?

Or how about the Roman Empire...can't its demise be timed just about with Christianity? How many years prior to 300 was it growing??

 

[Radunzel]

i have no problems letting the right path making itself clear to my kids (ifwhenhow ect) lol

but if i ever see them with a haidth muslim may allah SWT guide them.. IF i had a son i would rather he marry a jew or christian inshallah if a daughter then im sure by then quranites will be in a force enough to find her one to marry..

BUt i must say we are gonna need as masjid soon..

as i cannot keep my mouth shut when people ask me things.. and this is already a problem for me let alone my children, or my childrens children. what with wahaabism slowly inflitraiting sunni masjids

 

[Marsh]

Funny, I would have used the UK as an example.... They were a powerful nation...'The sun didn't set on England' so were they on the Christian downturn in 1776 when we US'ns broke away...and then when India did and the end of their era of colonization?

Or how about the Roman Empire...can't its demise be timed just about with Christianity? How many years prior to 300 was it growing??

*sigh*

The Christian downturn..... tell me, were there many empty Anglican churches during the Victorian Era, wil? When England was at the height of its power, I mean? What about during the Renaissance? When England raised itself above France and the other Imperial powers at the time, what was the religious climate like? And what about now? Today, how many churches in the UK are mostly empty on Sunday? Or have been closed down?

This "Christian downturn" that you mentioned.... compared to today, how pronounced was it, wil? How significant was it? Not very, I'd hazard, so if we're going to discuss history, let's do it in a rational way, yeah?

I said that civilizations fall because they stop believing in things; not because they stop believing in Christianity. Religion is something that one may believe in, but so is political ideology, so is materialism, so is an Emperor, and so on. This line of reasoning that young minds have to be kept free of things in order to allow them to develop naturally is nothing more than a steaming pile of politically-correct, morally arrogant horse apples. It presupposes that the natural state of the human mind is empty, and that it's somehow possible to develop an identity in complete isolation.

Come, my British friends, and break out thine anthology of the writings of John Stuart Mills, and read what he had to say on the evolution of ideas. If religion is truly bs, then certainly your child will sort that out for themselves eventually, won't they? That is, if you prepare their minds to work on that sort of level of critical thinking-- which you won't, if you shield them from ideas rather than letting them figure things out.

Take a good look at what's happening in the world today. Do you think that Chinese parents are concerned with keeping their kids "ideologically neutral" through their formative years? What about middle-eastern Muslim families? Do you think that they're preoccupied with maintaining a balanced perspective in what they teach their children.

NO!

They're raising their kids as they themselves were raised, and their kids will grow up to become like them. Those kids will grow up with an identity; they'll feel like they are part of something larger than themselves, and will feel like they have a purpose. Your kids won't. Your kids will grow up to be cynical little brats who don't take anything seriously and who see little value in anything that does not provide them with immediate pleasure. So while they're off pleasuring themselves, the Chinese and the middle-easterners and the Americans and basically everyone who actually believes in things will be moving forward, will subsequently out-compete them, and will eventually subjugate them (intellectually, economically, perhaps even militarily).

It is the trend, and all I'm doing is reporting on it. Canada is in the exact same boat, so it's not like I'm biased against you.

 

[wil]

Marsh I believe you indicated that where there is a strong church the countries do well. I was being sarcastic 'so there was a Christian downturn when..." No, obvioiusly Christianity was running strong when India and the US broke away.

I was simply providing an example of the fall of the English Empire during a time when Christianity was well, rampant. Contemplating it, it was also forced, ie you must attend church and this is the church you must attend.

 

[Dream]

No one believes in phrenology now or that a virtuous man or woman can pass on that virtue through biological means. They used to though! Remember how recently it was that royalty could claim to be divine? The world changed cataclysmically since it became known scientifically that human breeding wasn't such a big deal 'after all'. Suddenly in the last century, nobility ceased to stir admiration in our hearts. We admired other attributes instead. Life is anybody's game now, and people marry for love!

Not for long. Genetic breeding has only given us a brief respite, as now we can actually track the transferr of attributes through DNA! Expect some new form of breeding program to take over in the coming centuries and a new royalty. What goes around comes around.

Right now my kids don't exist, but if they ever do exist they will be trained to survive a nuclear holocost, rebuild society and build factories out of Legos. They will never go anywhere or get to do anything dangerous and will therefore be better off as someone else's children. They will speak 6 langages with pen pals from all over the world, take care of horses and design robots and architecture in their spare time. They will have law degrees and be medical doctors when they are 25. Unless of course they kill me first.

 

[Marsh]

Marsh I believe you indicated that where there is a strong church the countries do well.

Nope. There is a bit of a correlation there, but I don't think it's a cause-effect relationship. What I was indicating is that civilizations are built out of human beings, and when those human beings cease to believe in anything significant, said civilization shall rot from the inside out.

American and Indian independence are examples of how nations rose on the tide of beliefs (the Enlightenment in America's case, and Ghandi in India's case).

 

[Jeremyw]

I think a child should be taught how to think critically and shown that there are many views in the world and that trying to work out what is true can be hard work and with no guarantee of success. Also to avoid believing in something just because you wish it to be so ( some people also believe in what they fear to be so and that is another trap). Also learning not to get enraged when people disagree with you is a good idea but perhaps difficult to teach.

 

[wil]

Nope. There is a bit of a correlation there, but I don't think it's a cause-effect relationship. What I was indicating is that civilizations are built out of human beings, and when those human beings cease to believe in anything significant, said civilization shall rot from the inside out.

American and Indian independence are examples of how nations rose on the tide of beliefs (the Enlightenment in America's case, and Ghandi in India's case).

Missed this, my bad, but I'll yet again point folks to the Jeffersonian Bible to find out what the author of the Declaration of Independence and major player in the formation of this country thought of Christianity. (the book is available online and or at the Jefferson Memorial gift shop in Washington DC or at Monticello, or any Smithsonian gift shop.)

I think a child should be taught how to think critically and shown that there are many views in the world and that trying to work out what is true can be hard work and with no guarantee of success. Also to avoid believing in something just because you wish it to be so ( some people also believe in what they fear to be so and that is another trap). Also learning not to get enraged when people disagree with you is a good idea but perhaps difficult to teach.

All worthy recommendations.

 

[vizenos]

Do you intend to bring your children up with religion ?

No, I don't. I also don't believe in foot-binding or "He who spareth the rod hateth his son."

Personally I dont and I thank my parents for not forcing religion on me.

I have several times encountered a maxim, common to both Evangelical Christianity and Orthodox Christianity, which says, "God has many children but no grandchildren." IMO, you cannot give your children your religion, because it is yours, not theirs; it is far better to permit them to find for themselves a religion which is theirs, not yours--or to stay away from religion entirely, if that's what they choose to do.

I ask because I am an agnostic who converted to Islam so that I could get married but have since become a Christian however me being a Christian is going to cause huge problems with the Muslim in laws in the future, and I can see that I may have to return to the curse of Islam (just my personal opinion) just to keep the peace

One of the few things most religions share in common is that they can be either a curse or a blessing, depending on what sort of person the believer is. The religion of a fanatic or a bigot is always a curse, never a blessing, regardless of what religion he claims to follow.

However there is no way I would want to pass this on to my children I want them to be free to choose religion if they want it. A choice that they would not get in Islam and many other religions.

It is true that in Islamic countries which strictly follow the Sharia legal code, converting to any other religion can be an extremely career-limiting move, even if the convert had always been only a nominal Muslim.

Regards,
vizenos

 

[vizenos]

As religion is 'a way of life' not put away after a sunday it would be kinda difficult not to influence them and inculcate your beliefs your truths but the educations system here is moving towards 'spiritual' understandings and a general morality focusing on more than one religion [and in some schools including humanism/athiesm] which should enable most children to make up their own mind by the time they are in their teens.

This is entirely true. Fortunately or otherwise (you choose), children tend to be influenced more by what their parents do than by what they only say. Children--unlike most adults--have remarkably keen and accurate "B.S. detectors", so if you do not live your faith, there's little danger that your children will catch it from you.

Regards,
vizenos

 

[vizenos]

Funny, I would have used the UK as an example.... They were a powerful nation...'The sun didn't set on England' so were they on the Christian downturn in 1776 when we US'ns broke away...and then when India did and the end of their era of colonization?

Or how about the Roman Empire...can't its demise be timed just about with Christianity? How many years prior to 300 was it growing??

As for the Roman Empire, it declared Christianity to be one of the "legal religions" in 313 A.D., and declared Christianity to be the only "legal religion" in 380 A.D. The Roman Empire in the West ended in 476 A.D., was re-established in the 6th century by Justinian and essentially dwindled away during the following two centuries. The Roman Empire itself, based in Constantinople after 330 A.D., continued in existence until 1453 A.D.

None of these dates correlates very well with Edward Gibbon's contention that Christianity somehow destroyed the Roman Empire; in point of fact, all of them together tend to falsify that contention rather conclusively.

Regards,
vizenos

 

[bob x]

As for the Roman Empire, it declared Christianity to be one of the "legal religions" in 313 A.D., and declared Christianity to be the only "legal religion" in 380 A.D. The Roman Empire in the West ended in 476 A.D.

After decades of losing provinces left and right-- which started when Christianity was adopted. By contrast, the borders had been generally stable or expanding even through the worst political crises of the previous centuries. Gibbon was not the first to posit a cause-and-effect relationship there: it was a common opinion at the time, too (Augustine's City of God was written to counter this argument).

 

[wil]

I've encouraged the teaching of my children of what I know, like 2+2=4 in most situatins. Like being nice to others is valuable. By doing what is right has benefit. That having an open mind and respecting others beliefs is worthy.

I'm hoping they've picked up some of that...

 

[vizenos]

After decades of losing provinces left and right-- which started when Christianity was adopted.

Indeed? Perhaps you can show how this was the case in Germania Magna (lost 9 A.D.), Armenia, Assyria, and Mesopotamia (lost c. 120 A.D.), and Dacia (lost c. 275 A.D.), bearing in mind that Christianity was first recognized as a "religio licita" by Constantine in 313 A.D.

By contrast, the borders had been generally stable or expanding even through the worst political crises of the previous centuries.

The examples I cited above strongly indicate that this statement is, at best, less than complete.

Gibbon was not the first to posit a cause-and-effect relationship there: it was a common opinion at the time, too (Augustine's City of God was written to counter this argument).

It was "a common opinion at the time" among non-Christians, who at the time the book was written (after the Gothic sack of Rome in 410 A.D.) still constituted a majority in the Western Roman Empire, though not in the Eastern Roman Empire.

If one examines the situation in various provinces lost subsequent to 313 A.D., one finds that the available evidence is both too extensive and too complex to either establish any one single cause as predominant or to rule out Christianity as one of the contributing causes. However, to see Christianity as the predominant cause of the collapse of the Western Roman Empire, where Christians were still a minority at the time of that collapse, fails to take into account the fact that the Eastern Roman Empire, in which Christians were clearly in the majority as early as the mid-to-late fourth century, lasted nearly a thousand years longer (476-1453 A.D.) than the Western Roman Empire.

So while I fully empathize with the belief of a great many Pagans of the early 5th century, that the abandonment of worship of, and sacrifices to, the traditional Pagan deities doomed the Western Roman Empire to destruction, I cannot share that belief because I find the visible and material economic, social, and political contributing causes of that destruction to be, collectively, a sufficient explanation of that tragedy.

But am I suggesting that the Eastern Roman Empire's Christianity in any way caused the survival of the Eastern Roman Empire for another nearly one thousand years? No, because again, the visible and material economic, social and political causes of that greater longivity are, collectively, a sufficient explanation of that longevity. In point of fact, Greek Orthodox claims that God defended the Eastern Roman "Christian" Empire are simply not supported by the visible and material evidence.

Regards,
vizenos

 

[Saltmeister]

I've encouraged the teaching of my children of what I know, like 2+2=4 in most situatins. Like being nice to others is valuable. By doing what is right has benefit. That having an open mind and respecting others beliefs is worthy.

Sorry, thought criminal. 2+2=5, or whatever the Party says. That's the truth. I'm not just stirring the pot.

 

[bob x]

Indeed? Perhaps you can show how this was the case in Germania Magna (lost 9 A.D.), Armenia, Assyria, and Mesopotamia (lost c. 120 A.D.), and Dacia (lost c. 275 A.D.), bearing in mind that Christianity was first recognized as a "religio licita" by Constantine in 313 A.D.

Not all attempts at expansion were successful. The attempt by Augustus to expand across the Rhine was a failure, and Trajan's expansions into Dacia and the East were withdrawn by Hadrian in the 120's as not worth holding (I am puzzled by your reference to "275": Dacia ceased to be a province from the 120's onward, but remained an island of Latin-speakers until the present day). This is not at all comparable to what happened after the establishment of Christianity, when Rome lost territories which had been solidly held for centuries. From Augustus to Constantine, the major changes in borders were the acquisition of Britain and the reduction of "tributary kingdoms" to provinces, plus as you say some expansionist attempts that did not work (Marcus Aurelius also tried moving across both Rhine and Danube, declaring provinces of Germania and Sarmatia which were quickly lost-- those fall in the class of the other examples you cited).

It was "a common opinion at the time" among non-Christians, who at the time the book was written (after the Gothic sack of Rome in 410 A.D.) still constituted a majority in the Western Roman Empire, though not in the Eastern Roman Empire.

The imposition of a Christian clergy with major political power on areas without majority Christian sentiment contributed greatly to the disaffection of the West from the government.

However, to see Christianity as the predominant cause of the collapse of the Western Roman Empire, where Christians were still a minority at the time of that collapse, fails to take into account the fact that the Eastern Roman Empire, in which Christians were clearly in the majority as early as the mid-to-late fourth century, lasted nearly a thousand years longer (476-1453 A.D.) than the Western Roman Empire.

But it lost Egypt, Africa, Palestine, and Syria-- and Christianity was a major cause; it was theological disputes which made the populace there ready to accept Islamic overlordship rather than continued persecution from Constantinople. The "Empire" shrank to a Greek "nation-state" containing only a single-language, single-religion ethnic group.

 

[wil]

Sorry, thought criminal. 2+2=5, or whatever the Party says. That's the truth. I'm not just stirring the pot.

A little confused...

But my party is definitely open to questioning and discussion. My kids have a cursury working knowledge of other religions, and not from a they are wrong and we are right venue. From an exploration of what other beliefs are by bringing in Janes, Hindis, Bahais, Buddhists, Muslims, Jews, Catholics, Protestants, Sikhs, Native Americans, and more....I'd say in their life they've seen most of these at least three times, some more, discussing thier ceremony, their books, their traditions...

That's the truth, in my world the pot is well stirred.

 

[greymare]

When I had my boys, I was "in a place" where I totally rejected God. So, apart from the ten commandments etc, my boys basically got NO knowledge of God. However, from time to time, they did ask questions..... and I would generally start my reply with........"some people believe....". My boys have grown to be very good and productive members of society, however, I do regret that I didnt have my own faith to pass on to them.

Love the Grey