Freethought Association | Raising Children in Freethinking Families

Raising Children in Freethinking Families — Panel Discussion

Meeting Minutes and Commentary for August 23, 2006; #214

Check www.freethoughtassociation.org for the most up to date information about upcoming events and opportunities. And for questions regarding specific items of interest, send e-mails to: info@freethoughtassociation.org. Meetings are held at 7PM on the second and fourth Wednesdays of each month at the Women’s City Club, 254 E. Fulton Street, Grand Rapids, MI.

September 6 is the date for the next Freethought Movie Night, hosted by Jason P. at his home (740 Lockwood, NE). The featured film is Steven Speilberg’s Munich, nominated for 5 Academy Awards for Best Picture. Movie Nights begin at 7PM; bring your own beverage and a snack to share. Please RSVP. For more information or directions contact the host at jason@freethoughtassociation.org. The next FMN will be on September 20, featuring the movie: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

The first regular meeting of September will be on the 13th (remember, FA meetings are held on the second and fourth Wednesday of each month unless otherwise noted). The topic will be: From the Big Bang to the Big Crunch; Ultimate World History and will be presented by Craig Benjamin, Assistant Professor of History, GVSU.

The next meeting of the Freethought Women’s Group will be held on Saturday, September 16 at 10AM at 734 Lockwood St. NE. For more information contact Jennifer B. at jennifer@freethoughtassociation.org.

The Freethought Meditation Group will be resuming next month after a summer hiatus. There will be no September 3rd FMG meeting due to the holiday. The first meeting in September will be Sept. 10 and the next one will be the following Sunday (Sept. 17). They will start at 6PM and will be held (as before) at 1416 Wilcox Park Drive, SE. GRMI. Contact coordinator Jeremy B. for more information: jeremy@freethoughtassociation.org.

Dinners for Eight will resume starting September 23. These are evenings for adults to get together for drinks, dinner and good conversation. Advance sign up is required. Contact coordinator Jan V. for more information or to sign up, at jan@freethoughtassociation.org.

The total raised for our Fund Drive is now over $18,000! Our goal is $25,000, but since we are garnering matching funds which kicked in after our first $5,000 was raised, the amount still required to attain that goal is cut by half. Thank you to all who have generously donated! If you have made pledges but have not yet made good on them, now is the time to do that. It will be great to shift into the next phase of life for our organization; having a greater presence in the community, providing more for our membership and having our first part time paid staff to help facilitate our goals and projects.

Next Year’s Picnic: This Secretary coordinates the FA Annual Picnics. I have in mind—and have trotted this before the Board a different idea for our ’07 Picnic. Instead of our usual format of reserving an open shelter at a park within the greater GR area for a few hours on a Saturday (as is our tradition), I propose that we pursue a weekend away at the Long Lake Outdoor Center by Hastings, MI. This is located within the larger Yankee Springs Recreation Area and is privately owned. I coordinated a family reunion there and it was an awesome time had. The L.Lk. Outdoor Center near Gun Lake features boats and canoes by an amphitheater with bonfire pit, an abundance of cabins of various sizes (they have accommodated as many as 100 people in the past); some would be perfect for a couple or small family, while some—like the Mansion House, sleeps 20 (with an abundant section for communal gatherings/activities in these larger cabins). There is a main large dining hall with fireplace and game area connected to a fully supplied large kitchen, fire pits by many of the cabins, places for recreation activities, beautiful hiking areas, etc.

It is located very close to basic shopping and just a short drive to larger places to pick up more things and it is close to everything from antique stores to mini-golf for those who wish to explore a bit off site. This COULD be in addition to our regular summer Picnic or in lieu of it. The cost for an entire weekend (three days; two nights) is $800. But remember that this is divided up among paying parties—the more who participate, the lower the amount per family/individual. At my family reunion we had only ten paying units, but at $80 per family unit that was a bargain (no hotels or restaurants, etc.). I’m sure we could gather many more than that for the FA. It would be more worth the while for those traveling further, too, since one wouldn’t have to drive pretty far to get there only to turn around a few hours later and drive back. The thing is: If there is interest in pursuing this for ’07, I would like feedback ASAP to get the ball rolling. I would also like some help in coordinating this, as it is a pretty big job for one person. I have all the necessary information, contact numbers, what is needed and so on. If you would like to see this happen or are interested in helping or just have questions, please contact me: charles@freethoughtassociation.org or calart@hotmail.com. Thank you!

Our topic for this meeting was Raising Children in Freethinking Families. Jeff S. moderated this panel discussion featuring eight individuals, including a mother of a 14 year old and a 12 year old; a father of adult children, one of whom is a homosexual man; another mother of adult children; a 15 year old girl raised in a freethinking home; an unmarried, childless man who had been raised by an atheist father and member of American Atheists; a father of two teenage sons; a 10 year old boy raised in a freethinking home, and his mother.

Jeff began by quoting the slightly revised FA Mission Statement and noting that while this presentation was being filmed, it would not be televised. All other meetings have been/are shown on GRTV on Wednesdays. After Jeff explained the format and talked a little about the topic, panel members gave brief autobiographical sketches. A wide variety of ages, life experiences, upbringing and circumstances were presented within the common theme of raising, being raised, or having been raised as children in freethinking homes.

After introductions by panelists, questions were posed such as: What was the Best/Worst thing about being raised in a freethinking family? How do you respond to pressure from religious family members, friends and those who thrust their beliefs on you? How do or did you deal with death and questions of the afterlife? What about coming out of the closet; what consequences have you experienced as a result? What is different about your approach to raising children as freethinking parents if you were reared in a religious home? What do you wish you would have done differently or that your parents had done differently in bringing you up?

There were other questions asked and a great many that we did not get to address due to time constraints with 8 panelists responding (even one three minute response to one query per panelist works out to the better part of half an hour). However, some of these pre-planned format questions were touched on spontaneously in the responses by panelists, while some others were addressed during the question and answer period by audience attendees. Among these were questions regarding mixed marriages (as to religious affiliation/beliefs); how personal relationships have been/are affected by one’s freethought position; employment issues surrounding one’s non-religious worldview; teaching morality outside of a religious framework; how would we accept it if our children broke away from their upbringing to become thoroughly religious? How much information or exposure to religious worldviews is good—how much is too much?

Some questions that we did not get to but would be interesting to explore at a different time included (but were not limited to) the following: Who are good role models and heroes for freethinking children? How is discipline differently handled in freethinking families? Do freethinking families approach sexuality differently than religious ones? What advice do we give our children about participation in religious customs in order to fit in with larger society? How do we deal with the major religious holidays? Is social isolation a problem for you or your offspring? What do we think about the findings of the Barna Group that indicates that while while one fifth of American adults are single/never married; nearly one half of those who are unchurched are unwed and never before married? Another relationship question that might be interesting to get discussion on is: Is it harder for freethinking young people to find a mate—whether religious or not?

This Secretary has endeavored to retain some sense of anonymity for those who participated on the panel. Also, rather than giving a sequential blow-by-blow run down of the evening, I will provide more general remarks made, thoughts expressed and concerns addressed and will do so in no particular order—except to tie themes together. This is a modification from how I began; where I went down the line, person by person as each responded to a question posed, summarizing each individual response. If I had retained that process, I predict that this write up would have run some 20 pages or so! All panelists grew up in either Christian homes or ones that would have been Christian if they had been brought up in a religious home (i.e., no Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist, etc. upbringing or potential upbringing). In this part of Michigan, one is likely to have worked one’s way out of a Dutch Christian Reformed background and this was seen in our panel, but too, Catholicism was well represented for upbringing, among other faith traditions.

Many who have maintained some church-going activity have attended the local Fountain Street Church or are part of—or have been part of—Unitarian Universalist churches. The FSC is a liberally religious church where one is encouraged to ask questions rather than have absolute answers. Furthermore, one does not need to have belief in any particular set of religious tenets, which provides a wider experience of religious and secular thought than experienced in more traditional churches (the stained glass windows there not only have religious figures but also present Darwin and other secular thinkers, for one example). Rather than Sunday School, they have Character Class. Some participants were part of the FS Church and UU churches because of the communal and social aspects afforded. It was a time for reflection and togetherness with others who were not directed by dogma and doctrine. Another mentioned a couple times the protective coloring, as she put it, that church attendance gave for her children. Many traditionally-religious people can scarcely comprehend the idea of being totally unchurched. Even those of faith who nonetheless almost never attend church services, still announce their church membership and identification with a religious denomination. The FSC Character classes provide lessons on functioning as a decent and ethical human being without all the religious baggage, and this was seen by some panelists as positive for bringing up one’s children. For others any sort of church body affiliation was not interesting, or they fell away from earlier membership in even the very liberal, tolerant and essentially secular churches. Overall, the nonreligious are found to be less affiliating and less bound to gathering at one time and place for a specific purpose, especially where the flow of the gathering is directed by a single authoritarian presence. Getting atheists to join en masse for something has been likened to attempting to herd cats.

It was touched on later in the evening how some, as children, were expected to attend church services while their parent or parents did not have such personal commitment for themselves for church attendance. Often, if it is a parent who goes, it is the mom—and she, in order to take her children to church and/or Sunday school. One might legitimately ponder certain questions regarding this practice. Do those who stay behind feel they have graduated from church? Do they believe there is nothing more to be learned or thought about as to their religion? Is it sort of the religious analogy to the adults who insist on their children wearing helmets or life vests or putting on sunscreen, while they themselves do not? Can church members who do not attend religious services themselves sincerely believe that people are communing with the Creator of the Universe when they are in a house of worship—yet would rather catch a ball game instead? Can they believe that their eternal salvation depends upon setting one day out of the week for church, yet still not go?

I used to wonder about this myself as a young lad perched on the hard wooden pews as I saw people sleeping or obviously thinking about where they would rather be, what they would be doing later, getting this regimen over with, and being at last liberated from the shackles of monotony and dress clothes. I knew that I was drawing pictures on the papers and mentally transporting myself far from the rituals of the service, but I also knew that I wasn’t a believer in the ramblings pouring forth from the pulpit. I wondered: Do these adults, likewise, really not feel anything special? No adult was forcing THEM to go, so why were they there? Why was Mr. Johnson, who hadn’t darked the door of a church for years, guaranteed of his soul being fired off into the ether and the bosom of God and Jesus—the same as Mr. Pierce who attended church...well... religiously? I knew, even as a lad that I was spiritually bereft, that I had the same sense for religion that the tone deaf person has for melody... but how come my fellow congregants seemed to likewise be untouched by feeling when supposedly encountering their Maker. I noticed that those who said the little prayer before eating did this in the same perfunctory fashion as they did when they downed their ritual orange juice, medicinally, robotically, but without any sense that one activity (saying grace) was supposed to be talking to the Divine Being, while the other merely contained Vitamin C... even though now (!) without pulp!

It was seen that several panelists had been a part of, or exposed to, various religious denominations. This can help to sew the seeds of personal inquiry into questions of faith. When one sees a panopoly of different beliefs and ideas—all of which are putatively presenting The Truth and then notices that many sects hold animosity toward other ones, this may call into question the idea that religion is a uniting force and that all are God’s children and equally loved. The child, witnessing this, will see that different people have different beliefs and it is not about one being right; just that this particular person subscribes to the faith s/he has been brought up in. One’s religion is truly an accident of birth. Freethinkers are noteworthy for having bucked the strong influences of guilt, familiarity, familial tradition and social approbation as they have extricated themselves from religious faith. Panelists were exposed to the Quaker tradition, Presbyterian denominations, etc., in addition to previously mentioned religious faiths. And one young panelist’s mother (who was not on the panel) had been brought up in a Fundamentalist Christian home. One noted that his family ancestry was like the UN of religion since the backgrounds ran the gamut of faith groups. Many in his family had been raised Catholic but none ended up with that faith; they had converted to everything from Greek Orthodox to Seventh Day Adventists to Mormonism to Judaism, as well as his father who was an atheist and another family member who went from being an Evangelical to a Deist. The convert to Judaism had to change his surname since it was about as Jewish-sounding as the pop star Madonna’s name is.

Charles Honey, the Religion Editor for the Grand Rapids Press said once to our group that someone in his position needs to be deeply interested in religion in all its forms, rather than a spokesman for one particular variety of it. Many in our group are still fascinated with different religions and what lies behind them, without holding to any one in particular themselves. As a child, my Methodist church provided me—and other interested youths—the opportunity to meet with the leaders of different faith traditions who spoke for their religions; why they believe as they do, what different rituals and religious items represented and so on. This is one of the very few positive memories I have regarding church activity. In hindsight, I find it rather remarkable that we were given this exposure and that there was absolutely no sense of competition, or that one faith tradition had the best ideas. We could consider each presentation on a individual level and draw our own conclusions. It goes without saying, however, that one will naturally feel more close to the thinking that one has been exposed to for the longest duration, but still it was a positive exercise. Most people do not choose their faith by comparison with other ones but simply passively follow the path laid out by their parents and their parents’ parents, and so on.

The children on our panel declared that they were being raised to think for themselves. Even those from freethinking homes who are not given a lot of direct exposure, growing up, to different religions are still probably more likely to be open minded about them, not having been instructed that one religion is the Right one and not having the carrot and stick of heaven and hell bearing down upon them to constrain their thinking in a black and white fashion. If they do some day choose a religion, it will more likely be based on personal investigation and done in a thoughtful manner, not just reflexively and as automatons. It is probably for this reason that freethinking parents can countenance the idea that their children may join a church later. They have given their children the tools to evaluate ideas critically and to be aware of the great many ideas out there to choose from—so if a choice is made it will likely be done after reflection and examination. One ultimately sends one’s children out into the world to make their own decisions. All we can do as parents is to equip them the best that we can. I am reminded of a humorist who wrote about the poor, deprived children on the school playground who were forced to play and chatter together instead of being housed inside praying and reciting from the Bible—as they would rather be doing, of course, since God had been kicked out of the public schools. One of the children on the panel spoke of how nice it was not to have to engage in Sunday rituals and how his peers envied him that liberty.

Parents spoke of trying to raise their children to be confident in their own skin and independent thinkers. They gave them a lot of latitude and tried to guide rather than coerce. Providing a wealth of materials to investigate and explore was touted as a good way to raise thinking children. Children naturally gravitate toward the things they will excel at but must be introduced to the possibilities. If they are not given the sense that there is only one way to think about things and only one set of materials to be read and believed unquestioningly in—then they may be more likely to exercise critical thinking and to talk with their parents about the things they have absorbed. They know they will not be shut down, punished or given pat authoritarian answers. Questioning and thoughtful consideration of ideas is viewed positively, not as sinful.

One panelist noted the negative influence his own father’s strict religious upbringing wrought. He associated his father’s almost evangelical atheism with the pain and humiliation he suffered as a youngster at the hands of the religious. He may have been lashing out at those memories, causing his non-belief to take on a more strident and zealous form. If children are taught WHAT to think rather than HOW to think, they are unprepared to critically analyze information and weigh one idea against another. Instead they simply react to ideas, usually negatively for those concepts that are oppositional to what they were brought up to believe. The panelist’s father had seen Madelyn Murray O’Hair (the late founder of American Atheists, an unstoppable force for unflinching opposition to religion, and once called the most hated woman in America) on the old Phil Donahue show (this Secretary was first exposed to her there as well.) He immediately knew that he had found a kindred spirit (so to say) and he later joined American Atheists. This was before the Internet, so finding fellow non-believers was a more difficult proposition. In fact, to give it more historical perspective, MMOH first came to prominence when her efforts and legal battles helped lead—along with another court case—to the ending of led prayer recitation and Bible reading in the public schools. This Secretary is personally grateful for this, since I started my school career a short time after that decision, so I never faced such activity and when I first said the Pledge of Allegiance, we were still (at least in my school) considered a nation indivisible, rather than one that was strangely the sole focus of an ancient Hebrew deity. By the time the phrase under God was insinuated into the Pledge in my hometown, we students at my grade level were no longer required to recite it.

One panel participant spoke of growing up in a town with a fairly robust Jewish population. He was exposed to different approaches to religious belief right away. He was relieved to see that they were not about converting others and proselytizing, and that their religion’s rituals and holidays were linked to traditions based on what they had experienced—over great expanses of time—as a people. There was no emphasis on a ceaseless torture chamber; there was no sole Way to eternal life through unquestioning belief in a person being born of a virgin by the impregnation of a god who lived two millennia ago; it wasn’t about blind faith belief, etc. So while no religion had any pull for him, it was good to encounter other ways of practicing faith traditions. He also grew up at a time and place that provided him with an extraordinary number (relative to the population of the town and its location in the Midwest) of first or second generation peers from other lands, other cultures and other belief systems. He found this experience to be satisfying. He was also introduced to people of no religious faith early on. While he hadn’t heard about atheists specifically until later, he was told that one very kind man in the community was an agnostic and was told straightforwardly that these are people who have no certainty as to the existence of God. Well that made good sense to him! His mother would tell about an aunt (never giving a label to her) who believed that when you died you simply rotted in the ground and that was it. Once again, he was relieved to know there were others—and adults no less!—who didn’t subscribe to notions of people flitting about with bird wings around a light wearing choir robes in one unending church service. He saw pets die and was never told they had to endure such a mind numbing eternity, so it was a relief to suppose that he, too, might not have to face that fate either—but could simply die! This aunt and some others seemed to have some very reasonable thoughts and this gave him hope... and oddly... a sense of comfort—one that religious concepts never bestowed upon him.

Our ten year old panel member had some amusing anecdotes to share later on but kept it short and simple for his introductory remarks. He mentioned that he had been mocked for his lack of faith but that he found other peers who were supportive and even shared his lack of religion. I would add here that my own impression—and what I overheard from others—was that the young people—those both in the audience and on the panel—were simply remarkable and very inspiring for their courage and sense of self; their poise and relative ease of expression, and a sense of wisdom beyond their tender years. It was a hopeful sign to see this crop of questioning young minds coming up in the world and a testimony to their home life that has nurtured them. When one is told that there is always a pat answer to everything and that it comes from a single authority source that is not to be questioned and is told that one is either a passive believer or is bound for a realm of eternal torment if one explores and questions... then such youths are less likely to get into the habit of exercising their minds and learning to think critically. Youths from freethinking homes, conversely, will be less likely to take things simply on faith, but instead, quest boldly and think creatively. They will not have had their innate curiosity and thirst for learning damped down by being told that breaking from the herd is to be avoided at all costs. This Secretary has controversially said upon occasion that parents who could never countenance the handicapping of their children physically, think nothing of handicapping their minds via religious indoctrination. The two young people on the panel both mentioned experiencing comments from religious peers about how they were destined to Hell but it sounded to me more like the reactions by children to another who has said a curse word. Not so much said with venom and outrage, as adults might do, but more in the child’s manner of: Oooh, what you said!

At their ages, I myself was not possessed of the maturity and self assurance they demonstrated but I do have childhood recollections of the dichotomy I witnessed where a man who drowned his children would be considered a monster but when God did this it was somehow a cheery tale about the All-good Father. I knew that the adults I respected the most were those who could calmly and intelligently make their cogent points; who could instruct wisely and who made me feel important and significant. The God I was told about was one that slaughtered His children in anger, was a self-declared jealous being, and seemed to have petty fixations rather than global thoughts. His children were wretches born in sin. The solution to everything for God seemed to be to lash out. For those who wanted to think rather than fear and grovel, an eternal existence of pain awaited them. Such behavior in a mortal man would have evoked extreme animosity in the same people who associated these actions—when the perpetrator was God—with love and benevolence.

One mother on the panel spoke of how her son came home from school singing religious songs when he was very young. She spoke up against this religious intrusion but also introduced him to Greek mythology. The late Joseph Campbell once said that mythology is other people’s religion. The ancient Greeks did not think of their tales of gods as being false anymore than modern Christians think that donkeys, snakes and bushes that talked, parting seas and literally petrified women are mere fanciful stories. By introducing him to the ways that different people had developed differing belief systems to account for the natural phenomena around them, in order to deal with death, to help codify societal rules and to give self identification and group allegiance, he was able to see what lies beneath religious faith practices. She also emphasized scientific understanding of the natural world. Religious explanations—those dealing with supernatural causation—were what were put forth to explain the world before better knowledge was gained about the structure and behavior of nature.

The panelist who spoke before her likened the process of introducing his children to the dominant religious beliefs they would be encountering to probably what those in any religious minority must engage in. They too must explain that a lot of the people their children would encounter have these beliefs, holidays and so on, and what they base them on. The freethinking parent, like the religious minority parent, does not decry the dominant faith as stupid or abhorrent—just not what he or she subscribes to, and why. Freethinkers often have a much fuller knowledge of religion than the religious adherents themselves do and it does not seem that freethinking parents have any objection to their children learning as much as they can about the various religions in the world. The more belief systems one is exposed to, especially as an outside observer rather than one fully committed to a particular brand of religion, the better one may see the patterns and connections between them as well as the basis for their differing interpretations of reality.

Since I was apparently immune to religious sentiment growing up, it never really occurred to me to instruct my own children in it early on. There were experiences, however, that caused me to realize that I had better at least give them the basics. One friend of my older son (both were quite young at the time) was just stunned at how little he knew about Christianity or the rituals involved in its practice. Another time we were driving by a billboard that for some reason had an image of Jesus in the clouds and my boy asked what that guy was doing up there in the sky!? I let him go to Vacation Bible School with a family friend’s children and he had been frightened because he thought that they said that were about to go to the War Ship (his misunderstanding of the word worship). Having long since been taught the basics about the predominant religion they would encounter, I could still see how my sons not having being told what to believe and not assuming that religious stories were automatically morally positive—were able to evaluate the Bible tales from a more sound perspective. When one of them first heard the story of Moses leading his people out of captivity, he found it objectionable that instead of winning the hearts and minds of the captors, God hardened their hearts and caused them to drown and rained down death and disease. His personal sense of ethics did not accept the idea that an all-wise god would resort to such methods in order to right a wrong. Two wrongs do not make a right, he had said at the time.

As to the coming out of the closet as a non-believer question, there were various responses. The parent of a gay son said that his son’s coming out was a far greater accomplishment than being out of the closet as an atheist. It seemed that the general consensus, however, was that—especially regarding family—religion became something that was no longer spoken of in their midst, after making their declaration of non-belief. Instead of being a shared faith, it was a contentious issue. But for most, so long as this was not broached, all other aspects of the family dynamics abided. One person noted that if a person was loved and respected and appreciated before the news of his/her apostasy, then why should this one issue be the one that annuls all else? He said that he regarded it as the other person’s loss and that being denounced solely on the basis of religious belief said a great deal about the foundation of the relationship itself. Some parents of panelists still held out hope for their children coming back into the fold. It is interesting to note that most believers have not ever bothered to really study the underpinnings of their own religion. They do not necessarily want their children to be well versed in the faith—and do not base their own faith on cogent arguments or personal research—but rather, it is all about belief. After a lengthy dissertation one time on the inconsistencies in the Bible, the horrors and the absurd fantasies I found, and how these in no way guided, nor edified, nor comforted me, my mother’s response was: Well, at least I know that you still believe in God! Huh? An audience member voiced a similar experience that he had with his father.

Society conditions people to regard non-believers as evil, untrustworthy, immoral, etc., all without presenting any logical connection between believing in invisible beings or in a leavened virgin-born man and having a better sense of morality. Perhaps this thoughtless, passively imbibed belief about non-believers—when juxtaposed against the knowledge one has for one’s son or daughter; brother or sister, etc., creates a strange sort of dynamic; one where the believer can no longer assign the knee jerk reaction he has for those damned atheists out there somewhere—to the flesh of his flesh. He knows his child is a good and decent person—yet he doesn’t believe in God. This just does not compute for the believer. The only way to restore the world to something he can make sense of is to think that his loved one will one day embrace belief again. Maybe it is just a phase! Since faith is not based on cogent argument or logical reasoning, no matter how much or well the faith-free relative argues his/her position, the words are all lost on the uncomprehending believer. It’s all about belief in God. That’s all that matters.

One panelist will not allow herself to be treated as if her non-belief is a shameful thing. For her, how she presents herself, depends on who she is talking to. She corrects those who just assume that she is a churchgoing woman. Because of her relationship to a very much out freethinker, coming out for her was something she had little choice in. A common theme among the panelists was that none of them sought out friction or unnecessary arguments. They didn’t wear their atheism as a chip on their shoulder, but merely as a part of who they are; just as one does not make an object of contention other aspects of one’s life to people encountered—such as if he is a vegetarian or a pet owner, or she is a wife or whatever. I personally feel that it is harder to be treated as abnormal if you present your non-belief (when the issue arises) in a natural and uncontroversial manner. Simply and easily stating your lack of faith helps to diffuse the situation. For me, arguing for this aspect of my life and focusing undo attention on it is like making a large deal about my preference for rugged landscapes over pastoral scenes. When presented matter-of-factly, it causes anyone who gets bent out of shape about it to look rather petty and foolish. But because atheists are so often automatically negatively prejudged, there is an incentive to represent one’s self as a positive example, as one panelist mentioned. We do not need to give others fuel to throw on the kindling of the stake they envision us on.

One person talked about the school setting, where she would comment to those teachers who inquired about their student’s church affiliation, that this was not a proper topic for school and further reminding the teacher that it was not his/her place to endorse one religion over another. In a school I helped out in, there was a teacher I got to know well. I often found myself in the position of correcting misunderstandings she had in her role as a public school teacher. She once declared bitterly to me how constrained she felt in not being able to mention her church or tell of an experience she had there. I explained that of COURSE she could share her experiences as a church member (just as could her experiences as a mom, as a wife, as a friend, and so on.) What she was not to do was to proselytize, to encourage students to adopt her faith, attend her church, or feel coerced into entertaining her personal beliefs. So often Christians in particular adopt a stance where they feel they must push their own faith on others and to be denied this is unthinkable for them. They feel persecuted. Schools that do not address their God are considered anti-God. This is sort of like saying one is anti-ferret if the school year has come and gone and no mention of this streamlined mammal has occurred. It is not enough to derive personal satisfaction and happiness from their religious beliefs; they must foist them on others, sometimes, in extreme cases, to the extent of weaponizing their faith.

It is the sort of false connection people mindlessly construct that makes a book filled with incest, rape, exhibitionism, bestiality, castration, mutilation, infanticide, scatology, adultery and a whole host of other pathologies and criminal behavior—into one that is a resource guide for morality. One, further, that children should be steeped in! Panelists spoke of how they encountered people who wondered how they could be decent without the Bible as their instruction manual but it is difficult for those who have actually read it to make that connection. The good ideas about how to exist in a civil society predate any extant religious texts, which is why they are constants in all societies no matter what holy books were available or even in the absence of the written word. One might also question a morality based on aspiring to heaven or avoiding hellfire anyway. Those who look only at the New Testament for Jesus’ words would find, if they investigated further, that the words put in his mouth were not always exemplary and those that were, were from older rabbinical sources. Are those who observe what is called the Golden Rule any less moral when they learn that it predates Christianity, in an earlier formulation, by 5 centuries?

One panelist, referring to the positives of being raised in—or raising children in—a freethinking household, noted that his own strict upbringing did not allow for movies or dances or even playing cards. His own children enjoyed experiences that he was not allowed to participate in. Assigning everything that is enjoyable to sinful behavior is not something that children in freethinking homes have to deal with. As alluded to earlier, there is more potential for openness between parent and child when children are allowed to question and know they are cherished for themselves, not just something born wicked to be molded into a form acceptable by a sky-dwelling being. A young panelist said she enjoyed her freedom to discover her own beliefs and not have to subscribe to a narrow set that are laid out for her. Another person talked about how nothing is off limits to investigate. Another talked about healing, as a family, after their loss. Different families and different individuals heal in different ways. Religion ritualizes all facets of life and death to where everyone must deal life’s ups and downs in a more uniform way. It is often more depersonalizing, too. A freethought funeral, for instance, focuses solely on the person, instead of a typical Christian service that focuses on Jesus and God and the church.

Regarding death specifically, it seemed that most panelists had a more matter-of-fact approach to it. No one wants to die too soon or to have loved ones die—this is the same for the devout religionist as it is for the committed atheist. While a skepticism about the hereafter doesn’t provide one with a delusional sense of immortality, it can help one appreciate the only life we know we have more. Never having known a spiritual moment personally, I was never able to formulate a positive association for an eternal union with a being that seemed so horrific, or in never again being able to experience running and playing and touch and drawing pictures and the sights, sounds, smells and wonders of the natural world because of an eternal sentence in some ethereal non-corporeal existence. One mother on the panel said that we should live our lives in a way that we could be proud to be remembered by others. Another talked about how one cannot learn from reality or learn how to see reality correctly if one is steeped in fanciful notions and without comprehension of the facts of nature. One panelist said that when she was a young girl she saw her grandpa throw a dead gopher over the fence. She wondered if that was her fate when she died. Children have funny notions of death to be sure, but they are hardly any less rational than the religious constructs of pearly gates, streets of gold, flying on avian wings, playing harps, etc. The unanimous response by all participants in the panel was to appreciate life and make the best of our short time we have. Things all become more precious when less abundant. If one will live eternally and this mortal life is just a dress rehearsal, then life on Earth has reduced value. Even if there is a heaven, why put so much thought into something that no one alive ever saw while being distracted from the beauty and wonders of the natural real world all around you!?

An audience member said that one positive thing about atheism for him was that he couldn’t play the God card, as he put it. He had to explore things at a deeper level to draw conclusions. He could not just say God did it; it’s all about His mysterious ways; we aren’t to know yet the reasons for things that happen.

One question prompted a panelist to say that her grown daughter had been a Muslim for a period of time. While immersed in the religion, she could not cook with her left hand as it was considered dirty, was supposed to wear certain garb (she was a dancer, so this was especially constricting) and so on. When she left Islam, she slid into the UU church. The mother was proud of her daughter for making her own choices and having learned from them. The faith community is typically quite wary of allowing their children to explore other belief systems and religions but this may not be so much the case with freethinking families. There is no forbidden fruit aspect, wondering about that which you are disallowed to investigate; there are not such grave concerns over conversions, since freethinking children are not as susceptible to the sales pitches of different religions and, as the mother noted, if they do become a part of some religion, they probably will have thought it out and it will be their decision; not what a church dictates or a community expects or parents impose.

One audience member mentioned the tyranny of religion and how many of his friend’s lives he saw messed up by it. He was glad not to have been brought up in a religious home. A panelist said that a parent may be disappointed by some choices made by one’s children but love abides. One’s regard for one’s children should not be based on doctrinal beliefs. A young girl in the audience said that she really had no problems being an atheist among her peers but adults gave her trouble. This Secretary did a report on how young people regard homosexuality. The youngest had no problems with it. They felt if people loved each other they should be together. They thought it was crazy that some people objected to it. But as the documentary went up grade by grade the intolerance set in more and more and became ossified with the eldest, no doubt reflecting what they had absorbed from their parents. It just isn’t that big a deal when you are quite young it seems. Some peers have imaginary friends and they see that some adults pray to their imaginary friends.

Others in the audience spoke of the approach of religious parents being to shield the children from everything they deem bad. As alluded to above, this sets up a more keen interest in what is forbidden while not equipping the child to figure things out. She will not as likely ask questions of her parents if she feels she is being bad by doing so. She will learn that some things are just evil or bad without any need to explain why or how. The world will be black and white. Authority figures who act impulsively and wrathfully—without reasoning or discussion—will be her guides. One of those who spoke said that when he was young his dad tore out a picture of skater Peggy Flemming from a magazine so as not to corrupt the child (with her bare legs or athletic figure perhaps?). He was probably too young to even think of the skater as sexually alluring but had been set up to regard the body as evil.

A panelist spoke about the exclusivity and intolerance fostered by the more extreme end of the religious spectrum. You are either with us or against us. You are part of the tribe or an outsider. He saw the distrust and anger and hatred toward those who were different in some way, as perpetrated by the faithful. While many Christians base their so-called pro-family stance on the Bible, one will search in vain to find any real support for this position. One could go on for pages with examples of how family members were to be divided against each other, or the approved corrective measure to be used against a disobedient son was to stone him to death, or how a daughter may be sold as a sex slave, or how it is a fine notion for a man to have many wives and concubines, or how it is a lovely measure of one’s faith when your God asks you to murder your son, etc., etc. The freethinking family is freed from the dictates of Bronze Age morality and needs not resort to apologetics to explain why they do not really act on what they are commanded or encouraged to do from the Bible. The child of a freethinkng family is conceived in love and is a marvel as s/he develops; not born in sin, only existing to attain salvation from his/her innate wretched state.

We thank all who participated on the panel and for the thoughtful questions and comments from the audience.