Growing up in an irreligious household.

[MikeH]

Surprised it'd be an issue here. Loads of muslims around here. Maybe it's the conversion thing. Or maybe it's just being religious at all. That always attracts strange looks especially if someone under 40 admits to going to church or something.

Where in Britain is he?

[Evil Knevil]

He's a white muslim who converted while working in the company, post 9/11. So some people are still prejudiced. After all, most Muslims are darkies aren't they?

He works in Bath, while I work in Edinburgh. So there isn't much contact between us anymore.

[MikeH]

I suppose it tepends where he works but that seems odd to me still.

[Arrian]

Therefore, we were wondering what would be the effects if we raised Sophie (Sophia when she's being naughty) in an irreligious environment and if anybody here has been raised in such an environment. And by "irreligious" I don't mean "Dad was actively atheist and would go on and on about the horrors of religion", more like "my parents didn't really care about all that so we never went to church."

I was raised in a irreligious household. My father is technically a Presbyterian (I guess I am too, since I was Baptised) and my mother was raised Catholic, but converted to Presb. when she married my Dad. Neither one of them actually believes, though.

My mother once felt vaguely guilty about not giving me a religious education, and sent me to Sunday school. Once. I came home, announced I didn't like it and didn't want to go anymore, and that was that.

My father always took a historian's approach to the whole thing, and that rubbed off. I came to love History, and I see the various religions and their "holy books" in that context. I took an excellent course in college that studied the Old Testament from a non-religious (or rather, no assumptions of truth/untruth) standpoint.

I'm really glad my parents didn't have me brainwashed. Sorry, but that's how I see the process of putting young children through "religious school."

If I had felt the spiritual need for religion, and decided to become one of the faithful, I'm sure my parents would have been fine with it (so long as I didn't become a fanatic. My father can't abide fanatics - of any kind). I had a friend in college who did just that - became a religious Catholic type after being raised in an irreligious household. Greg had trouble with the whole celebacy thing, though... and he knocked over his little statue of Jesus when he was drunk & couldn't remember the Rosary... is he going to Hell? That guy killed me. He had trouble with the idea of an irreligious moral person, though. To him, morality came from up on high, and so I (who he graciously deemed "moral") confused him, since I didn't believe. That conversation will always stick with me. I was shocked. I see no reason morality cannot be taught without being accompanied by mystical belief in an invisible, omnicient, omnipotent being.

Anyway, I saw some sound advice back on page 1 (didn't read 2-4) re: exposing your daughter to the ideas, but encouraging her to think for herself and make her own choices about it.

-Arrian

[Evil Knevil]

I thought he was exaggerating until I went into a newsagents in Norfolk. He apparently didn't stock Galaxy Ripples anymore because he thought that the Arabic on them might be secret code for something.

Yeah, a code for the milk-solids content you..... plum

Still, he's made some interesting friends. He gets cheap airline tickets and duty-free coughing nails, so it's fairly ambigious if he's better off.

[monolith94]

Listen, folks, if it's done right, it's not brainwashing. Using that word when describing proper religious education is just silly.

[Asher]

Only to religious folk, because it's normal to them.

Seriously, if a mother kept telling her child that Michael Jackson was God, and every saturday they'd call it the Holy Jacko Day and worshipped him, and the daughter went on believing Michael Jackson was God...you would not call this brainwashing?

[monolith94]

That is utterly ridiculous. That's just insane. Religion is about finding spiritual strength within - it is about thinking about morality, religion is about being with people, all who are trying to do their best to improve the world. The little example you mentioned there, was not religion.

If the daughter, in your example, continues to believe that, it is because she has not once questioned her beliefs - a dangerous thing.

[KrazyHorse]

Re: Growing up in an irreligious household.

Originally posted by JohnT
My wife and I were discussing religious education in regards to our 2 year old daughter and, well, we have a dilemma:

We aren't really religious. At all.

We both were raised Catholic (her family was more devout than mine, but then, most families are more devout than mine) and, like many kids, drifted away as we got older. I can't speak for her, but for me, even as a kid being "good" wasn't something I did because I was concerned that God or Jesus or Allah was going to punish me, I was "good" because it made my life easier, that chosing "right" tended to always be the more long-term pragmatic decision. I have never been concerned with my afterlife - if it exists, it does, if it doesn't, it doesn't.

My wife went through a few years soul searching before she pretty much came to the same conclusions. We still feel it's important to teach Sophie about the Bible in order for her to learn about one of the pillars of Western Civilization, but as the major part of a comprehensive belief system? Uh, no, not interested. Thanks!

Therefore, we were wondering what would be the effects if we raised Sophie (Sophia when she's being naughty) in an irreligious environment and if anybody here has been raised in such an environment. And by "irreligious" I don't mean "Dad was actively atheist and would go on and on about the horrors of religion", more like "my parents didn't really care about all that so we never went to church."

I was raised in a completely secular household, and look how good I turned out.

[monolith94]

I don't think anyone will argue that secular families have something inherently evil about them. If they are families of loving environments, truly supportive and instructive, then of course there are no problems.

Religion is for most a personal satisfaction - a nourishment for the mind and soul.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Kirnwaffen
Leave it to her. People have an amazing ability to find faith on their own, when they need it. .

But they dont tend to find Hebrew, the Talmud, the rabbinic approach to the bible, or a whole lot of other things on their own - which was my concern.

I was not raised in an irreligious household - I was raised in a Reform Jewish household, and to this day I regret that my religious education was not more thorough than it was. I've certainly learned more Jewish history and theology as an adult, but things like language, the details of ritual, etc, are harder as an adult.


To me raising my child as a Jew does NOT mean force feeding her one set of beliefs - how could it and still be true to my own pluralist view of Judaism, and my own spiritual struggles? Her theism may be more literal and concrete now than mine is, thats a function of her age _ i would like her to at least be open to a nuanced theology that allows for a less "personal" view of G-d, and an existential commitment to religious search without certainty. I see that as much easier with a religious grounding than with an irreligious or "neutral" one. She has already struggled with differences and dilemmas - she attended an Orthodox camp where they beleive in creationism, but she shares with me that she makes fun of that - even if her own method of reconciling her scientific views with the bible is the classic one of reinterpreting the opening lines of Genesis. (the documentary hypothesis, and the Conservative/existentialist reconciliation of that with Divine inspiration is something that will require more maturity to get into, I think) She has also wrestled with a wide variety of Jewish views on the status and role of women. That STRUGGLE, that wrestling is valuable. And i dont see it in a neutral upbringing, which essentially means an upbringing by the general cultural influences of the day.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Asher
Only to religious folk, because it's normal to them.

Seriously, if a mother kept telling her child that Michael Jackson was God, and every saturday they'd call it the Holy Jacko Day and worshipped him, and the daughter went on believing Michael Jackson was God...you would not call this brainwashing?

well i would expect the mother at a minumum to explain the texts that call michael jackson holy, and the differeing interpretations of those texts. And, when the child is ready, to explain that some people believe the texts were written by humans, to discuss the evidence, and to discuss what they - and michael jackson - mean to her. I would also expect that she would explain that most people in the world DONT believe that MJ is G-d - as if the kid wouldnt already pick up on that anyway.

You see there are non-fundamentalist approaches to religion. Theres also a special set of issues when your religion is NOT the dominant one in your society - something I suspect lots of people overlook.


And are you saying that the mom is brainwashing the daughter simply be her OWN actions of worshiping him - should she stop, even though that is what her own beliefs call for her to do? yet action, as you point out, is a more effective teacher than words. So when a mom spends saturday looking for the best deal on a car - or spends it in the office - or spends it working out - is THAT not too a form of brainwashing? Does that not teach what is G-d? Consumer goods, or money, or success, or the body? I suspect my daughter will hear far more questioning of G-d at my synagogue, than she will hear questioning of consumer goods at the mall, or questioning of success and money at the office, or questioning of the cult of the body at a gym.

[Asher]

Originally posted by monolith94
That is utterly ridiculous. That's just insane. Religion is about finding spiritual strength within - it is about thinking about morality, religion is about being with people, all who are trying to do their best to improve the world. The little example you mentioned there, was not religion.

It sure as hell was. Just because it's not mainstream doesn't mean it's not religion.

To me, the example I gave and Christianity are equally insane. I can definitely understand why it'd be hard for Christians to see why they're so similar, because it'd mean they spent most of their life believing in lies and fiction, under the thumb of clergy and whoever else wanted to write the bible's contents.

Religions are mainstream cults, and hence "socially acceptable", but they're all equally ridiculous.

[monolith94]

I explained why they weren't similar.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Arrian


exposing your daughter to the ideas, but encouraging her to think for herself and make her own choices about it.

-

But is religion essentially a matter of ideas - a philosophy? Something to be gleaned from books, and then accepted or rejected? Maybe this is a civilizational thing, something where Judaism, even its modernized, westernized forms, is too different from christianity for us to speak a common language - but for me Judaism is a set of ACTIONS, a way of living - its not a set of propositions about G-d, so much as an interaction with G-d, through the actions in Jewish religious life. You can state that you should adopt a set of ideas first, and then pursue the actions that follow from them - but that gives ideas the privileged position. In Judaism,to me at least, the actions and religious experiences are the sources of insights that inform the ideas - you have to TRY IT FIRST, to make sense of the ideas in the books. You have to live it - which doesnt mean you'll accept it, plenty reject it - and some see it from the outside world and are attracted to it without have first lived it - but to live it is as valuable a way to approach it as the alternative. To me religious education is NOT a set of theology lessons - its a set of lessons in how to live the religious life - how to pray, how to keep shabbos and holidays,etc. The questions - why? what does it mean? flow naturally, and many of the answers start "some say" or "I think" not "IT IS".


Now some are going to respond that my response are too focused on Judaism. But doesnt that point out that each "religion" is a unique entity, with its own dilemmas relating to life, belief, and education? Shouldnt the question be - should i give my child a Catholic education? A Bahai education? A buddist education? Doesnt most of this discussion assume that there is a generic "religion" - essentially some form of Christianity?

Pauline Christianity says "love God, and do what is in your heart"
Judaism essentially says " do what G-d has asked, and find love in action"
So even the nominal atheists here approach religion through Pauline Christian assumptions.