I am currently kicking around some big ideas for an updated book on raising Atheist or secularly oriented kids. I have a 6 and 8 year old and I am currently in the thick of this kind of religious education. I read McGowan's works years ago and it seems to be the accepted framework that is repeated here. I wasn't all that inclined toward his approach, seeking some other way to make positive propositions rather than negations alone through exposure to various complex religious systems; but I wondered what sorts of experiences people have had or if there were desires in the community for a different approach that counters or incorporates changing tides in atheist community and discourse. Thanks for any thoughts you'd like to share.

For me, it was very hard. I had diagnosed ocd, and "being good for god" became an ocd trigger for me. Took me almost 2 years in therapy once a week.

Looking for a good group/program that I can get my daughter eventually into that is similar to Scouting (camping, life skills, etc.). My in-laws are heavily into Boy Scouts but my wife and I just aren't comfortable with all of the God references. When we brought this up to my BIL, he said "it's not Christian, it's whatever higher power you subscribe to" without realizing that was our whole point.

My daughter's other parent is teaching her a white Jesus Christianity. I think racial relatability is a big factor in indoctrination, hence my seemingly racist request.

I'm looking for books about brown Jesus, white Muslim books, white Buddhism and other religions, but white washed. Only, the non christian ones need to be human and believable (no dragons, talking monkeys, etc.). The Christian ones should sightly dig into the unbelievable mythology.

Also things where kids talk about how their religion is real and important to them, but using obviously non christian things (references to Mohammed, Buddha, etc.).

I thought about Greek stuff, but it's too mythological. Same with books I see on Norse stuff.

Any suggestions?

tl;dr: MIL is very Catholic and is going to fight hard to teach our kids her religion. My wife independently leans towards baptism but doesn't care about the rest. What do I do?

Typical story, but I'm feeling really upset and could use some outside opinions and don't know who to turn to.

I'm agnostic and wife was raised by very Catholic parents. She's more "culturally Catholic" now than religious and isn't sure who God is, etc. but is open. We agreed that we'd teach our kids about many religions and belief systems, and if they expressed an interest in any particular religion, we'd be open to guiding them through it (which is essentially how I was raised). I know many people who thrived in church communities and I don't care at all about my kids being taught stuff like New Testament parables (in a larger context).

Fast forward to now, and small comments from MIL on religiosity and baptism have become bigger. She's very devout and undoubtedly genuinely believes that our children's souls need to be saved. She's approached me and recently tried to persuade me on it in an emotionally manipulative way that has me fuming.

Independently, my wife wants the kids baptized because it feels "wrong" to her not to, at least from a cultural perspective. I'm much more receptive to my wife's desires than my MIL's and am considering baptism for that reason.

The issue to me is what the baptism represents for the future. In talking with my wife, we've agreed to consider a baptism, but not if it requires us to make any statements or commitments to the church to raise our children Catholic or do further rituals, etc. Basically, just the baptism and that's it...

However, I have a big concern that the baptism opens the door to basically bless my MIL to push Catholicism hard on my kids. As a godparent, my understanding is that she'd have a literal spiritual duty to guide my kids in her faith. The thought of her convincing my 2.5 year old daughter that Jesus is her savior to be in heaven triggers my protectiveness badly and makes me feel ill even thinking about. It'd be a lot different if my daughter was learning many faith systems at the same time but she's so young for all this.

I don't think my MIL is perfect but she loves the grandkids and we envision her being around often for their childhoods. She is also recently widowed and I feel a duty and desire to support her. I can't completely empathize with how she feels, but I try to put myself in her shoes here because this literally feels like a matter of eternal life and death to her and she 100% will be unable to hold her tongue re- religion for their whole childhoods.

I don't really like any of my options (ranging from most permissive to least):

• Allow the baptisms and have her as a godparent. I can request that she not teach my kids that "Jesus is King" but what happens when we catch her doing that?
• Allow the baptisms and select someone else as a godparent. Interpersonally this would be a disaster for our relationship with her but at least our children's souls would be saved in her mind? And would it really even change the way she acts?
• Don't allow the baptisms at all.

Has anyone been through something similar or have advice? Thank you.

My daughter 15 is being tormented my this kid who is Christian. She says he text her and snaps her all the time and keeps calling her to talk to her about Christ. She says he is nice otherwise and doesn't want to block him. This kid seems to have issues apparently was suicidal and seems to be latching on Christianity as a coping mechanism from what she has told me this is my assumption. I don't care if she wants to try out religions and figure out how she wants to be spiritual in her life but we specifically have raised our kids to choose their own path. She has her own things she does spiritually and I don't want her to ditch that because of pressures this kid is putting on her. She says that's all this kid talks about and it is boarderline cult sounding where they put all this pressure on you to join and I am viewing it as harassment at this point. She had a text from a friend that said this AM said Michael is going to get you to be Christian. I am really about to contact this kid and tell him I'm going to press charges if he doesn't leave her alone. She has told me she isn't interested and and the pressure he puts on her makes her really not want anything to do with it. I get they have laws for people to freely be whatever their religion is but if you don't want anything to do with that is there a line?

After years of reporting cult ads I can finally block Religious (and political) advertising.

In the mobile apps under Settings, Account Settings, at the bottom is a toggle to limit Religious ads.

We did it, Reddit!!

My child who just turned 9 is questioning the origin of life and religion pretty heavily. In the last 4 years I left my church and became an atheist. i am separated from her mother and have her every other week. I have tried to teach my child to grow up open minded and when she asks me about passages in the Bible or stories, I always try to explain how they are not possible and or just immoral. For example, she talked about Noah’s flood after coming back from church with her mother and I explained to her how significant that would be if it happened. Meaning how awful it would have been for someone to flood the earth, but I also explained through science the improbability and how rainbows are actually formed.

I don’t want to scare her about an immoral god but am hoping this helps her place the thought of “god” into something other than an omnipotent perfect entity that rules over nature and creates everything. If I watch a show about evolution with her she questions why this is said when “god created everything”

I am the only person in her life that is not religious. That being said I try to not argue with her or people about religion so I don’t push her away. I also have not told her that god is not real. I just bring up questions to get her thinking.. I also bought some more kid friendly books to help her. Books reccomendations from the subreddit actually.

Any advice is greatly appreciated on how to support my child is greatly appreciated. Being from the Bible Belt, raised religious, makes it very challenging to raise a child open minded.

Hello all. Me and my wife are both non-religious. We are both agnostic and humanists. I, however, lean towards atheism in terms of any kind of biblical gods, or revealed religions. You would probably call me an agnostic atheist, obviously. I lost my faith in Christianity in the fall of last year. She ultimately followed suit not soon after.

I guess on paper, we are both atheists since we don't believe in the god of the bible. We have a 6 year old. My in laws, are basically evangelical christians. They know I am not a believer anymore, but they don't know that she is not. She is concerned about how to tell them, since their relationship is already a bit strained. We, and mostly me, have the concern that they will try to indoctrinate our son in some way, especially since my FIL saying a little while back that my son is going to "need guidance," when it was brought up that I am an unbeliever.

How do we deal with this? We want to raise our son secular, and teach him more humanistic values, and to basically treat others ethically regardless of race, gender, beliefs, sex, etc. In regards to any kind of god beliefs, we are planning to encourage him to find his own path, ask questions. Think critically. I am okay when he gets old enough to understand and possibly be religious, or find his own path, or believe in a god. I don't discourage this. I simply want him to come to it, if he does, of his own accord, NOT because he was forced into it or indoctrinated.

I don't believe raising in or indoctrinating them into religion is necessary to be a good person or have good morals. I don't believe this at all. Sure, religion can teach some good things, but it also teaches some horrible things as well.

Any suggestions?

Hi everyone! I'm in need of advice. I've been an atheist since I was in my teenage years. My entire family is Catholic and I respect their believes (even when they don't respect mine and are always pushy about their religion). I have a son with a man who, when I met him, he was an atheist as well, however, from a year or so to now, he became an Evangelist. He says he believes in god and preaches the word.

We have been separated since our sone was one, yet he always kept in touch and my son spends time with him, although not so often. This last time around, my son stayed at his house for about 2 weeks, and apparently they took him to church.

He also told my son all sort of things about his god, even when we agreed, years ago when he still was an atheist, that we were going to wait for our son to be older so he could learn about all kinds of religions and his options, so he could CONSCIOUSLY CHOSE whatever he wants to believe in.

I, of course, will respect whatever my son choses, however, since he is only 7, I don't think he is ready to learn about all the different religions out there, and I don't think it's good to expose him to religion directly, either (like going to church, praying and such).

I don't know how to handle this, since I am very very upset right now, so I come here to ask from more experienced parents how I could handle a situation like this one.

Thank you in advance.

Does anyone have advice (or any books they'd recommend) about talking to your kid about why you don't believe in god? We live in a very conservative part of the U.S. (bible belt) and I imagine if we were open with our eight year old, he would get picked on at school. 

He has asked me multiple times, "Dad, do you believe in god?" and I've been very coy, saying something like, "well, that's kind of a grown-up subject. I certainly don't think you need to go to church regularly." Not attending church is pretty rare where we live- when meeting another adult, "where do you go to church?" is usually the second question you're asked after they ask where you work.

All that to say that I'm fairly certain other children have asked him about where he goes to church, he's said that he doesn't attend a church, and then they've asked why not. And then, kids being kids, I could see them picking on him for being different- ESPECIALLY if we were honest with him as to why we don't attend a church.

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!

I’m outside the US. Public school here is very bad, so we’re looking at non-traditional non-religious schools. The type of school we’d like is not available in our city so we thought Montessori would be our second option.

I was a bit weary bc I had a hunch that most of it was deeply permeated by catholicism/christianity. Went to see one, and talking to the principal she kept mentioning that spirituality was super important but they “almost never talked about god”. Looking deeply, they use texts like “god who has no hands” which worried me. There were a couple other red flags from the principal speech. She told me she hoped I was not “one of those feminists” and things like the man is the one giving life and the woman is just a vessel.

Child is 2yo and we know school can have a bigger impact than what parents can teach them. We don’t have many other options and are deeply frustrated. There are other Montessori schools around us but wondering if we’ll find the same things?

Do any of you has had any experience with Montessori schools? What are your thoughts? Are most of them like this?

...and how to show a child (8-12 yrs) why it just doesn't make sense in today's world? Most of those surrounding us are religious, but my husband and I wanted to educate our daughter on some different religions and why we don't believe. He passed away several years ago, so I don't have much help in this area.

We live in the south, in an area where any “neutral” club or activity is going to be dominated by parents and kids that are evangelical Christians. I know I can’t stop my kids from meeting and becoming friends with a Christian at public school or soccer practice etc., but I want to at least have a semi regular space where I know we’ll be around other like minded parents and kids. Honestly it’s the only thing I miss about church.

Obviously we can do everything we can to teach them at home, but I want them to have the right influences in their life outside of the home.

I don’t want to join a secular “church” but I do want some sort of like minded cause or community to be involved in whether that be other atheists or progressives.

Are there any good clubs, charities, get togethers for progressive families, things that evangelicals wouldn’t be caught dead being a part of even if it’s not overtly atheist? I’m also not very good at socializing so it helps if it’s something where the same people mostly meet regularly rather than trying to make friends with someone the first time I meet them at a one time event.

We live in Mexico. Most communities here are religious, we are aware of this. I’ve explained our beliefs (or lack thereof) to my daughter and she understands the concept of god is like Santa for adults. I’ve always told her to be mindful of how she speaks in public.

I told her to never ever talk about Jesus or God or any of that topic because many ppl believe Jesus is the son of god.

So at school they were talking about what they do at church and how much they love/hate it. My kid says ‘I don’t go to church’ and the other kids are confused. ‘Why don’t you go to church?!’ She says, ‘cause I don’t believe in god’.

She said most of the kids were ok about it, except 1 classmate who was just incredulous. He starts jumping up and down, saying ‘then who made all the trees in nature?! Who made the world?! How can we be alive without god?!’ After that everytime my daughter speaks in class, he will quip ‘she doesn’t believe in god!’.

My daughter is quite amused by this reaction. In her mind she thinks- so what if I don’t believe in god? I’m not doing anything wrong. I had to explain- she’s not doing anything wrong but we cannot be so casual saying things like this. Ppl get mad when you say you don’t believe in god.

I myself never thought a 10yr old classmate would get so riled up about this. She says sometimes this boy will say out loud ‘What a great (insert topic) God made it happen’.

My kid doesn’t seem to be bothered about it tho. Should I be concerned? I think she needs to get used to the idea that a lot of ppl will have issues with non believers. I still gave her a lecture about not talking about church and god at school or with anyone.

We're planning a trip with our toddler (who will be almost 4 years old at the time) to London and Paris in a few months. We plan to visit all the standard sites, which will include visiting religious sites like Westminster Abbey and Sacre Couer, etc.

Our child has never been in a church, doesn't know what a church is, etc. So I'm guessing that when we go into these places, he'll be asking a lot of questions. (We travel with him a lot, and he always asks us about what places are). I'm envisioning questions like "What are these things (statues, crucifix) on the walls," "Why are these big bowls of water here," "What is that stage up there for?"

We don't want to be disingenuous or mislead him in anyway. But we also want to avoid any implication of magic or mysticism or omnipotent and omnipresent beings or anything like that.

How have you, or would you, provide this type of context in simple terms to a young child.

I am due soon and my husband and I intend to raise our child without religion. Where we live, we are surrounded by it and it's pretty much an expectation that everyone having religion involved in their lives or they're bullied. The times are changing though here however slowly and not without unsurprising push back even from our state government.

I went NC with half of my side years ago and they were the problematic ones with the severe Christian zealots. Therefore, this should be easier than if they were still involved in our lives. Much easier. Unfortunately though, I worry about my half I didn't cut contact with. They haven't given me reason to and are incredibly great people, but my grandmother in her mentally deteriorating state has started clinging ever more to religion. Not in a hateful way, but I was shocked when they essentially manipulated my sibling into a religious-based trip and he came back surprisingly indoctrinated to a degree. Then came dinner time chatter where my grandparents and some aunts called certain toys evil, of the devil, and that they can possess you. I don't think I need to say which one in particular that has arguably the highest level of religious-based paranoia surrounding it.

I suppose the reason I am worried is because when I said I do not intend to be shoveling down sweets into my kid because of certain genetic health risks, some countered with they were given soft drinks as babies and insinuated my grandmother would do the same with our baby. Now I am concerned leaving LO in their care. The jokes of sending a child hold to parents sugared up greatly irritate me. It's not funny but cruel to the child and dismissive of how parents wish to raise their children. Which leads into what else they would do despite our wishes.

Both S/O and I had religion thrust upon us as children and it was made as part of our experiences with abuse. We don't want that around our child. We want them to be a child, to ask questions, know the world, and not be told and led to believe they're a sinner just for existing. Or baptized behind our backs, taken to church without our consent, or anything else.

Will we celebrate with them things like Easter and Xmas? Of course! First, my hang up is mainly with Abrahamic faiths, not so much Pagan paths, and these are not technically inherently Christian but that's a topic beaten more than to death.

It will be a while yet before they get any chance at alone time with LO but when that time comes, I am going to be nervous.

Looking for a place to vent and get advice. So, our LO is 17 months. Our inlaws are quite religious, and we are not, I respect their beliefs and keep my thought to my self, but have been dreading the day they started in on us with the child.

When LO was born they visited in the hospital, and while I was pouring blood out of my ripped up vagina in a hospital bed, telling us how can we not believe in God when he made this baby (I made my baby, i was there for it). My husband hand waved it away saying he didn't want to get into it.

Fast forward 17 months, they brought it up yesterday, saying how unbelievable it is that we said we didn't want to get into it, and started drilling into it (in front of my child) about how God made the baby, our religious beliefs, how can we raise the child without religion, and how are eternal souls are damnd.

I was so uncomfortable. I just said lot of people believe different things, and I just try to be a good person, and we packed up and left.

We hadn't been over I a long time because there was big drama with FIL's behavior, and its not the best environment for LO. but I let myself be guilted because he's in poor health, and MIL isn't that bad. I feel so guilty for taking little one over there where they fight in front or her.

I feel like when she gets older they're going to try pushing it more on her.

Idk what I'm looking for with this post, I just let myself get so upset.

Anyone else just go to church with your spouse and go through the motions?

I admit I take communion at my wife's Lutheran Church. But I totally don't believe.

We are expecting our first (and only) child, both atheist for 10+ years but not vocal about it to family.

I know we will likely get a “baby’s first picture Bible” or two from aunts, grandmas, etc. but I’m curious if y’all would say thank you then stash it or toss it later, or pre-empt with something on the baby shower invite (or by word of mouth) that we would not like religious books, clothes, or toys. We’re from the south so I’m thinking the grin-and-bear-it is the most likely recommended, but it would also be nice to not have to field “Jesus loves me” crap for years to come

UPDATED: the book is now available as a Kindle eBook on Amazon. Just search the site for the exact title "Mother Forest and Her Gifts" to find it. I think linking to the Amazon page is probably against the sub rules.

UPDATED again: the print edition is now available at https://store.bookbaby.com/book/mother-forest-and-her-gifts

I hope some other nonbeliever parents find it enjoyable and fulfilling to read with their kids. It was written not with the atheist parent specifically in mind, but any parents who want a story that's rooted in reality as we understand it through scientific observation, but still has a magical folklore/myth feel about it.

[self-promotion advisory :) ]

I wrote a children's book, a story I would have liked to have read to my son when he was little.He's 11 now and he loves it, but unfortunately I got the inspiration years too late for him to be at the prime age for it. We're in the middle of putting together the final product (I'm working with an amazing artist, Cara Bevan, to illustrate it, and she's about halfway through... just getting to the pages I'm most excited about!).

Mother Forest and Her Gifts is my version of an old folktale or creation myth, but as if the original prehistoric storytellers had understood the process of evolution.

In a nutshell, "Mother Forest" is my anthropomorphic stand-in for Nature, and she is handing out gifts to the animals that help them do their thing - claws for the big cat to help her climb trees and snare deer, a shell for turtle to protect him, and so on. Each animal has a question about their gift, because every gift has a drawback; for example, Turtle complains that his shell is bulky and he can't run with it - Mother Forest explains that he won't need to run anymore, because wherever he goes, he is already home and safe... you get the picture. Finally we come to the family of apes, and the rest of the story is about the apes and their journey to make use of the confusing set of gifts Mother Forest has given them. That's about as much as I want to spill before the actual book is out, sorry!

I don't want to paste the whole story on the internet for obvious reasons, but I would be happy to answer questions about it, about me, or about the experience of self-publishing it.

We're over halfway to the finish line with illustrating and designing the book, and we've had to put up a Kickstarter to help with the production costs. We don't have any spare money to invest in the project and have already borrowed a little against our house, and would like to finish it and pay for promotional costs without borrowing even more. We're self-publishing, not because I showed it to a lot of publishers and they didn't want it (I didn't submit it anywhere, just went right to self-publishing), but because I didn't want to have to fight a publisher as a first-time author to soften the evolution theme of the story for broader commercial success. I wrote this for kids, and for parents like me who have too few books to choose from that support a reality-based worldview - not to sell as many copies as possible at the expense of the message.

Yeah that's my name; I decided to \"doxx myself\" a while back. My FB profile links to my u/ page, my reddit handle is on my personal/business cards, etc.

I have two more stories already written, not sequels but written in the same vein - stories that read like old oral-tradition folktales, but which incorporate a modern understanding of nature. One of them is called "The Lesson of the Bees" and it uses bees as examplars of hard work, community spirit, and self-control.

Anyway, if you're into it, slide over to the Kickstarter page, where you can see some of the finished pages and art, and support the project if you think it's worthy and/or to get a copy as soon as it's in print (the lowest reward tier is basically list price + $10 to cover shipping, so it's about the same as simply pre-ordering the book).

Keep on keepin' on, fellow nonbeliever moms and dads!

Rant incoming: I just found out about two teachers at the elementary school that are bulling LGBTQ kids. Such as two teachers going up to a little kid that was wearing a pansexual pin, and telling her that she needed to explain what the pin meant and why she was wearing it. Then laughing at her when she completely shut down. Or when one of the above teachers told a young child that wants to be called them/they, that they were born a girl, and will only be called she/her at the school. These teachers are known bullies, and I have put in complaints on one of them before for telling my daughter's friend that she was, "too dumb to pass this grade." as well as other things just as bad. I've submitted a complaint, but I still feel that these teachers will be allowed to continue bullying these poor kids. They should be fired, but they might get a light talking-to. I'm just frustrated and feel horrible for these little kids. There is no hate like christian love.

I've taught myself to resist false information from a very early age, and was able to fend off any brainwashing or indoctrination attempts by adults including teachers. But I was lucky. My parents never indoctrinated me. They never dragged me into sunday school. And on TV I saw a lot of scientific programs, where I learned to be intrigued by how things work, what there is to discover, and that there are reasons behind every mechanism there is.

I basically replicated this with my kids now. Expose them to lots of ideas on how something might work. Searching and recognizing how mechanisms, how anything works. And posing falsehoods, pretend they're true for a bit, and then go "true of false?". Kids immediate response: "FALSE !!!".
So they know how to see how an idea without any explanation as to how it actually works, how that is probably false.

Plus I also make it clear that I find all the religious ideas in this world ridiculous. There are much better explanations as to how things work.

Noway anyone is going to get any religious planting of ideas or feelings past them.

So the point is that future proofing your children takes a bit of effort. Expose them to science early on. Find educational materials about things like space, computers, electricity, chemistry, and discovering nature, evolution, how earth formed, how life emerged, ideas on how the big bang might have been triggered. When they get a bit older, arm them with mindsets like from Carl Sagan and Michael Shermer, with each their own Baloney Detection Kits (look it up, it's great).

If you don't, then one day they might get won over by false fantasies, like some jesus or mohammed or other such absurd nonsense.

Peace, heath, prosperity! Discover! Develop! Evolve!