Since there is more news on raising children as atheists we must again ask, “If raising children in a ‘faith’ is ‘child abuse’ what is raising children to be atheists; reeducation?” This is part of the rise of atheism is America.
On Sunday mornings, when many of their contemporaries are taking their seats in church pews, a group of young parents mingle…
This congregation of Triangle residents has no creed or ceremony, just a desire to get together and offer each other support for rearing children without religion. Taking their cue from a primer of the same name, they call themselves Parenting Beyond Belief.1
From the get go we must ask, “Why Sunday mornings?” Why not Sunday afternoons, evenings or nights? Why not Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday or Saturday?Who knows? But there are many, many atheists who cannot seem to do, say or think anything with regards to atheism that is no meant to be specifically anti-theism.
The Triangle resident’s creed is Parenting Beyond Belief which is in reference to Dale McGowan’s book which lays out the creed which they follow in raising their children as atheists.
Not everyone in the group is an atheist. Some prefer to call themselves “freethinkers” or “humanists,” or “spiritual but not religious.” Some are even believers. But they share a disdain for organized religion and a desire to rear their children with the tools to think for themselves.
Here we go with the name game again: not “atheist” but “freethinkers,” “humanists,” “spiritual but not religious.”
American Atheist‘s webmaster authoritatively declared,
Atheists are NOT “secular humanists”, “freethinkers”, “rationalists” or “ethical culturalists”…Often, people who are Atheists find it useful to masquerade behind such labels.2
Yet, Dan Barker’s Freedom From Religion Foundation disagrees,
Freethinkers include atheists, agnostics and rationalists.3
But some people raising their children by Parenting Beyond Belief are “believers”; believers in what? Believers in a shared a disdain for organized religion and a desire to rear their children with the tools to think for themselves? In that case they agree with every solid Christian that I know-and with the Bible itself.As to “spiritual but not religious”; this could mean very many things from doing whatever one wants and then looking in the mirror and saying “I’m a good person” to being again, being a solid Christian. Yet, it is noteworthy to consider the words of one time atheist C. S. Lewis:
One reason why many people find Creative Evolution [aka Life-Force philosophy] so attractive is that it gives one much of the emotional comfort of believing in God and none of the less pleasant consequences.When you are feeling fit and the sun is shining and you do not want to believe that the whole universe is a mere mechanical dance of atoms, it is nice to be able to think of this great mysterious Force rolling on through the centuries and carrying you on its crest.If, on the other hand, you want to do something rather shabby, the Life-Force, being only a blind force, with no morals and no mind, will never interfere with you like that troublesome God we learned about when we were children.The Life-Force is a sort of tame God.You can switch it on when you want, but it will not bother you.All the thrills of religion and none of the cost.
Is the Life-Force the greatest achievement of wishful thinking the world has yet seen?4
One whose parenting skills are Beyond Belief-that is just a joke, by the way-is Todd Spiering who stated,
“We don’t have to act like we have it all figured out,” Spiering said. “I’m more comfortable not knowing.”
While such notions are appealing and commonsensical, after all who has ever claimed to “have it all figured out” the phrase, “I’m more comfortable not knowing” strikes me as meaning “I do not want to know”-this is a science stopper.Another atheist daddy is Bruce Harris who states,
Where I work, I’m not really out as an atheist_My boss assumes that everyone around him has some religion. It doesn’t occur to him that there are atheists.
Bruce Harris is a graphics designer and I am not sure what atheism has to do with that particular field. He would do well to keep in mind the saying, “You would not be concerned about what people think of you if you only realized how seldom they do.” He is an atheist and atheism is a mere lack of belief in god(s), right? Then why come out? Why look forward to the big reveal? Guess what, very likely, no one cares. I have been outed at work as a believer and people virtually lined up to give me a hard time about it (and yet, they would come to me in private to ask for prayer-makes one wonder).
Moreover, his boss assumes that everyone around him has some religion and according to Michael Newdow (contender for the world’s record for most lawsuits filed) Bruce Harris is religious since atheism is a religion and there are countless influential atheists, the Alluminati, attempting to establish a one world atheist religion (as evidenced here).
Bruce Harris keep up his studies of the New Atheist catechism,
A spate of books by atheists has helped ease some of the loneliness. Best-selling books such as Christopher Hitchens’ “God is Not Great” and Richard Dawkins’ “The God Delusion” have lent some respectability to nonbelievers, and at the least made their existence better known.
I could see how Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins have made atheist’s existence better known but “have lent some respectability”? What does “some” mean? Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins and their New Atheist movement ilk are a nightmare to the friendly neighborhood atheist.
Overall, it seems that the New Atheist latest tact is to support the rise of atheism in America by the concept of get’em while they’re young. This is actually an old atheist tactic but is not coming out of the closet as the hip Parenting Beyond Belief de jour and that ultimately it “might lead children to choose no religion at all” so hopes Richard Dawkins.5
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A plea: I have to pay for server usage and have made all content on this website free and always will. I support my family on one income and do research, writing, videos, etc. as a hobby. If you can even spare $1.00 as a donation, please do so: it may not seem like much but if each person reading this would do so, even every now and then, it would add up and really, really help. Here is my donate/paypal page.
Due to robo-spaming, I had to close the comment sections. However, you can comment on my Facebook page and/or on my Google+ page. You can also use the “Share / Save” button below this post.