Metal Art Sculptures

A bit of shameless pimping here – check out my brother’s new Metal Art Sculptures site!

Almost as soon as we sat down, my daughter (11 years) mentioned how someone in the family thinks they saw a ghost at the side of her bed. My response was an immediate and confident, “there’s no such thing as ghosts”.

It was a that point where my other half took a friendly jab at the fact that I “don’t believe in anything”.

“Not true”, I said. “I believe in a lot of things. I just need to see convincing evidence before I proclaim belief”.

Something about that really clicked with my daughter who immediately went into a litany of things she didn’t believe or that didn’t make sense to her. Guess what sorts of things don’t sit well with her?

- the idea that there’s an invisible man up there that created everything.

- the creation of a woman from a man’s rib.

- how Adam and Eve could have populated the entire earth.

- Noah’s Ark.

The subject of god and my beliefs hasn’t come up with my daughter since I became an atheist. In other words, I didn’t put these thoughts in her head. Truth be known, I was a bit worried about how she’d react to knowing my thoughts on religion because she spent five years in a Catholic school (it’s a long story) before I became an atheist.

But, the conversation was exactly as I’d always hoped it would be – spontaneously initiated by her, at an age where she could formulate reasoned questions and answers. She was SO inquisitive and thoughtful. I also got the feeling she was really appreciative of the alternative viewpoint I had. I think she may have felt previously that her doubts about those things had no audience.

After she talked about what she didn’t believe, she asked how I thought the world was created. I was very excited to share what little I know about The Big Bang! Then, she surprised me even further by asking if we “came from apes”. “Wow! What a great day”, I thought, and proceeded to give her a quick run down on the theory of evolution.

She SOAKED it up …we connected in a way we never had before.

While all this was going on, my son (7 years) was going into great detail about how he was going to grow up to be a scientist and prove that zombies really do exist. I may have to work on that one a bit more!

Point taken. However, becoming an atheist didn’t affect me in that way at all. In fact, becoming an atheist was accompanied by a rejection of the paranormal. Why?

The answer is that becoming an atheist was an outcome of examining evidence and arguments for and against the existence of god. In other words, it was an act of dedication to critical thinking. Applying that same process to the paranormal led to the same outcome – I rejected all of those things.

I remember quite clearly how rejecting god was like pulling out the bottom of a house of cards – belief in the paranormal came tumbling down as well. Not only was there no god, but there were also no boogie men hiding in the dark. I’m not saying I used to believe in the paranormal but, when I began examining god more closely, I also examined the paranormal and stopped taking pseudo-science seriously.

My world changed practically overnight.

The Reverse Must Also Be True!

I’ve been watching my kids grapple with the imaginary stuff of the world. They want Santa to be real. They fear monsters under the bed. They think there are scary, wild things in the basement.

Why?

It’s my fault. Our fault. We parents of children. We adults of society. We teach our children that there are things – imaginary things – around us that we cannot see. We teach them that fairies come while they sleep to take fallen teeth. We teach them that a big, jolly magic man slides down the chimney to leave toys. We teach them that there’s a white-haired old man in the sky watching their every move, listening in on their every thought. We teach them that there are devils in the world trying to hurt and make people do bad things.

All this. All this teaches our children to be superstitious. It is the building up of the house of cards I just tore down in my own life.

Every time we teach a young child that there is something imaginary that they cannot see – that they cannot ever see, it opens their minds up to be superstitious in other areas. We provide a doorway for superstition to stay with our children into adulthood. Frankly, I’m surprised people aren’t more superstitious.

Ghosts, God, Santa Clause, Satan and the Tooth Fairy are all attacks on our ability to be rational and accept only what can be proven with evidence and critical thinking.

If I got to start over as a parent, I’d eliminate every imaginary thing. There would be no tooth fairy (but there would be fun around the loss of the tooth). There would be no Santa Claus (but there would be presents and an appreciation for life’s gifts). Imaginary things would be banished in my home based on the notion that imaginary things do real damage to a child ‘s mind.

Imaginary things impede children from fully growing up…

…and that’s only a good thing if you’re Peter Pan.

My wife has also largely abandoned religion (believes in “a greater force” but not a personal god) so we are, for the most part, on the same page with regard to religion.

But we also agree that moving the kids to a new school now is not the best idea. We don’t want to disrupt a stable educational situation, nor do we want them to have to make new friends (especially my daughter). So, we’re going to let them finish elementary school, and then we’ll transfer them to public junior high. This will work well since many of our kid’s classmates will also attend the public school due to there being very few Catholic schools in the area.

So, although not ideal, the whole thing provides a transition we can live with. In addition, I have a plan for systematically displacing religion’s impact on my children’s psyche.

Step one is to educate them about the thousands of religions and religious denominations. This will get them thinking about the very low probability that one religion is the right one (and the implication that the rest are all, to one degree or another, wrong). To that end, I’ve placed orders for this and this. I may add this to the list.

Step two is to introduce them to rational arguments against belief in god. To me, this step is very much like telling a child that Santa doesn’t exist. In fact, when I begin on step two, I’m going to intentionally draw parallels between the existence of Santa and God. Of course, there will be more explanation than that, but the Santa parallel will provide the bridge of showing how something you once believed in, can be absolutely false.

At first of course, the news will be disappointing to them (and probably a bit scary) but, when accompanied by strong reason (e.g analyzing the problem of suffering) and evidence-based thinking (e.g. no evidence), I am confident that it will become the only idea that makes sense. Of course, sharing our own beliefs will go a long way toward helping them see that non-belief is acceptable.

My daughter is ten and is figuring out that Santa doesn’t exist (she seems to be staying quiet about it – probably for the benefit of her brother). It’s definitely time to teach her. I’ll also start my son on step one and will proceed to step two when I think he’s ready. The last thing I want is for him to run off to school yelling, “there is no god” among a classroom full of believers.

My children will ultimately make up their own minds, but at least they’ll have access to all the options – all tempered with a good dose of rational thinking.

I’m going to follow up this post with another on my thoughts around the relationship between belief in God, Satan, ghosts and lots of other unproved stuff.

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Oh, in case you wondered: definition of heathen

On Friday, my wife and I learned that our son – six years old – is a type 1 juvenile diabetic (the insulin injections for life kind).

Needless to say, we all have a lot to learn and adjust to. I don’t have the energy to post much else today.

Right now, I’d say if there is a god, his name is Frederick Banting.