One thing bothers me. What the hell are children told to persuade them to belief in a God, anyway? I don’t remember what mine told me; I became atheist at the age of like 10 and even that is a very fuzzy memory. Basically I remember that as soon as non-belief became apparent to me as an option, belief has struck me as completely lacking in justification; a big unanswered “why”—all the more annoying because for some reason asking “why” was not considered reasonable among most people I talked to (other children and adults). I have very little memory of myself-as-believer, though I know I was one.
So is there some general data on what parents tell children to persuade them? I imagine it’ll prove very silly, but I’m curious.
children don’t need to persuaded very strongly to believe things adults tell them. It’s their default state. So children of religious parents who hear their parents say, god created the world, god punishes sinners, etc. believe that until they are given reason NOT to. Other examples include things even more blatantly fake, like the tooth fairy and santa.
Yeah. I went to another community I post on and asked the resident theists what they told their children. The answers pretty much boiled down to “we tell them that God exists and Jesus loves them and they lap it up without question”. That and getting them involved in the believing community/lifestyle. In restrospect, it shouldn’t have been at all surprising.
Excellent article, I enjoyed it a lot.
One thing bothers me. What the hell are children told to persuade them to belief in a God, anyway? I don’t remember what mine told me; I became atheist at the age of like 10 and even that is a very fuzzy memory. Basically I remember that as soon as non-belief became apparent to me as an option, belief has struck me as completely lacking in justification; a big unanswered “why”—all the more annoying because for some reason asking “why” was not considered reasonable among most people I talked to (other children and adults). I have very little memory of myself-as-believer, though I know I was one.
So is there some general data on what parents tell children to persuade them? I imagine it’ll prove very silly, but I’m curious.
children don’t need to persuaded very strongly to believe things adults tell them. It’s their default state. So children of religious parents who hear their parents say, god created the world, god punishes sinners, etc. believe that until they are given reason NOT to. Other examples include things even more blatantly fake, like the tooth fairy and santa.
Yeah. I went to another community I post on and asked the resident theists what they told their children. The answers pretty much boiled down to “we tell them that God exists and Jesus loves them and they lap it up without question”. That and getting them involved in the believing community/lifestyle. In restrospect, it shouldn’t have been at all surprising.