Atheist, Agnostic and religious.

My son and I are practicing atheists. We believe in being responsible for our own actions and do not think some heavenly body is responsible for our happiness.

Yaya is agnostic, according to her, “I am not saying there is no God and I am not saying there is God” She thinks religion was invented by mankind to blame someone for the miseries, because no one needs a God when things are going well. Her extended essay ( ee) for IB is looking at the fall of Roman empire and rise of Christianity.

My youngest is religious. She truly believes in ‘Jesus Christ died on the cross for sinners’. She attends the religious class at school and argues passionately about Jesus and all he did for mankind.

Dinner time is really fun on Fridays. My youngest has religious lessons on that day and eagerly waits to tell us the ‘true facts’ about Christianity.

I believe in live and let live and that  my children have a right to follow whatever religion they want to. But I can clearly see how the Christian Ministers are working hard to brainwash little children like mine and terrifying them about sin and salvation. I really want to sit down with my child and tell her she got it all wrong and explain to her that religion is the real cause of all human miseries. But I didn’t do that with my son or Yaya. They chose their own path.

Sometimes it is really hard to live and let live..

 

19 thoughts on “Atheist, Agnostic and religious.

  1. The dilemma of my life! I am an atheist. My husband does not believe in religion, but believes in God. And we both don’t want to just push our thought process on our child.

    As of now, she is very young. But the questions about God, what is good, what is bad are already starting. And I struggle to find a way to answer her questions without making it seem like there are no other answers. And sometimes, the most simple ones are the toughest to deal with. Like Santa Claus. All adults will agree there is no Santa Claus. Should I tell my daughter that and ‘ruin’ it for her? How do I let her come to her own conclusions when everyone else is busy brainwashing her that there definitely is a Santa Claus that will come down the chimney.

    • Clueless: I am so happy to see you here. I missed arguing with you. 🙂
      When we were living in M’sia, Christmas wasn’t a big deal and often we were on holidays at that time, so Santa didn’t play a big role. But when we moved to Canada, everything changed. The school itself encouraged children to send letters to Santa. I felt there is no harm in playing along and the reason was… a friend of mine who has two masters degree and is a CEO of a big company, refused to read fairy tales to her children because she felt children ought to be taught reality and in real life there is no prince charming riding on a white stallion to rescue the princess from the wicked step mother, while I absolutely believe in encouraging the ability to dream.. Santa became the part of my children’s childhood fantasy. When Yaya figured Santa isn’t real, she continued to play along, so her brother and sister can continue to believe in Santa.. when my son knew the truth, he and Yaya continued being part of the game, so their little sister could still believe. I asked them if they were upset when they knew the truth and all of them said No, they are not and they had a good time and will do the same for their own children.

  2. Don’t worry Sarah. Children will soon realize God is crated by religion and the middlemen, the advocates of religion, keep their flocks together in the name of God scaring them with the Punishment to make a good living extorting the poor believers.

    In Kerala Christians can’t defy God or Church for fear of being ostracized as at least in three occasions they need Church, baptism,marriage and death. So all pretend to be believers and suffer silently from the exploitation of the Church authorities.

    • Bipin: My worry is more to do with the fear mongering the church is inflicting on my child. It took me years to let go my Christian up brining because of fear. I don’t want the same to happen to my child.

  3. These ministries come to your door to preach, and very are hard to get rid of. Some of them get very rich by starting donation based charities. A women other day caught me on track and started telling me all about Jesus. I am a Hindu, however not a practicing one. I listened all she had to say, since it was a good company. However when she asked me for my phone #, I let her know, all her preaching fell on deaf ears, and I donot believe in whatever she says/does. I guess, she will pick her next target carefully. She told me she was unemployed for a long time, and doing only God’s work. Goggling her reveled that she lived a house close to half million $. I wonder who is financing that, God?

  4. I come from a very devout Christian family, but I lost my faith. Several people have been trying to get me back into the fold for so many years. I have tried, but faith is not something that you can will yourself to have. Now I am on the fence. It’s hard to shrug off years of conditioning. I am told the setbacks in my life are because I don’t believe, I am afraid worse things might happen if I don’t pray. Also, I guess part of me likes to believe in miracles. Anyways, I wish I could get strong evidence in one or the other direction, so that I can settle the matter once and for all.

    • A: I learned that if I didn’t pray and bad things happened and it was God’s wrath because of my lack of faith, why do good things happen to me? Who is in charge of the good things? I didn’t pray for the good things, therefor I shouldn’t get any.
      You are absolutely right that the years of conditioning by the church is very hard to erase

      • You guys are so right about the conditioning…I think that is the first thing my husband and I agreed on…We are not going to put ourselves through the guilt of not praying/ believing as the reason for anything bad happening in our lives… It’s been so liberating to say the least… We do believe in God and follow Christianity, but try to stay away from all the prayer groups which try to control your life and make our own intelligent decisions about any scenario irrespective of what the “God’s people” say.

  5. Once upon a time I was deeply religious. I truly believed that Jesus Christ died on a cross for me. I used to sit on the staircase reciting the “kurbana” because my parents didn’t think I should go to the church. Fast forward… I am agnostic now. I don’t know enough to say whether or not there is a God (although I would prefer to think there is one, then he or she would take care of every thing!), and for now, it doesn’t matter to me.

    Give her some time. Let her grow up, be able to think for herself. She will realize that if at all there is a God, he has nothing to do with Christianity. Does she read a lot like you?

    • URT: She reads more than me..but very innocent..She thinks her RE teacher is God’s gift to mankind..and so believe in everything he says..

  6. I had always wondered and wanted to ask how you raise your kids as atheists. So you let them follow what they want. That’s great!… btw, why is Baby taking a religious class?… Is it necessary for school work?

    • Thumbi: Unfortunately Australia is still a religious country and still has religious classes in public schools. Baby chose to attend the religious class.

  7. In my opinion, (mine only :)) I would sit down with the kid and explain about what I know and have learned from experience. Like u said brain washing can stay for a long time in the subconscious especially/ And some of this guilt, sin etc can do more harm than good. At least from what I have read and seen.

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