Would you raise a child without teaching him/her anything about religion? How would you teach your child about morals and ethics without religion being involved?

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that children can be raised without religion, and sadly yes even without God, and still grow up to be very good people. I know of people who were raised that way, read of people who were raised that way....

However, It doesn't happen offten. Most people who live around me who weren't raised religiously, didn't turn out too well, didn't care about anything but themselves, and were very imoral. Thats why most people believe that it is not possible to raise children to be good and moral without religion. The people who can raise their children to be good and moral kids, seem to be the Ideal that is not very popular here in the US, it doesn't seem....

I think you have to take each child differently. My daughter grew up without much religion but holds a more deistic view of theology even though she describes herself as Wiccan. We just let her come to us with questions when she had them.

Our son, on the other hand, is in Cub Scouts, so there are many boys there whose families are very religious. So we thought it better to ask him if he had any questions, what hehad heard, and what his thoughts were. He simply had more opportunities to be confronted by people who were theists, so we thought he should have some grounding on his thoughts.

Lots of literature has Biblical based themes and references, even if the authors were parodying or opposed to the Bible. So, having no exposure to religion can do a disservice to cultural background. Some themes in Shakespear, Milton, Steinbeck, etc. would be lost without knowing the Biblical references. Historical context can be lost without being familiar.

-TC

I can't help but feel sorry for those who believe that we humans can't be good without being taught to be good via religious means. The very notion that we teach our children the difference between good and bad based on reward and punishment seems so very wrong.

Why do so many people of faith think that, if they didn't have God they wouldn't know the difference between a right action and a wrong action. You would certainly know whether an action done to you was right or wrong. It doesn't seem to me that it requires God to figure out that if it would hurt me, it might well hurt somebody else, or if it would be good for me, it might well be good for somebody else.

The problem, you see, is that I think notions of God saying "don't kill people" and "don't steal their stuff or their wife" is akin to admitting that we are lacking empathy, and therefore wouldn't be able to transfer our knowledge of how the same act would affect us onto the other person.

That's a pretty sad assessment of human capacity, wouldn't you think?

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evangelicalhumanist: Greek "eu"=good and "angelos"=messenger. Spreading the good news of Humanism.

I agree with you E.H. and thanks for the great post. I do believe in a God and like T.C. I only answer my kids questions as to sharing what I believe. I always make sure I don't try to convince them of my belief, and if I know of another belief I will share that too and leave it up to them to believe what serves them. I sometimes just ask them: What do you think? They are smarter than we think. There is nothing I need to teach them. What serves me, might not serve them.

I feel we have "truth" built in us, everyone does. If we have to ask others what is right or wrong we have gone off "truth" somewhere. We lost our own connection to truth, as humans or as a child of God. I don't have worldy expectations on my Kids, but I hope they are able to make discions conscously to the question: What serves me?

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May your awareness be perfection

Religion and morality have little to do with each other. I have met some very moral people who are not religious in the least, and I have met some very religious people who were very immoral. That being said, my children have been taught about my beliefs, my husband's beliefs, and some of the beliefs in the rest of my family. But, when it comes to being good people, I try to teach them to do the right thing for its own reward. Being kind to someone usually brings about kindness from someone else.

I don't think you have to be religious to be moral, but rather you have to be aware to be moral: aware of others and the world around you.

I may be taking this one statement out of context, and I agree with a lot of what you wrote, but reward and punishment is a very effective and necessary stage specific context for growth. I'm not condoning scaring the bejezzus out of kids with fire and brimstone speech, but without some method of reward and punishment, building self-fortitude in a child is almost impossible.

I tell my kids to clean their room and do their chores. If they do them they are rewarded (not always with money or material items) if they don't they get punished (with restrictions). Once they have developed the sense to know they do certain responsibilities because later no one will do them for them, they won't need my dealing out reward and punishment. But that sense is taught and developed, it isn't something that just occurs "naturally".

What many people fail to realize is that these ancient traditions were dealing with masses who had mentalities at this juvenile level. Revealed religion, especially with its forms of reward and punishment, were necessary to advance the structure of society until and adult version of nationalism developed. Of course, most of these traditions never developed past this phase which is why they now seem antiquated, backwards and cruel. Modern adults left this phase back in grade school and the Western traditions in particular never elevated their teaching methods, so many of these traditions are insulting to the modern and post-modern mind.

But that doesn't mean reward and punishment are obsolete for everything, its just a stage specific method that parents hope their kids at some point don't need to continue their growth.

-TC

We raised our (4 ) children without rewards and punishment. Everything is very harmonious in our house. I don't have to screem, or even tell them anything. We also let the kids decide when to go to bed. I know it sounds crazy but it's not, it's very simple: We believe in our Kids.

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May your awareness be perfection

"We raised our (4 ) children without rewards and punishment. Everything is very harmonious in our house. I don't have to screem, or even tell them anything. We also let the kids decide when to go to bed. I know it sounds crazy but it's not, it's very simple: We believe in our Kids. "

Mrs. Bush ,
We know how much you love your children especially the gifted one , you know , the President and even if it sounds crazy we know you love them .

I was raised in a non-churchgoing family and learned morality via direct instruction from the parental units. I observed their day-to-day behaviour, and occasionally was told that something or other was good or bad. Absolutely no religion involved -- In fact, it was much later that I learned that religion even existed.