Skip to main content

Atheism For Kids

The latest atheist stunt is an unrolling of UK-wide billboards decrying the fact that children get labelled by their family faith before they can choose themselves. Philosophically this is facile and poorly considered. How else are adults to arrange the lives of children? Parents decide the names, schools, diets and doctors of children; what books they do or don't read; what bedtime stories they are told. Parents and other adults help shape childhood's imagination. Atheist parents are free to raise their kids sans God. It hardly makes sense for a Catholic family to do so. The atheist campaigners argue children should not have to decide a belief system until they are adults. That is rather like saying children should not have to go to school or eat greens until they are 18. Adulthood is precisely the moment for questioning childhood beliefs: not the moment for adopting them. Further, the soul is present at the start and cannot be left unsupported for so long. If adults choose to become atheists that is their rational choice. The soul of a child and a child's mind need loving guidance. Love is forever ignored by such campaigns as if faith was mainly about malice. It doesn't have to be.

Comments

Anonymous said…
Wow, deeply considered. Because as you rightly noted, the poster says "Raise me sans God."

Oh wait, a second look -- well, the first look for most of us -- shows that it's about LABELS, not the presence or absence of God. As the FAQ below makes plain, it is understood that religious families will engage in religious practice. The simple request is that children be made to know that the choice of religious identity is their own in the long run.

http://www.humanism.org.uk/billboards/critical-thinking
Poetry Pleases! said…
Dear Todd

My father was an atheist and my mother was an agnostic. I often thank my lucky stars that I was not brainwashed from birth as I would have been had I been born into a Catholic family. I am now a Church-of-England Buddhist which is a belief system that I have worked out for myself.

Best wishes from Simon
TheEO said…
Of course, it is for parents to raise their children as they see fit. It is the state that should not categorise and divide according to the religion of the parent. Faith schools do just this, with a great deal of state support.

You seem to be inventing your own campaign, rather different to the one pursued by the Humanists - and then you go on to criticise your own false projections.

I suspect from this piece that you are one of those people who believe that someone was killed, remained dead for three days and then got up and walked about. Am I right?
Unknown said…
I think I am pretty much in agreement with TheEO and what he said, Todd. You keep harping on this subject, and it grates on me a little, tbt. State-funded religious schools, as well as faith-based initiatives harm and endanger our humanity more than strengthen it. I am equally revolted/offended by the intrusion of Muslim or Sharia laws and their intrusion into normal, day-to-day life as I am by supposed Christian ones. Let humanity truly advance, for once!
LIke Christopher Hitchens, I am a strong atheist. However, like him, I would NEVER advocate that atheists be treated as an elite and be called "brights" as Richard Dawkins would have it. Not that Dawkins isn't intelligent. He is. Very. And, of course, he has many good ideas. But, he goes to far on his hobby horse.
Anonymous said…
Todd, thanks for having the courage to say this. Keep saying it! Being areligious is more politically correct than advocating for the freedom of families to act in the best interests of their children. Adults have the freedom to make decisions for and against religion: Children must have the right to be raised with a strong belief system, be it a religious or strictly ethical framework. The nanny state cannot dictate beliefs, even in a country with a state religion.
Unknown said…
I agree with Anonymous that a "nanny state cannot dictate beliefs!" Why wouldn't I? I consider myself an intellectually honest atheist, which means a healthy skepticism (but refusal of universal relativism. But, Anon, you seem to be misinterpreting Todd's complaint. The billboards aren't crying out for laws to do away with religious upbringing. The billboards ARE the campaign, simply for awareness. What is the harm that? I suppose, in the same sense some people consider it harmful to see people of same-sex orientation talking about their rights on television. Jeesh.
Aidan Semmens said…
"The soul is present at the start and cannot be left unsupported for so long." What complete and utter nonsense. I have a brain, not a soul, and the same goes for my children. The woolly idea "soul" is merely an excuse for suppressing the brain.
"Atheist parents are free to raise their kids sans God." Up to a point. A very limited point in a world where god is shoved down their throats every day at school and in which most of the media persists in the pernicious lie that morality is in some way dependent upon religion, as if the two things had anything whatever to do with each other.

Popular posts from this blog

CLIVE WILMER'S THOM GUNN SELECTED POEMS IS A MUST-READ

THAT HANDSOME MAN  A PERSONAL BRIEF REVIEW BY TODD SWIFT I could lie and claim Larkin, Yeats , or Dylan Thomas most excited me as a young poet, or even Pound or FT Prince - but the truth be told, it was Thom Gunn I first and most loved when I was young. Precisely, I fell in love with his first two collections, written under a formalist, Elizabethan ( Fulke Greville mainly), Yvor Winters triad of influences - uniquely fused with an interest in homerotica, pop culture ( Brando, Elvis , motorcycles). His best poem 'On The Move' is oddly presented here without the quote that began it usually - Man, you gotta go - which I loved. Gunn was - and remains - so thrilling, to me at least, because so odd. His elegance, poise, and intelligence is all about display, about surface - but the surface of a panther, who ripples with strength beneath the skin. With Gunn, you dressed to have sex. Or so I thought.  Because I was queer (I maintain the right to lay claim to that

IQ AND THE POETS - ARE YOU SMART?

When you open your mouth to speak, are you smart?  A funny question from a great song, but also, a good one, when it comes to poets, and poetry. We tend to have a very ambiguous view of intelligence in poetry, one that I'd say is dysfunctional.  Basically, it goes like this: once you are safely dead, it no longer matters how smart you were.  For instance, Auden was smarter than Yeats , but most would still say Yeats is the finer poet; Eliot is clearly highly intelligent, but how much of Larkin 's work required a high IQ?  Meanwhile, poets while alive tend to be celebrated if they are deemed intelligent: Anne Carson, Geoffrey Hill , and Jorie Graham , are all, clearly, very intelligent people, aside from their work as poets.  But who reads Marianne Moore now, or Robert Lowell , smart poets? Or, Pound ?  How smart could Pound be with his madcap views? Less intelligent poets are often more popular.  John Betjeman was not a very smart poet, per se.  What do I mean by smart?

"I have crossed oceans of time to find you..."

In terms of great films about, and of, love, we have Vertigo, In The Mood for Love , and Casablanca , Doctor Zhivago , An Officer and a Gentleman , at the apex; as well as odder, more troubling versions, such as Sophie's Choice and  Silence of the Lambs .  I think my favourite remains Bram Stoker's Dracula , with the great immortal line "I have crossed oceans of time to find you...".