where thanks are due
www.asherarlin.com
Thanksgiving — one of my very favorite holidays — is mentioned twice in Parenting Beyond Belief. “There should be no difficulty in secularly observing a holiday dedicated to gratitude,” says I, in “Losing the Holy and Keeping the Day“:
We can express to each other our thankfulness for each other, for our good fortune, and for life itself. No eavesdropping deity required. There is an additional opportunity to note that the Puritan pilgrims were pursuing the kind of freedom of religious observance to which secularists should be devoted – fleeing harassment and religious persecution in England and heading to the New World where they were free at last to burn witches.
Okay, leave that part out.
The book explores the issue of gratitude a bit further, naming it one of the “Seven Secular Virtues”:
The most terrible moment for an atheist, someone once said, is when he feels grateful and has no one to thank. I suppose it was meant to be witty, but it’s pretty silly. Nonbelievers of all stripes should and do indeed feel enormously grateful for many things, and I’m not aware of any terrible moments. Whereas religious folks teach their children to funnel all gratitude skyward, humanists and atheists can thank the actual sources of the good things we experience, those who actually deserve praise but too often see it deflected past them and on to an imaginary being.
We have no difficulty reminding the four-year-old to “say thank you” when Grandma hands her an ice cream cone, but in other situations – especially when a religious turn-of-phrase is generally used – we often pass up the chance to teach our kids to express gratitude in naturalistic terms. Instead of thanking God for the food on your table, thank those who really put it there – the farmers, the truckers, the produce workers, and Mom or Dad or Aunt Millicent. They deserve it. Maybe you’d like to lean toward the Native American and honor the animals for the sacrifice of their lives – a nice way to underline our connection to them. You can give thanks to those around the table for being present, and for their health, and for family and friendship itself. There is no limit. Even when abstract, like gratitude for health, the simple expression of gratitude is all that is needed. No divine ear is necessary – we are surrounded by real ears and by real hearers.
I read recently of a woman who had lost her husband unexpectedly. She was devastated and bereft of hope – until her neighbors and friends began to arrive. Over the course of several days, they brought food, kept her company, laughed and cried, hugged her and reassured her that the pain would ease with time and that they would be there every step of the way. “I was so grateful for their love and kindness during those dark days,” she said. “Through them, I could feel the loving embrace of God.”
She was most comfortable expressing her gratitude to an idea of God, but the love and kindness came entirely from those generous and caring human beings. Humanists and atheists are not impoverished by the lack of that god idea; they must simply notice who truly deserves thanks, and not be shy about expressing it.
Group prayer of any kind, including religious grace, has always bothered me. It’s coercive, for one thing, and one person speaks for everyone, assuming a uniformity that is never really accurate. After the “amen,” I always want to submit a minority opinion: “I consent to clauses 1, 2, and 4, but dissent from 3 and 5 for reasons as follows…”
On several occasions, I’ve even seen group prayer used manipulatively (“And may the Lord bless and protect those among us who have been making unwise choices lately” [all eyes go to cousin Billy]).
BUT…the options to religious grace can bring their own problems. The old “moment of silence” can feel hollow; others can seem a bit forced (humanist meditations with Baptist intonations); while some, even if accurate, seem both abstract and forced (“thank you to the truckers and turkey wranglers and assembly-line workers”).
The best option I’ve ever heard just arrived in my inbox yesterday in the form of a short story by Wisconsin author/educator Marilyn LaCourt (The Prize, 2004):
Thanksgiving Ritual
by M. LaCourtLast year I had a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner at my friend’s house. I arrived just as we were being invited to take our places at the table and I felt a little awkward because I didn’t know a number of the other guests. I looked toward the kitchen expecting someone to bring on the food. It sure smelled good, and I was hungry.
Imagine my confusion when my host looked around the table at each of his guests and asked, “Who wants to start?”
I knew there was supposed to be food, but I still didn’t see any, not even a relish dish or a breadbasket to pass. What were we supposed to do? Pass imaginary bowls filled with imaginary mashed potatoes, stuffing, turkey and cranberry sauce? No one spoke.
Finally my host’s eyes settled on his seven-year-old niece.
Cindy stood up, cleared her throat and smiled at her brother. “Thank you, Jimmy, for teaching me to play games on your computer.”
Jimmy blushed and said, “You’re welcome.”
Eric, a nice looking young man with bright blue eyes was next. He thanked his parents for giving him his first telescope when he was ten, and for the many hours they spent encouraging his appreciation for the wonders of the universe. I learned later that Eric had been accepted into a post graduate program to study Astronomy.
My friend, Ron, the host, said thank you to his wife. “I really appreciate the way you put up with my complaining, your understanding and patience with my cause fighting. I love the wonderful meals you prepare for me everyday, your companionship and your sense of humor. Thank you for being my wife.”
Liz smiled and answered, “You’re welcome.”
I was beginning to get the picture. I had some thank-yous of my own and was getting heady with the whole idea, but I decided to watch and listen a bit longer.
“Thank you for taking care of me when I had such a bad case of flu last winter, Rose. I know how terribly unpleasant that must have been for you, and you were so kind to put your own life aside for a few days to stay with me.” Gina’s eyes were damp when she looked at her daughter. “You were such a comfort.” Then she turned to her son- in-law. “Thank you too, Karl, for fending for yourself and the kids while she was taking care of me.”
“You’re welcome.” “You’re welcome.”
Then Rose stood up and walked over to where her husband was sitting. She bent down and gave him a kiss. “Thank you, honey, for working so hard and supporting us and giving me the opportunity to be the stay at home mom I’d always hoped I could be.”
Chuck thanked his friend Bob for all the wonderful tomatoes and other produce Bob gave him during harvest time. He also thanked Jerry and Judy for teaching him how to make the world’s greatest apple sauce.
Jean thanked Patty for listening when she needed a sympathetic ear.
Juan thanked his grandmother for the loan and told her he had put the money to good use. Sonja thanked her neighbor, Dorene, for the wonderful homemade mayonnaise and other goodies. And on it went.
I was thinking about all the wonderful people I wanted to thank. I guess I was drifting off in some sort of a trance when I heard the next person mention my name.
“Thank you, Marilyn,” she said. “You helped my daughter and son-in-law through some rough spots in their marriage.”
I waved my hand in a never mind gesture. “I was just doing my job.”
Ron nearly knocked over his water glass as he stood to interrupt me.
“No, no, no. That’s not allowed.” He shook his pointer at me. “These are the rules. You only get to say ‘you’re welcome’. If you explain it away you discredit the message and invalidate the sincerity of the person saying thanks. You just got a sincere ‘thank you’, Marilyn. Now, say ‘you’re welcome’.” He sat down and fiddled with his napkin.
“Oops. I’m sorry. I mean…” I looked at the woman who’d thanked me and said, “You’re welcome.” Then I smiled at my host and hostess.
“And thank you, Ron and Liz, for inviting me to share in such a beautiful tradition.”
Ron grinned. “You’re welcome.” Liz nodded, “You’re welcome.”
It took a full thirty minutes to get around the table and all the thanks-givings. When we finished Liz excused herself to put the finishing touches on the food and Ron poured the wine.
Check out (and add to) a thread on the PBB Forum tackling the question of “grace under pressure.”
Finally, let me say THANK YOU for reading the Meming of Life — even the longer ones, like this. (Psst — this is the part where you click on COMMENTS and say You’re welcome! ) 😉
the unconditional love of reality
…CONNOR AT THE WORLD OF COKE (…after the Tasting Room)
A Christian friend once asked me what it is about religion that most irritates me. It was big of her to ask, and I did my best to answer. I said something about religion so often actively standing in the way of things that are important to me — knowledge of human origins, for example, important medical advances, effective contraception, women’s rights…the simple ability to think without fear. I gave a pragmatic answer — and the wrong one.
Not that those things aren’t important. They’re all crowded up near the top of my list of motivators. But in the years since I gave that answer, I’ve realized there’s something much deeper, much more fundamentally galling and outrageous that religion too often represents for me — something that constitutes one of the main reasons I hope my kids remain unseduced by any brand of theism that endorses it.
What I want them to reject, most of all, is the conditional love of reality.
I’ve talked to countless Christians about their religious faith over the years. I have often been moved and challenged by what their expressed faith has done for them. But the doctrine of conditional love of reality simply mystifies, offends, and frankly infuriates me.
Conditional love is at play whenever a healthy, well-fed, well-educated person looks me in the eye and says, Without God, life would be hopeless, pointless, devoid of meaning and beauty. Conditional love is present whenever a believer expresses “sadness” for me or my kids, or wonders how on Earth any given nonbeliever drags herself through the bothersome task of existing.
Whenever I hear someone say, “I am happy because…” or “Life is only bearable if…”, I want to take a white riding glove, strike them across the face, and challenge them to a duel in the name of reality.
The universe is an astonishing, thrilling place to be. There’s no adequate way to express the good fortune of being conscious, even for a brief moment, in the midst of it. My amazement at the universe and gratitude for being awake in it is unconditional. I’m thrilled if there is a god, and I’m thrilled if there isn’t.
Unconscious nonexistence is our natural condition. Through most of the history of the universe, that’s where we’ll be. THIS is the freak moment, right now, the moment you’d remember for the next several billion years — if you could. You’re a bunch of very lucky stuff, and so am I. That we each get to live at all is so mind-blowingly improbable that we should never stop laughing and dancing and singing about it.
Richard Dawkins expressed this gorgeously in my favorite passage from my favorite of his books, Unweaving the Rainbow:
After sleeping through a hundred million centuries, we have finally opened our eyes on a sumptuous planet, sparkling with color, bountiful with life. Within decades we must close our eyes again. Isn’t it a noble, an enlightened way of spending our brief time in the sun, to work at understanding the universe and how we have come to wake up in it? This is how I answer when I am asked—as I am surprisingly often—why I bother to get up in the mornings.
I want my kids to feel that same unconditional love of being alive, conscious, and wondering. Like the passionate love of anything, an unconditional love of reality breeds a voracious hunger to experience it directly, to embrace it, whatever form it may take. Children with that exciting combination of love and hunger will not stand for anything that gets in the way of that clarity. If religious ideas seem to illuminate reality, kids with that combination will embrace those ideas. If instead such ideas seem to obscure reality, kids with that love and hunger will bat the damn things aside.
And when people ask, as they often do, whether I will be “okay with it” if my kids eventually choose a religious identity, my glib answer is “99 and three-quarters percent guaranteed!” That unlikely 1/4 percent covers the scenario in which they come home from college one day with the news that they’ve embraced a worldview that says they are wretched sinners in need of continual forgiveness, that hatred pleases God, that reason is the tool of Satan, and/or that life without X is an intolerable drag — and that they’d be raising my grandkids to see the world through the same hateful, fearful lens.
Woohoo! is not, I’m afraid, quite a manageable response for me in that scenario. Yes, it would be their decision, yes, I would still love their socks off — and no, I wouldn’t be “okay with it.” More than anything, I’d weep for the loss of their unconditional joie de vivre.
But since we’re raising them to be thoughtful, ethical, and unconditionally smitten with their own conscious existence, I’ll bet you a dollar that whatever worldview they ultimately align themselves with — religious or otherwise — will be a thoughtful, ethical, and unconditionally joyful one. Check back with me in 20 years, and for the fastest possible service, please form a line on the left and have your dollars ready.
are we normal yet?
I just had a lovely interview with a reporter from the Associated Press. That’s good enough news, of course — AP serves 1,700 newspapers and 5,000 radio and television outlets in the US alone and a lot more internationally. One AP story that mentions PBB can potentially generate more exposure than everything else we’ve done to this point.
But that’s not what has me blogging. What’s most exciting to me is the topic. The article is not about Parenting Beyond Belief. It’s not even about religion. It’s about values — in this case, specifically how to help our kids de-emphasize consumerism and greed during the holidays.
She’d get some thoughts from religious folks, she said, but it occurred to her that nonreligious parents would also have thoughts about it and strategies for keeping kids from falling into the me me me loop–and she thought I’d be a good person to address it.
I just had to agree. On both points. Heh.
This kind of thing happens all the time in the UK and elsewhere in Europe. When The Guardian in London does a story that touches on values, they check in with various reps of the national clergy, but they quite frequently also get a statement from the British Humanist Association. When I lived in London in 2004, I had to see that happen in three different stories before I stopped spraying coffee all over the paper. In Norway, I’m told, when the topic is values, the papers often get a quote from the humanists instead of the clergy. (The Norwegian Humanist Association has 70,000 members in a country with the same population as Greater Houston.)
Is it possible, just possible, that humanists in the U.S. are beginning to enter the values conversation on an equal footing? Might we even be on the verge of being considered…(I’ll whisper it)…normal?
When good people say (really, really) bad things
The angel informs Abraham that Jehovah was only kidding.
Without [religion] you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things — that takes religion.
Nobel Laureate Steven Weinberg
Weinberg’s quote misses the mark only slightly. Religion is one thing that causes good people to do evil things (see Abraham’s robotic “MUST…KILL…BOY” expression above if you doubt), but there are others. Patriotism can also achieve that, as well as fear. Sept. 11 combined all three quite nicely, and we reacted by doing evil. No surprise there.
I have a bit of a soft spot for well-meaning people who unwittingly do great harm. Just a bit. Their patron saint is surely Thomas Midgley. The Ohio inventor was a problem-solver. By keeping just one issue at a time in view, Midgley seemed able to find a solution to just about any problem. While working for GM in 1921, he discovered a way to get engines to stop knocking: add tetra-ethyl lead to the fuel. The side-effects of lead ingestion (things like insanity and rapid death) were recognized within the year, which presented GM with a serious problem: how to cover that up. Some problem-solver went to work on that one as well, and leaded gasoline remained in major production for another sixty-five years — time enough to embed toxic levels of lead in three generations of children, including me and most of you. Leaded gas is still the most common fuel on three continents.Midgley went on to apply himself to the problem of finding a nontoxic refrigerant. In 1930, that pesky problem bit the dust as well when he discovered chlorofluorocarbons, or CFCs.
It’s been suggested that these two contributions qualify Thomas Midgley as the single most unfortunate organism ever to have lived on the planet.
But—and here’s the point—he meant well.
Meet Tony Kummer. Now I don’t know Tony, but I sure feel like I do. He reminds me (superficially) of one of my wife’s cousins by marriage—let’s call him Bill—a wonderful, loving guy who, like Tony, is in Baptist ministry and is a father of three in the Central Time Zone. I’ll bet Tony is just as fun-loving and well-meaning and good to the bone as Bill. He certainly seems devoted to changing the world for the better. You know, like Thomas Midgley was.
I try to keep up with parenting issues from all angles as they relate to religion, and last week, my Google Alert for the phrase “Christian parenting” brought me to Tony’s blog at “Gospel Driven Children’s Ministry.” Tony had gone through the Bible and pulled out “Bible Verses About Parents, Children, Mothers & Fathers.”
I scanned the column, unsurprised to find God (a.k.a. “male Bronze Age goatherds”) primarily interested in obedience—children exhibiting it, and parents enforcing it. But one especially caught my eye:
Exodus 21:15-17—Whoever strikes his father or his mother shall be put to death. Whoever steals a man and sells him, and anyone found in possession of him, shall be put to death. Whoever curses his father or his mother shall be put to death.
I don’t wish to give the impression that this was my first encounter with the OT, nor even with the Goatherds’ taste for killing naughty children. I’m far more scripturally literate than I sometimes wish. But I was taken aback by the fact that Tony, this smiling dad of three, simply pasted a clear instruction to kill children into a parenting column. That’s where Tony and cousin Bill decisively part company.
Why include this passage? Because, Tony later explained, “It is in the Bible and it is about children.” This and other insights were revealed in a fascinating exchange Tony had with a commenter on that blog—a mother representing the many thoughtful non-literalist Christians out there. She began like this:
Thank you for the excellent parenting tips! My daughter does hit me on occasion, so becoming aware of Exodus 21:15 was a great blessing. I’ll let you know how it goes.
Zing! Tony, to his great credit, recognized irony:
Rachel – Good point. We need to be careful about context and application. Thanks for your sense of humor.
Rachel, to her credit, did not accept that completely meaningless answer:
I know that’s the standard response, Tony, but I have no idea what “we need to be careful about context and application” means in this case. This isn’t intercropping or instructions on cleaning pots; Exodus 21:15 calls for the murder of children. There is no context in which child murder is or has ever been a moral act.
Despite my use of humor, a serious question underlies my comment: What is the purpose of including a clear exhortation to kill our children in a parenting column? Yet if you choose to remove it, what are the implications for a Bible-based morality?
This is the point when you start to feel sorry for the guy. An advocate of “Biblical sufficiency” (a Southern Baptist phrase meaning “the Bible is inerrant, and is necessary and sufficient to lead us into all truth”) has no recourse here. If Tony were a bad man, I would laugh him to scorn. But I strongly suspect he’s a good man saying bad things, which makes me squirm, and seems to makes Steven Weinberg’s point.
Here’s Tony at the zoo with his daughter (who, judging by her unsupported upright position, has not yet been disobedient):
Tony does his damndest to find his way to open air:
Rachel – I think you’re right about the context. And it is also a problem passage for people like me (who thinks God loves kids).
So why did I include it? It is in the Bible and it is about children. Honestly, I don’t have a good explanation for it. Maybe that is why I included it.
[Oh for crap’s sake, Tony! “Maybe I included it because I don’t have a good explanation for it”?? Sorry, sorry, mad at the system.]
He continues:
That chapter has more than one problem for the contemporary Christians. Like verse one about slavery and the whole eye for an eye thing.
It seems like there are at least two issues with this verse.
1. Does God have the right to make this kind of command?
2. What principle, if any, applies to Christian parents?
So he has progressed to the stage of shrugging his shoulders and tossing off empty rhetorical questions. Rachel—possibly feeling my same unease at Tony’s predicament—refuses to go in for the kill:
Thank you for that very honest answer. I struggle with these things very much and have never been the least bit satisfied with the explanations.
Tony replies with the “God-only-knows” curtsey:
Rachel – Thanks for raising the questions. A lot of times I just get used to not knowing the answers, so I stop thinking about it. I definitely welcome your questions and this conversation has helped me. At the end of the day we can only trust that God knew what he was doing when he inspired those verses.
Let me know if you make any progress on all this.
God knew what he was doing. So, then, you’re saying—go ahead and kill them? Am I getting this right? If not, what could you even possibly mean when you say God knew what he was doing when he told us to kill our children?
I’m confident that Tony Kummer and Adolf Eichmann have little else in common. But in this one disturbing instance, they are following the same corrupt line of reasoning. The only difference is that Eichmann’s orders were carried out. If millions of Christians suddenly began following Tony’s/God’s instructions, the two of them would also do well to head for Argentina. But Tony’s/God’s orders, one can only hope, have been ignored. I’ll bet Tony hopes so, too.
But WHY have they been ignored? If you say, in nearly the same breath, that everything in the Bible is the inerrant word of God, and that the Bible says to kill the disobedient child, and that Jesus himself said not to ignore “one jot nor one tittle” of Old Testament law—surely I’m not alone in finding Biblical literacy a genuine moral outrage.
Ah, but I needn’t have worried. Another commenter chimed in and cleared everything up:
I understand your confusion, Rachel, but think about where that path leads! If we can pick and choose among the Scriptures, our morality has no firm foundation.
What God has given us in Exodus and Deuteronomy is not a license to kill, but a tool for capturing the attention of our children. My children are wonderfully obedient to my husband and myself in part because I have shared these scriptures with them. They know that I was Gods instrument for bringing them into life and that he can also choose me as the instrument to send them back to him.
Children who know, with the certainty of faith, that God grants their parents the power to take their lives will never NEED to have their lives taken. That is the beauty of these commands.
What can I possibly add to that?
I know that only a tiny fraction of Christians believe we should really follow the Bible’s frequent orders to kill disobedient children, slanderers, astrologers, atheists, gays, gossips, family members with other religions, Sunday workers, drunks, gluttons, blasphemers, non-virginal brides, breakers of any commandment, and so on.1 That is my point. I am fully confident that Tony Kummer goes weeks at a time without killing anyone at all. But if he is like other literalists, he shares plenty of other scripturally-supported opinions that do genuine harm in the name of the Goatherds’ supposed authority. Tony Kummer’s body absorbed these ideas as a child, and now he’s working hard to see these toxic ideas embedded, like Midgley’s lead, in yet another generation of kids.
But enough about how we differ. We do apparently share the moral fiber to let our children live — even if, on occasion, they act like children. In recognition of our shared ground, I propose that we all join hands and declare our assent to three simple propositions:
1. Killing children, even disobedient ones, is a bad idea. (All in favor? Show of hands.)
2. Saying “killing children is a good idea” is a bad idea.
3. Declaring any book that says “killing children is a good idea” to be infallible, inerrant, or otherwise uniformly good…is a bad idea.
I’m so glad we had this chat.
1Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Matthew, Romans, i.e. both testaments. Personal favorite: Numbers 35:30–“If anyone kills a person, he shall be put to death.”
See also the work of Hannah Arendt.
BONUS: An actual Abraham and Isaac coloring page! (“Mommy, what color do you think I should use for the Daddy’s knife?”)
NOVA–Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 8-10 PM (on most PBS stations)
JUDGMENT DAY: INTELLIGENT DESIGN ON TRIAL
Q&A with Paula S. Apsell, Senior Executive Producer of NOVA
Q: This program tackles a contentious issue for many people, particularly for many devout Christians. Why did NOVA and Paul Allen’s Vulcan Productions, your coproducer, take it on?
Apsell: Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial is in many ways a hornet’s nest. And we had to think long and hard before we decided to take it on. I think the real reason that we made that decision is because evolution is the foundation of the biological sciences. As Theodosius Dobzhansky, one of the great biologists of the 20th century, once said, “Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution.”
In 2004, the Dover, Pennsylvania school board established a policy that science teachers would have to read a statement to biology students suggesting that there is an alternative to Darwin’s theory of evolution called intelligent design. Intelligent design, or ID, claims that certain features of life are too complex to have evolved naturally, and therefore must have been designed by an intelligent agent. The Dover high school science teachers refused to comply with the policy, refused to read the statement. And parents opposed to the school board’s actions filed a lawsuit in federal court.
The trial that followed was fascinating. It was like a primer, like a biology textbook. Some of the nation’s best biologists testified. When I began delving into the case, it was clear that both the trial and the issue were perfect subjects for NOVA.
Q: But why would a science series cover a court case?
Apsell: This is not just any case; it’s an historic case as well as a critical science lesson. Through six weeks of expert testimony, the case provided a crash course in modern evolutionary science, and it really hit home just how firmly established evolutionary theory is. The case also explored the very nature of science—how science is defined. Perhaps most importantly, the trial had great potential for altering science education and the public understanding of science.
Dover’s lawyers tried to argue that ID is science and, therefore, that teaching it does not violate the principle of the separation of church and state in the Establishment clause of the U.S. Constitution. At the end of the trial, Judge John Jones issued a 139-page verdict supporting the teaching of evolution and characterizing intelligent design as a religious idea with no place in the science classroom. It was a landmark decision, all the more so because Judge Jones was appointed by President Bush and nominated by Republican Senator Rick Santorum.
If the decision had gone the other way, it could have had dire consequences for science education in this country. We know that state boards of education in Kansas and Ohio were considering changing science standards and curriculums to accommodate intelligent design, and they since have decided against it in the wake of this verdict.
the saddest form of flattery
A simple and effective PSA from Child Friendly Australia.
ADDED 11 Nov 10:55:
All of the behaviors in the video are heartbreaking, but I’m curious to know which of the imitated behaviors bothers you most, and why. And no, it’s not a set-up: I don’t have a “right answer” in mind.
sacre bleu!
(I just love that gif.)
L’Actualité received over 100 letters and emails—far more than usual—after their November 1 cover story “Growing Up Without God,” which featured an interview with the editor/co-author of Parenting Beyond Belief, one Dale McGowan. Senior writer Louise Gendron gathered and translated a sampling of the comments for me. “Remember that angry people write in far more often than happy ones,” she said. “It is clear from the sales numbers for this issue that interest was very, very high.” The book itself topped out at #285 on Amazon Canada.
The previous post can give you an indication of the tone of the article. Here’s a sampler of reader responses:
I find this guy interesting. He helps us to feel more accepted.
Faith is god-given. Children raised without god will always lack a certain life-dimension. It makes me very sad to think of his children.
The media are very good at brainwashing us to push their way of thinking on us. The last century has shown the fruits of falling away from religion, such as atheistic communism. Happily, Europe kept its faith as a barrier against those enemies.
Atheism is very bad for Québec. It will make us disappear into the English-speaking majority.
I found this article very interesting – I am a mother, trying to explain the world reasonably to my children, and this is helpful.
I am very sad for Dr. McGowan.
Dr. McGowan as a devout nonbeliever has the same narrow faith as some fanatic priest. The big mistake is to be convinced of your own ideas and to stop thinking about them.
I am an atheist and I feel comfortable among the 360 million Buddhists in the world who are also atheists.
Very good article – my great grandparents were Catholic, and I am an atheist.
Very nice article – I am a father of two-year-old who asks why the sun sets. This is a very difficult question to answer in a way that a two-year-old will understand!
Very interesting article – it follows the same philosophy as “Spirituality without God” by Möller de la Rouvière.
I am writing from prison where I am serving time for killing someone. Say hello to Dr. McGowan from me. I don’t understand or have knowledge to sort out whether God exists, but I am open to all ways of thinking. I chose to believe in God because it works for me. My life was a fiasco, a complete mess, and religion helped me sort it out. But I keep thinking, and who knows about what I will believe tomorrow?
The title of McGowan’s book should have been “How to Fool Your Kids.”
I want my tax money devoted to ethics in schools. I will keep that money to go toward religious education.
I don’t want to spoil Dr. McGowan’s party, but I am a Catholic whose husband died two years ago, and I am still struggling to find a way to explain it to our two young children. It is not easy for people of faith to provide answers either.
I was an atheist, and though now outside of all churches, I am a believer.
Cancel my subscription!
I am very sad for all those kids that this man’s non-beliefs will spoil things for them. This man and his bullshit are going to do a lot of harm.
Dr McGowan is too self-confident. I think his knowledge of religion dates from the Stone Age.
That was absolutely fascinating. Another book should be developed for what to tell your teenagers as they reach more advanced levels of questioning.
Your article made me fall off my chair! Think about Pascal’s wisdom when he wrote, [Pascal quotation.]
To the Editor in Chief – who let pass this terrible article?
I am a believer who found this article completely fascinating! You should now allow a believer to answer it.
Dale McGowan makes me think of Dale Carnegie. He will be a millionnaire with his ideas!
Reason justified terrible crimes in the 20th century. [Chesterton quotation. Plato quotation. Kant quotation.]
Dr. McGowan provides very satisfying answers regarding war and suffering and death. What would he answer about the origin of life, the existence of beauty, and generosity? For those he has no answers.
This is crap. I’m fed up with you using my money to bury me in shit. Cancel my subscription.
There are no wars, no hatred, no problems in the world, Dr. McGowan. Everything is just wonderful in the world, so we apparently do not need religion. Isn’t that nice.
I am a teacher in Senegal Africa. I fell off my chair, astonished at your article about children with no religion. In my classroom of 72 kids, I have Muslims and Christians, and it is out of the question to teach each one their religion without a separate teacher for each. I am astonished to find that there are people who don’t believe and are parents!
I am happy to see that I am not the only one to think like that. My daughter now has a child of her own and has decided to raise him without religion, and I am very happy about it.
I taught ethics in public school and let me tell you: It is so much easier to do without the idea of god.
L’Actualité Q&A: “Growing Up Without God”
As noted in an earlier post, I was interviewed for the cover story (“Grandir sans Dieu,” or “Growing Up Without God”) of the November 1 issue of L’Actualité, the largest French-language magazine in Canada with over one million readers. Because the interview was by phone and subsequently translated into French, I’m not in possession of an English transcript of the article itself. But I was asked to prepare a Q&A for their website based on questions by secular parents (below). It is very similar in tone and approach to the main article. Later this week I’ll post a sampling of reader responses.
A Brief Guide for Non-Religious Parents
prepared by Dale McGowan, author of
Parenting Beyond Belief: On Raising Ethical, Caring Kids without Religion
“How can I explain death to my child without heaven?” “How can I help my daughter understand why we chose not to baptize her?” Parenting without religious affiliation presents its own unique challenges. Author Dale McGowan answers questions submitted to L’Actualité by secular parents.
Q
How can we help a grieving child who has lost a relative or a pet?
A
It’s important first and foremost to validate the child’s grief—to let the child know that it’s okay to feel sad, and that the sadness shows that the one who is lost was loved very deeply. Reassure the child that the loved one feels no pain or sadness himself, that he continues to live in our memories, and that life continues all around us, even after each person dies. Thinking about the continuity of life and the nature of death can provoke deep reflection and meaningful insights. Our task as parents should not be to completely deny death’s sting but to soften it with genuine understanding while reassuring the child that we are present to help them through their grief.
Q
My child says, “Grandma died. Does it mean Mom is going to die too? What will happen to me, then?” How can I respond?
A
It is often wrongly assumed that religion makes death entirely palatable. A moment’s reflection shows that this is not true. Even religious funerals are marked by intense sadness, and even religious people dread their own death and do their best to avoid it.
Yes—everything that lives eventually dies, in part to make way for more life. Coming to terms with our mortality is a lifelong challenge, and we will always have a natural, adaptive fear of death. But children raised without supernatural beliefs will have a head start in coming to terms with mortality. It will seem more natural and acceptable to them in the long run than to a person who had to overcome an acquired belief in an afterlife.
There are many ways to improve our acceptance of death. One of the best is to imagine one’s self a century before birth, and to realize that our situation in death will be precisely the same. Asking the child if he was scared before he was born is likely to elicit laughter. “Of course not,” he’ll say—“I wasn’t anywhere!” Exactly—and the same is true when someone has died. We simply go back to being as we were. And death has indeed lost some of its sting.
Q
How do I explain that Uncle Joe believes in God and goes to church but Dad doesn’t believe and doesn’t go?
A
The acceptance and celebration of difference is a vital part of freethought parenting. Make it clear that you find such differences not only acceptable but quite lovely. How boring the world would be if we were all the same! This is also a good time to dismiss the grotesque and silly idea that one of them might be damned eternally for an opinion. Point out that if God exists, he is not at all likely to be concerned with honest differences of opinion. He is much more likely to want Dad and Uncle Joe to treat each other with kindness and generosity than to match each others’ abstract philosophies.
Q
My daughter asks, “Yasmina goes to the mosque, Kim goes to the pagoda. How do I know which God is the good one?”
A
The idea that a child must make up her mind about such a complex and abstract question is quite ridiculous—yet this is the position of many religions and many denominations. I once received a card in the mail from a friend. Pictured on the front was her three-year-old daughter Samantha holding a silver heart in her outstretched hands. “Today,” said the card, in beautiful script, “Samantha gave her heart to Jesus.” At the age of three!
Childhood is a time to explore ideas, not to declare allegiances to them. I believe the only honest and rational way to approach the question of religious identification is to keep children open and undeclared until they are old enough to decide on their own—no earlier than age twelve or thirteen. Teach children to think critically and well, then allow all ideas, religious and otherwise, to wash over them.
The most important thing for children to know is that this question can and should wait, as long as necessary, until they are old enough to decide on their own. Invite your daughter to attend services with Yasmina or Kim, or better still, with both. And let her know that she can change her mind about religious questions a hundred times if she wants. This puts to rest the idea that some divine penalty might await one opinion or another.
Q
My child wants to know what people do in church and why they go. How should I answer this?
A
“Let’s go and find out!” is a very good answer. Take him to a nearby service, or better yet, to services in several different denominations. Shielding a child from exposure to religion can give the impression that you are afraid of it, giving religion the tantalizing aura of forbidden fruit.
Why people go is a far more complex question. Churchgoers often say they go to be close to God or to worship. But I think the most telling answers come from those who no longer attend church when they are asked what they miss. “God” is rarely the answer. Human fellowship is most often cited, as well as the opportunity for quiet reflection and introspection. These are the answers I give my kids when they ask why people attend—then I ask if there are ways we can achieve those same things without going to church.
Q
My daughter (10) said she wants to become a nun, then cried, “I know you won’t let me!” I don’t want this, but how can I discourage her without making her even more determined?
A
The very first problem here is your daughter’s belief that you won’t “let” her. Make it clear that the choice is entirely hers—even if the idea makes you ill. It will indeed be her choice, of course, once she is old enough, and any perceived opposition on your part can make it appear romantic and rebellious, at which point we’ve created forbidden fruit once again.
Your daughter’s desire to take vows is most likely based on a limited understanding of what such a choice entails. There have been anecdotal reports of an increased interest in becoming a nun among girls who have read the children’s book series or seen the movie Madeline. I’m sure The Sound of Music had the same effect in its day!
Such an obsession will most likely pass in time. But if it does continue, contact your local religious convent for a very detailed description of the actual routine and requirements of the life of a nun—which of course has little in common with Mlle. Clavell or Sister Maria. (For an adult-level insight, see Karen Armstrong’s memoirs Through the Narrow Gate: A Memoir of Life In And Out of the Convent and The Spiral Staircase: My Climb Out of Darkness.) Sit your daughter down and walk her through it, just as you would with any profession. The odds are—much to the chagrin of contemporary religious communities—that the negatives will far outweigh any positives. In the (extremely) unlikely event that she maintains her desire throughout her teens, the decision must be hers. The most important thing now is that you let her know that you trust her to make her own decisions in the long run—and mean it.
Q
My son (7) has asked if there will be “an end of times,” and wonders what will happen then. How can I talk to him about such a thing?
A
The answer is “yes,” the world will end—but the best approach to such a topic varies by age. We know that the world will not go on forever, but a child needs to know that it will be here as long as we need it, and well beyond. (No need to add the admitted complications of global warming or errant asteroids!)
Establishing the timescale is crucial. A twelve-year-old might do well enough with “five billion years,” but younger children need to know that the Earth’s end is so far away that they need not worry about it. This is not something that will happen in our lifetime, or in the lifetimes of our grandchildren, or our great-great-great grandchildren. Tell them the sun is in the middle of its life, and that it will continue to warm the Earth and make life possible for as many years in the future as it has in the past.
This has a decided advantage over the idea of the Second Coming and Judgment Day, which many churches excitedly promise will occur within our lifetimes. How terrifying such a prospect must be to the young mind!
Once its remoteness is well enough established, the details of our planet’s actual demise—imagining so permanent a thing as the Earth coming to an end!—can be a source of genuine fascination and wonder for many children.
Q
“All my friends were baptized, why not me?”
A
Whenever a child declares that “all my friends” do something, the first task is to affirm the impression—“It sometimes seems like everyone else, doesn’t it?”—but gently challenge the assumption, which is almost never true. Not everyone else has a pony, not everyone else goes to church, and not everyone else gets baptized.
The second task is to discuss what baptism means, and whether it is appropriate. I see baptism as a mark of ownership placed on the individual by the denomination, the first level of exclusive declaration of a specific belief system—something I believe children should never be required to do. To avoid an intolerant response to friends at school, it is important to add that many good people believe differently.
Invite the child to express his own opinion. I tell my kids it’s okay to change their minds back and forth about religion a hundred times if they want, an invitation that puts them at ease. Baptism, confirmation, and the rest of the doctrinal rituals gradually withdraw whatever permission there is to change one’s mind. Ask your child if he is ready to stop thinking for himself about religion. If you’ve done a good job of instilling the spirit of restless, unbounded questioning, the very idea will repel him, and baptism will lose its appeal.
Q
My son was not baptized but wants to participate in First Communion with his peers. How should I respond?
A
Despite the fact that the Catholic Church calls the eighth year the “age of reason,” a seven- or eight-year-old child is much too young to make a reasoned commitment to a specific religion. A case can be made that this ritual is simply an attempt by the Church to claim ownership of the individual.
Explain to the child that First Communion is a statement of what you believe about the sacrament itself. Ask if he thinks the communion wafer and wine turn into the actual body and blood of Jesus in his mouth. When he says no (as he generally will, with a look of shocked disgust), gently gain his agreement that it would be dishonest to go through the ritual—then compliment him for valuing honesty.
If the ritual is still attractive to him, why not design a brief ritual of your own that celebrates his demonstrated commitment to honesty? Make it a party, with a brief ceremony, food, music, and friends and family in attendance.
Q
Should a secular family participate in the Santa Claus myth?
A
I think there is no harm and even a potential benefit. Our culture has constructed this silly temporary myth in parallel to our silly permanent one. Both involve a magical being who knows our thoughts, rewards good behavior and punishes bad behavior. The process of thinking one’s own way out of Santa belief can serve as an important “trial run” for thinking one’s way out of religious belief.
Have fun with the fantasy when the child is young. Then, when the child’s skeptical questions begin to emerge (“How does Santa go to all those houses in one night?”), answer in a way that encourages continued thought and allows for mixed opinion (“Some people say…”). And when at last the child looks you in the eye and asks point-blank if Santa is real, answer honestly and praise her for figuring it out!
Q
“Why are there religious wars? I thought religion was all about love.”
A
First, praise the child for such a thoughtful question. Your answer should note that religious teachings include messages of love and of hate, peace and war, tolerance and bigotry. When two religions each believe that God has promised them the same piece of land, for example, the dark side quickly shows itself. War is not only inevitable but often unending, because to compromise is to show a “lack of faith in God’s promise.”
Explain that people have done great and noble things in the name of religious faith, as well as monstrous and evil things, by choosing among the conflicting ideas in their scriptures. The most troubling feature of most religions is the failure to acknowledge and control those life-destroying messages that exist alongside the life-affirming ones.
Q
“Why does Fatouma have to wear a hijab? And why is Auntie Daisie so angry about it?”
A
A very complex topic! Explain that Fatouma belongs to a culture with different ideas about a woman’s body and how to show it to others. Note that many people think the hijab teaches women to feel ashamed or “owned” by their husbands, while others (including many Islamic women) consider it a proud display of cultural identity and a sign of personal control. Don’t hesitate to offer your own opinion as well.
Auntie Daisie may be angry if she is a conservative Christian who dislikes the public display of another religion or culture, or she may be a feminist who feels the women are being oppressed. Have your daughter ask Auntie Daisie for her reasons, then invite your daughter to talk to Fatouma to see how she feels about wearing it. Children are wonderfully uninhibited about discussing such things—an openness we quickly and sadly lose as we grow older.
Q
“Was Jesus a real person?”
A
Recent work by some biblical scholars (including the Canadian Earl Doherty) has cast some doubt on the existence of Jesus even as a historical personage. This research is fascinating and may be of interest to children in their teens. For younger kids, it is sufficient to say that most people think that Jesus was a real person, but we really can’t be sure. You might add that if he did exist—aside from a little cruelty to pigs and figs—he seems to have been a very decent man and an insightful teacher who would be appalled at much of what has been done in his name.
we’re back
Our web host, One World Hosting, just went through a “migration,” for which they scheduled 14 hours of downtime (Friday night through Saturday noon). Instead, it took 84 hours, which is, if nothing else, an even multiple of the predicted time. Though I’m sure OWH will lose an enormous number of clients over it, we are now, apparently, back.
So scroll down to see Pete Wernick’s guest column, watch for the fourth installment of Northing at Midlife, and stay tuned for spicy excerpts from the letters received by L’Actualité after my feature interview. (Hint: SACRE BLEU!)
Religious Diversity and Tolerance at Home
by Pete Wernick
Contributing author, Parenting Beyond Belief
Pete and Joan Wernick in performance
I’m the lone humanist in my household. My wife Joan is a committed Catholic, and our teenaged son Will, though not formally aligned with any religion, does believe there’s a God. People are understandably curious, wondering, “How do you make it work?” Here’s the story:
Joan and I met and became a couple thirty years ago this summer. I was then, as now, an atheist—hadn’t yet discovered the term “humanist”—and she was in “searching” mode, having made a break from her Catholic upbringing. While not an atheist, she supported my penchant for collecting and writing non-theistic life-affirming meditations and philosophies. At our wedding five years later, the ceremony we wrote and read to our family and friends was full of heart and free of theism.
Several years later, Joan started reconnecting with her Catholic roots. Though this shook our shared foundation, our long-term commitment and our new parenthood motivated us to make it work. Without realizing it, we followed mediation guidelines: Make a mutually agreeable “plan of practices” to follow, and stick with it. Limit philosophical debates that divide and irritate.
One of our first positive steps was to agree on how to raise our son re religion. We would each let him know our outlook and eventually encourage him to make his own choices. (Lo these seventeen years later, it’s now pretty obvious that he’d have done that anyway.) We would phrase our beliefs not as certainties (e.g. “God wants you to…” or “There is no God”), but as beliefs (“I believe that God wants you to…”, or “I don’t believe in God”). We asked our relatives to respect this style, not stating opinions as “truths” to Will, but only as their beliefs, if at all. Understanding that their cooperation was a way to support our marriage, thank goodness, they complied. As for the moral code we’ve tried to teach, we don’t disagree: Caring and respect for others is the guide.
Naturally, when discussing religion with Will, I would try my best to be convincing. Along with discussing why it’s important to be a good person, I would tell him that the idea of an invisible father who controls everything just doesn’t make sense to me. Though he never bought church doctrine, since he was small he has maintained: “Then how did all this get here?” To me, the only answer to that is “No one knows”—but “God did it” works for him.
Despite Joan’s and my cooperation, the increasing differences created a painful sense of loss for me. While she still appreciated my positive philosophy, she was now regularly going to church and embracing beliefs and practices for which I had little feeling or respect. I sometimes felt I just couldn’t handle it. I went to a counselor and did a lot of complaining. The counselor’s refrain was, “What are you going to do?” I took a hard look at ending the marriage, and realized how much I had, and how precious it was. Joan is a wonderful person with a big heart and a great deal that I can learn from. We still agreed on so many things, and we had all that shared history. I decided to find more ways to make it work.
There will always be differences between people. Even small differences can cause friction, even between otherwise like-minded people. The key is keeping control of the friction, not eradicating the differences. Some of our understandings:
• Agree to disagree when possible.
• Emphasize common ground.
• Don’t unnecessarily put something hard-to-take right in the other’s face.
• Leave the door open to respect as much as possible of the other person’s outlook and practices.
All of the above have helped.
From the start, I was relieved that we agreed to avoid children’s books and movies with religious themes. Joan was glad for the chance to share Christmas and Easter services with Will and didn’t mind my occasionally taking him to Unitarian church. Either of us talking religion with others is best done away from common areas where it might get on the other’s nerves. Family activities, even the art and pictures we display on the walls of our home, reflect the things we both love: nature, music, togetherness, good memories. Atheist cartoons and pictures of the pope go in our respective rooms.
This isn’t to say we avoid discussing our beliefs. But when we do, we take care to be respectful and to back off when it is going nowhere (as it often does). Agreeing to disagree actually provides some relief. As we abandon the conversation, I feel that we are affirming peace in our house, which I appreciate and cherish. And we can go right from there into some more harmonious part of our common ground. It’s a choice I’m happy to make.
There’s a bright side to this in-home diversity – the benefit to a kid of seeing parents and kids coexist and be loving despite disagreements, or even a different set of core beliefs. Learning to accept some dissonance is good practice for later life. Good people can disagree and still love.
Beyond that, this family harmony suggests that the real core beliefs have more to do with “what is good behavior” than with what’s up in the sky or after death, or what happened 2000 years ago. Absence or presence of mythology needn’t necessarily lead to disharmony any more than a difference in hobbies or in favored sports teams. Why should a spouse’s dedication to something I find uninteresting – be it the Detroit Tigers, NASCAR, 19th century English novels, or the Catholic Church – unsettle me? (Well okay, it’s not really that simple – but I gladly take private comfort in this construct.)
Joan is from a large family, and their occasions are often infused with religion, which at times makes me squirm. But I have also cultivated an appreciation of the benefits her family derives from Catholicism – their deep sense of charity that fuels an ongoing penchant to do for others, their ability to forgive and go on from upsets, their ability to accept and include, refraining from judgment. When their religion calls on them to embrace supernaturalistic myths or ideas I’m at odds with, I can at least try to tie the pieces together as part of one cloth, as varied as the entire human condition. And I can also just literally look the other way, or even flat out leave the room if I can’t take it. Joan is more at ease with my views, and even reads my Family of Humanists columns with interest and some good suggestions.
The above set of practices and guidelines is far from perfect. It has been a stretch for me, a person with perfectionist tendencies, to learn these ropes. But that’s all the more reason to do it: learning flexibility, learning to accept. And religious diversity will not be the hardest challenge to accept as I grow older.
Having made progress in this area has given me some deep satisfaction. At first I wasn’t sure it was possible. How could I put up with the pain? It turns out to be quite possible. I find myself thinking, if we can learn to do this in our house, maybe there’s hope for the Israelis and Palestinians, the Indians and the Pakistanis. Peace is a wonderful thing. I work at it because it’s worth it, and I’m still at it. This past June we celebrated our 25th anniversary.
Bronx-born Coloradoan Pete Wernick earned a PhD in Sociology from Columbia University while developing a career in music on the side. His bestselling instruction book Bluegrass Banjo allowed “Dr. Banjo” to leave his sociology research job at Cornell to form Hot Rize, a classic bluegrass band that traveled worldwide. Pete served as president of the International Bluegrass Music Association for fifteen years.
Pete, his wife and son survived the disastrous crash of United Airlines Flight 232 in Sioux City in 1989. A Life magazine article following the crash identified Pete as a humanist and noted that he didn’t see a supernatural factor in his survival. An atheist since age fifteen, Pete was president of the Family of Humanists from 1997 to 2006. Today he continues to perform, run music camps nationwide, and produce instructional videos for banjo and bluegrass.
This essay first appeared as the President’s Column in the Family of Humanists newsletter, Aug/Sept 1999.