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?
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.
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.
meet you @ the forum
Recent snapshot of secular parents milling about the PBB Secular Parenting Discussion Forum
Had a nice interview yesterday with a religion news wire service for an upcoming syndicated article on secular parenting — but I think I made it all sound too easy. I described ways we buffer our kids from this and that, how we expose them to this and that, and how the interactions our family has had with religious folks generally involve fewer pitchforks and torches than we often fear.
“So if there are so few problems,” the reporter asked, quite sensibly, “what’s the need for the book?”
D’oh!
I do that sometimes. In an effort to take the temperature down a notch, I undersell the very real challenges. I explained that the biggest problem is at the larger level — community and society — which continues to demonize and marginalize nonbelievers and to consider them, among other things, unworthy to hold office or to have a voice in important ethical issues. But it’s also the case that Becca and I have gotten better at anticipating problems and raising our kids in ways that minimize the turbulence at the everyday level by applying many of the ideas in the book. Grappling with the issues has made us better secular parents, which makes things go better on that everyday level — which can lead to improvements on the larger scale.
Because of PBB, I’m becoming something of a Dear Abby of secular parenting. Every week I get emails asking for advice on this or that. How to help the second grader who is being religiously bullied at school. How to deal with a twelve-year-old boy who’s developing an unmoderated arrogance toward all things religious. How/whether to keep Grandma from evangelizing the kids. Whether/how to celebrate Christmas. Whether to go through with the baptism the relatives want. How to get a five-year-old started on understanding evolution. How a mom can talk to her daughter about death when she’s not all that keen on it herself.
In the beginning I’d type out my thoughts, but in recent months I’ve started referring parents to appropriate threads in the Parenting Beyond Belief Forum. Over 200 secular parents are registered and trading ideas on that board, which now has more than 200 topics and 1200 posts.
Last week I got an email asking how best to handle religious relatives who insist on saying grace when they come to your house. This is one I answered on the Forum a while back. An excerpt of that Forum thread:
HappyDad from California wrote:
Here’s a situation I figure must be common. We have a lot of family in town, all churchgoers except for us, and we get together a lot for family events. When a meal is at our house, we start to tuck in without saying grace, and somebody (usually my sister, knowing exactly what she’s doing) says, in a wounded voice, “Aren’t we going to thank Jesus for this lovely meal?”
After an awkward few seconds, SHE will invite someone to do it. “Rachel, why don’t you lead us in prayer, honey.” She’s not trying to be disrespectful or embarrass me, by the way…she just honestly can’t pick up her fork until somebody checks in with jehovah.
Yes, I know it’s my house and I have the right to keep religion away from my table. I know that. But first of all, seriously, I always forget until the moment it happens, and then I’m thrown. And secondly, I’m asking how, precisely, I can do this. It isn’t always my sister; sometimes somebody else beats her to it, so I can’t just pull her aside and make the issue go away. And I really don’t want to insult their intentions, which I promise are good. But I don’t want superstition in my house, and I don’t like having to sit and pretend to pray in front of my kids.
They’re alllll coming over again early next week. Gimme some tips here, guys and gals! Thanks!
I replied:
Public prayer galls me for at least two reasons: it’s coercive, and one person speaks for everyone, assuming a uniformity that is never really accurate. It is also too often manipulative (“And may the Lord bless and protect those among us who have been making unwise choices lately” [all eyes go to cousin Billy]).
We have a family tradition that solves this problem and has become a special daily moment in and of itself.
As we sit down for dinner (every day, not just when there are guests), we join hands around the table and enjoy about a half minute of silence together. We’ve asked the kids to take that time to go inside themselves and think about whatever they wish — something about the day just passed, a hope for the next day, good thoughts for someone who is sick, or nothing at all. And yes, they’re welcome to pray if they’d like to.
But here’s the key: it’s a personal, private moment. We don’t follow it with “You know what I was thinking about? I was thinking about homeless children.” Otherwise it turns into a spitting contest to see who was thinking the most lofty thought. Kids will try this at first. Just nod and change the subject. Eventually they figure out that it really is a private moment, which changes the nature of it.
It’s become a daily watershed for us — a moment that marks the transition from hectic day to quiet evening. I love it.
When we have guests, we tell them (before anyone can launch into prayer) that we begin our evening meal with a moment of silent reflection, during which they may pray, meditate, or simply sit quietly as they wish.
And if you have to pull out the big guns, tell them you just respect the teachings of Jesus too much to disregard Matthew 6:5-6:
“And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the streetcorner to be seen by men….when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father in secret….”
That’s a red-letter passage, straight from the big guy. Tends to end the debate.
Several other parents replied as well with tips and thoughts. And that’s the beauty of it, of course. I don’t mind the emails one bit — I love them, really, they make me feel oh so terribly significant — but why not also drop in on the PBB Forum and tap 200 heads instead of one? Yes, now! Up the big marble stairs, turn right, through the blood sacrifice room, third door on the left.
_____________________________
[Also, psst: Don’t forget to check on the ten wonderfull things page once in a while. And keep sending your suggestions for wonder-full links for secular parents to dale {AT} parentingbeyondbelief DOT com.]
and then we played
I’ve sprinted upstairs to transcribe the following dinnertable conversation with my daughter Delaney, nearly six. The names have been changed to etc:
DELANEY: I was at Kaylee’s house today after school, and she said she believes in God, and she asked if I believe in God, and I said no, I don’t believe in God, and her face got all like this
and she said, But you HAVE to believe in God!
DAD [w/mouthful of grilled pork]: Mmphh fmmp?
DELANEY: And I said no you don’t, every person can believe their own way, and she said no, my Mom and Dad said you HAVE to believe in God! And I said well I don’t, and she said you HAVE to, and I said that doesn’t make sense, because you can’t like go inside somebody’s brain and MAKE them believe something if they don’t believe it, and she said do your Mom and Dad believe in God, and I said no, they don’t believe in God either, and her face did like this again
and she ran into her room and got a book.
DAD [mashed potatoes]: Mm bhhk?
DELANEY: Yes, a picture book, and she said you HAVE to show this to your Mom and Dad, it’ll make them believe in God!
DAD: Whu…
DELANEY: And I said, I don’t have to show them that book, and she said if you don’t show it to them and if you don’t believe in God, you can’t come to my house anymore!
[Mom and Dad’s eyes meet, eyebrows fully deployed.]
MOM [who (having been raised right) swallowed her potatoes first]: Then what did you say, sweetie?
DELANEY: She kept saying it, so I cried. And then I said my dad says its okay for people to believe different things, and you can even change your mind a hundred times! And she said okay, okay, stop crying, you can come to my house anyway.
MOM: And then what?
DELANEY: And then we played.
the Quéstion of Québec
Il est faux de penser que la religion rend la mort plus acceptable. À preuve, les rites funéraires sont marqués par des moments d’intense tristesse. Et la plupart des croyants ont peur de la mort et font leur possible pour retarder sa venue! Demandez-lui si elle avait peur avant de venir au monde. Elle risque de répondre en riant : «Bien sûr que non, je n’étais pas là!» Expliquez-lui que c’est la même chose pour la personne qui décède. Elle n’est simplement plus là. Il existe plusieurs façons d’apprivoiser la mort. C’en est une.
Accepter sa propre finalité est le défi d’une vie, et ça restera toujours une peur qu’on maîtrise sans jamais la faire disparaître totalement.
M. Dale McGowan, auteur de Parenting Beyond Belief
No no, come back! I haven’t really become sophisticated — except in the pages of the Montréal-based public affairs magazine L’actualité, which carries an interview avec moi as its November cover story.
I was interviewed last month by Louise Gendron, a senior reporter for what is the largest French-language magazine in Canada with over one million readers. A website Q&A (in French) supplements the print interview.
So why the sudden interest among the Québécois about parents non-croyants? It’s a fascinating story. Québec has historically been the most religious of the Canadian provinces. Over 83 percent of the population is Catholic — hardly surprising, since the French permitted only Catholics to settle what was New France back in the day.
But now Québec is considered the least religious province by a considerable margin — and without losing a single Catholic.
Non-religious Catholics, you say? Oui! French Canadians are eager to maintain their unique identity in the midst of the English Protestant neighborhood — and “French” goes with “Catholic” in Canada even more than it does with “fries” in the U.S. Yet educated Catholics — I’ve discussed this elsewhere — are the most likely of all religious identities to leave religious faith entirely. There is, by all accounts, a very short step from educated Catholic to religious nonbeliever.
In recent years, a very large percentage of Catholic Québécois have essentially become “cultural Catholics” — continuing to embrace the identity and traditions of the Church despite having utterly lost their belief. The most striking evidence is a referendum, five years ago, to transition the provincial school system from Catholic to secular. The referendum passed easily, and a five-year transition began in 2003. This year is the last year of that transition — and to the shock and surprise of many, the entire process has taken place with very little uproar.
Until now.
____________________________
“In recent years, a very large percentage of Catholic Québécois
have essentially become “cultural Catholics” — continuing
to embrace the identity and traditions of the Church
despite having utterly lost their belief. “
____________________________
My interview was going to be a good-sized piece, but two weeks ago (in the words of Louise Gendron), “all hell broke loose” in Québec as orthodox Catholic family organizations launched a coordinated media campaign attacking the secularization of the schools. At which point L’actualité decided to make the interview the cover story and enlarge the website Q&A.
Most “cultural Catholic” parents in Québec support the transition but wonder how to explain death, teach morality, encourage wonder — in short, how to raise ethical, caring kids — without religion.
Perhaps you can understand my sudden, intense interest in Québec, and why there is talk — very early talk — of a possible French edition of Parenting Beyond Belief, to be published in (vous avez deviné correctement!) Québec!
our man in washington: aai 2007
(Being the second in a series of reports on the 2007 convention of the Atheist Alliance International in Washington DC.)
The AAI Convention was such a surreal mix of the ridiculous and the truly sublime that all I can muster is breathless telegraphy in the style of Guinness. The book, not the beer. (And damn Hemant Mehta to HELL for posting his (much more entertaining) breathless telegraphy before I got around to posting mine. He’s young and childless.)
Sam Harris telling a room full of atheists not only to stop calling themselves atheists, but to entirely abandon the concept. Long, good story.
MOST NOT UNDISAPPOINTING MOMENT
Richard Dawkins using most of his speech to debunk the many ways in which he is misrepresented. I’m sure the temptation to clear the air is strong, but (a) he was speaking to the crowd least likely to need convincing, and (b) I want to hear his ideas. This week’s ideas. Perhaps that is just too outrageously what-have-you-done-for-me-lately of me. Yes, now that I think of it, it is. I’m just glad I didn’t type it out loud, then.
BEST DIRECT CONTACT WITH GREATNESS
A nice, long chat with Dr. Eugenie Scott of the National Center for Science Education — see Monday’s post.
BEST MEDIATED CONTACT WITH GREATNESS
Shaking hands with Matthew Chapman, great-great-grandson of Charles Darwin, and thereby squeezing Darwin’s own DNA.
MOST IMPRESSIVE ACT OF SELF-CONTROL
Resisting the urge to incorporate Darwin’s DNA eucharistically into my own flesh by licking Chapman’s hand-sweat off my palm. As far as you know.
TOP NIGHTMARE OF CONVENTION
Inadequate facilities. 500 registered, 600 turned away, main ballroom holds only 300. Long story, and, of course, no one’s fault.
MOST INSANELY ARTICULATE NATIVE SPEAKER OF ENGLISH
Sam Harris
MOST INSANELY ARTICULATE SPEAKER OF ENGLISH AS A THIRD LANGUAGE
Ayaan Hirsi Ali
PEOPLE I WANTED TO THROTTLE
Wouldn’t you like to know.
PEOPLE I ACTUALLY THROTTLED
Let’s give the statute of limitations some time to work its magic. Then we’ll talk.
MARVELOUS NEW FRIEND AT CONVENTION
Nica Lalli, author of Nothing: Something to Believe In.
MARVELOUS OLD FRIEND AT CONVENTION
Tanqueray and tonic.
PROOF THAT I AM TOO STUPID TO BLOG
I didn’t bring a camera.
PROOF THAT I AM TOO STUPID TO LIVE
Despite the presence, for probably the only time ever, of eleven of the contributors to Parenting Beyond Belief within an area the size of a baseball diamond, I acquired precisely ZERO author signatures in copies of the book. I just don’t think that way. Until afterward.
MOST PLEASANT SURPRISE
Positive media coverage at the national level (click on video screen to right of article.)
PROFUNDITY
(All quotes were transcribed on the fly onto the backs of business cards and napkins
and are therefore unimpeachably accurate.)
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS
[Speaking out against dangerous ignorance] is not my living, it’s my life. I’ve no right to betray it. This [religious claim to immunity from challenge] has got to stop. I’m not sure we have very much time.
*
There is only one cure for poverty, and that is the liberation of women. It always works.
*
I don’t wish for God, no. Not remotely. I don’t want to live under an unalterable dictatorship of any kind.
AYAAN HIRSI ALI
Let [Muslims] proselytize what they believe and I will proselytize what I believe, and let’s see where we end up. That’s so much better than the powerlessness of being a women within that system.
MATTHEW CHAPMAN
For a feminist to still believe in God is like a freed slave continuing to live on a plantation.
*
I think we should advocate for a presidential debate based solely on the subject of science. It’s become essential.
SAM HARRIS
To begin, I’d like to take a moment to acknowledge just how strange it is that a meeting like this is even necessary. The year is 2007, and we have all taken time out of our busy lives, and many of us have traveled considerable distance, so that we can strategize about how best to live in a world in which most people believe in an imaginary God.
*
It just so happens that religion has more than its fair share of bad ideas. And it remains the only system of thought, where the process of maintaining bad ideas in perpetual immunity from criticism is considered a sacred act. This is the act of faith. And I remain convinced that religious faith is one of the most perverse misuses of intelligence we have ever devised.
(Read Harris’ entire speech here.)
HILARITY
MATTHEW CHAPMAN
[on the kind of movie script Hollywood is perpetually in search of:] Horny teen confronts demons, and finally, through faith and violence, returns to being a decent, Christian virgin.
*
I deeply resent standing in security lanes at the airport. I advocate a fast-track lane at airport security for atheists. Whoever heard of an atheist suicide bomber? They should set up a plinth at the start of the line with a wide variety of religious texts. Anyone willing to desecrate the whole lot of them gets breezed right through. “Right this way, my dear atheist! No need to take your shoes off.”
*
If an old lady who opposed contraception while working in the slums of Calcutta can become a saint, I figure I ought to be considered just for doing nothing.
the guilty pleasure that is
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS
I tried, while in prep school, to imagine existence in Heaven, which is described as engagement in focused and eternal praise of the Creator. Only slightly less appealing to me are the flames of hell. And both are eternal, with no hope of respite, ever. Now life in North Korea is something close to hell on Earth. According to their constitution, Kim Il-sung, who is dead, is the eternal president. So it is a necrocracy, a thanatocracy. And the people live without much hope of self-expression or joy. But they have one advanatage over the Christian scheme: at least they get to f**king die!
*
[on Mother Teresa] This charlatan, this fraud, this shriveled old bat, as far from the true badge of ‘motherhood’ as it is possible to get…
RICHARD DAWKINS
[Regarding the caption of a photo from The Guardian of three children in a Nativity play] They are referred to as “Mandeep, a Sikh child; Aakifah, a Muslim child; and Sarah, a Christian child” — and no one bats an eye. Just imagine if the caption had read “Mandeep, a Monetarist; Aakifah, a Keynesian; and Sarah, a Marxist.” Ridiculous! Yet not one bit less ridiculous than the other.
(For even more details on the AAI convention, including the full text of all speeches, travel back in time and attend.)
the long habit, part I
What, me worry?
Epicurus of Samos, philosopher
The long habit of living indisposeth us to dying.
Thomas Browne, dead person
If you haven’t visited The Death Clock, you really must. Enter your date of birth, height, weight and Body Mass Index — a measure of fitness, or more to the point, fatness — and the Death Clock spits out the day and date on which you’ll hear the galloping hooves of the pale horse.
Mine is Tuesday, December 9, 2036.
Until that date I can step whistling into the paths of all manner of passenger and freight vehicles. I can season my steak with asbestos and press my vital organs against the microwave oven as it cooks.
Unless, here at midlife, I absorb the other, far more important, more honest and less entertaining message of the Death Clock. You’re probably not going to Die today, goes that message — but you are, most assuredly, on some actual date in the easily-conceivable future, going to Die.
The difference between death and ice cream — and yes, there is one
I am afraid to die. This puts me in the company of most sane people, Christians included. It’s something to leave off the résumé should I ever apply for a position as a suicide bomber, but aside from that, I don’t think it should count against me.
Reporters always (always) ask how, in the absence of religion, I intend to make the contemplation of death go down my children’s conceptual gullets like butter brickle ice cream on an August day. Or words to that effect. Depending on my mood, I either pretend that’s possible, or I don’t, since it isn’t. Death is hard to take, and it always will be. Darwin rather insists on it. And I like seeing a bit of the fear of death in my kids’ eyes now and again. Makes crossing the street so much easier.
And I can tell by the applause all around me — ancestors behind, descendants ahead — that “I don’t wanna die” is just the sort of thing that I, as the ziploc-baggie-of-the-moment for my family’s genetic material, am supposed to feel, for their sakes. I’m the keeper of the keys.
Wait a minute. Come to think of it, that’s no longer true. Between 1994 and 2000, I lent my wife the keys enough times to produce three new bags of DNA, then went under the knife to ensure that, genetically speaking, I would be of no further use. My shift is over. I can clock out any time.
As a result of having completed my sole genetic responsibility, my fear of death no longer serves any real purpose. Perhaps vasectomies will eventually engender a population-level selective response whereby the severing of the vas deferens leads the now-superfluous man to impale himself, thornbirdlike, on the surgeon’s waiting blade, thus relieving the tribe of thirty additional football seasons of pressure on the stocks of Cheetos and Michelob. Until then, boys, fear death and eat up.
Doubting (Dylan) Thomas
I do think there are ways to diminish the fear of death and dying, and a post last spring (Milk-Bones for the Immortally Challenged) included a tip or two from Epicurus, who has now had 2,277 years to test his hypotheses. (No word yet on how it’s going, which tends to support his point.) But there are others, and a recent conversation with my boy reminded me that I hadn’t blogged death in awhile.
I don’t remember how it came up, but Connor and I were talking about the last moments of life. Though I don’t want or expect my kids to ever find death yummy, I’d like to keep their concerns about it manageable, and I’ve always found understanding to be the best path away from fear. In this case, I was able to draw on another in my arsenal of death-softeners — the fact that most people, by all accounts, don’t go out kicking and/or screaming, but do, in spite of Dylan Thomas, go gentle into that good night.
Here’s another Thomas — doctor, biologist and essayist Lewis Thomas — writing in one of the most profoundly wonderful popular science books of the past century, Lives of a Cell:
In a nineteenth-century memoir on an expedition in Africa, there is a story by David Livingston about his own experience of near-death. He was caught by a lion, crushed across the chest in the animal’s great jaws, and saved in the instant by a lucky shot from a friend. Later, he remembered the episode in clear detail. He was so amazed by the extraordinary sense of peace, calm, and total painlessness associated with being killed that he constructed a theory that all creatures are provided with a protective physiologic mechanism, switched on at the verge of death, carrying them through in a haze of tranquillity.
I have seen agony in death only once, in a patient with rabies; he remained acutely aware of every stage in the process of his own disintegration over a twenty-four-hour period, right up to his final moment. It was as though, in the special neuropathology of rabies, the switch had been prevented from turning.
Lewis isn’t the only witness against Dylan. There are countless testimonies suggesting that the process of dying is more often a peaceful, tranquil one than not. And that’s some darn useful consolation — since Epicurus really (truly) cured me of the worst of my fears of death itself, only the fear of dying remains to be dealt with. For that, I’ll turn next time to my favorite little Frenchman.
