The other day I was in a meeting with my son’s mother. She complained to me that he has become increasingly vocal in his criticisms of religion and religious faith (especially Christianity) and she figured it was my fault for “teaching him atheism”.
Where do I begin?
If you’ve been a regular reader of this blog over the previous few years, you have likely noticed that the religious rhetoric makes far fewer appearances here today than it did, say, three years ago. Yes, there are the occasional flare-ups but they are generally triggered by an event, you know, like this post is. I do not run around on a daily basis discussing religion or atheism in front of my child or anybody else. Mainly it’s because I have lots of other things to worry about and interests far more interesting than not believing in something. I mean, there are literally an infinity of things I don’t believe exist. As a general rule I don’t worry about them, I am far more interested in what actually does exist and impacts my life.
Once I sorted out that God was a myth, the Bible was literature, and Buddhism helped my brain, I was pretty much good to go. The question is why has Syd recently begun turning up the volume on his religious opinions when at his mother’s house? I have to admit, I have not noticed that he’s done it at my place but she claims he’s getting close to “religious bigotry”. What gives?
I can’t say that I know for sure because A) I haven’t been around at her house to hear what has been said and B) I’m not in Syd’s head, but I have a theory. Tabithah has long taken a stance about religion that can be described as spineless at best, pointless at worst. When she rejected the Jehovah’s Witnesses she didn’t replace her lost belief with anything other than a deep hatred for organized religion of any sort. She kept herself fairly ignorant of religious opinion, cultivating a careful sort of agnosticism where she could basically argue that nobody knows or can know anything, God is a 50/50 proposition, and the only really true thing is that we need to let everybody believe whatever they want to believe. These are, needless to say, a differing view and differing path from my own. Where I spent the last few years in research, attempting to salvage what is salvageable from a lifetime of religious belief while jettisoning the hurtful and ridiculous parts, Tab has hunkered down and tried her best to avoid the whole thing. This is why Syd’s sudden statements of non-belief upset her so much, because the only thing she believes in is keeping quiet on the whole subject.
That said, here’s my theory as to why Syd has sudden become vocal… because religion has hurt his family, he’s almost 13, and he’s pissed about it. What’s more, the complaints are taking place at her house because she has preached the politically correct line about religion for most of his life… it’s something that must be treated with reverence and never faulted for being wrong. Perhaps, just perhaps, he’s got some issues around being nice to the institution that has caused almost every single bit of personal trauma he’s experienced in his whole life and being told that he should treat it with respect.
I make a point at my house to instruct kindness towards religious believers, not to treat them badly but just to avoid the topic of religion with them. However, I do not instruct a similar kindness towards religious ideas, which are often ridiculous, out-moded, false, and dangerous. The idea that there is a bearded gentleman in the sky who wants to be our dad would be nice if he wasn’t portrayed as a xenophobic psychopath with low self-esteem by most of the world’s major faiths. I don’t “teach atheism” to my son. I teach him about the various conceptions of God held by the various worlds religions. He doesn’t find them personally convincing, as near as I can tell and if that leads him to fail to believe in any of them, well, I don’t blame him. You can’t teach non-belief, you can only teach the alternatives and let a kid decide for themselves. He knows about science, Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism and plenty of other views. He believes what he believes and doesn’t believe what he doesn’t. The one thing that is sacred in our house is love for our fellow human beings, but no, religious ideas are not treated with any special reverence or irreverence, they are given exactly they same type of treatment that any other ideas are given, which is as it should be.
Can you imagine a world in which presidential contenders were required to profess belief in fairies, Bigfoot, or their imaginary childhood friends in order to be viable candidates? Where it was considered a constitutionally protected right to allow your children to drown because you didn’t believe in water? Of course not, yet these examples are based on exactly the same kind of logic and evidence that belief in God is or abstaining from blood transfusions or other medical care. It’s absurd that we as a species have one class of ridiculous fantasy that is revered while all the rest of it is confined to children’s books, one type of disconnect from reality that is considered a virtue while all the others are considered to be insanity. Why is religion, based on a fundamental escape from reason and virtue, considered reasonable and virtuous? Why is criticism of religious ideas considered “bigoted”? Why can’t a kid who has had his life scarred by religion be against it without offending his mother who doesn’t believe in it herself?
It’s nuts I tell ya…
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