Mich - not a task I would want to take on, or recommend, but once you've taken it on, well, you've taken it on.
My thoughts would be:
Start with what you know. What you stated above is a great place to start, and your husband should respect your right as a mother to pass along these ideas to your child. At the same time, your husband will have that same right to present his opposing views. When your children are little, they are less prepared for a non-unified front, so you need to find points you can agree on and present those. If, for example, your husband believes that the teachings of Jesus, whether He be God or simple prophet, are at least applicable and beneficial, you can start with that common ground.
As your child gets older, they should hear both sides and then be encouraged to find the answers by looking at other resources, including the Bible. At the very least, the Bible is a fine piece of literature with historical accounts, prose and poetry and insight into ancient cultures. Reading the Bible should be encouraged on those points alone.
Your husband should keep himself open to new ideas, too. If he wants to produce a child who is open-minded, curious and interested in exploration, then he must also be open to exploration of ideas, including the idea that there is a God, or common divine source of humanity.
Miss B - I appreciate your thoughts.
My husband and I have had several very productive conversations about morals, ethics and character. One of the things that is very apparent (in fact I would not have been attracted to his person in the first place if it were not so). Is that we share many of the same ideals, though we may have differing reasoning behind them.
In fact, I have to admit that he often puts me to shame in some areas. Because he is a secular humanist, and he believes that all mankind has is each other, he feels a very strong burden to ease the plight of his fellow man.
We have had many talks about Jesus, the man, and there is definitely some agreement there as to his teachings and characters. The disagreement of course comes in when you step into the divine realm.
On the bright side we have an awesome relationship. I know that he finds the idea that there is some super power creator who is in charge of everything to be ludicrous, and he knows that I find that there is no one in charge of the universe to be depressing and terrifying!
Michlow - how was your husband raised? This would be relevant to my advice.
He attended a baptist church in his middle school / early high school years. He was apparently very into it at one time. I know he mentioned a missions trip that he went on to Alaska where he helped build a church.
The rest of his family is what I would consider to be liberal lapsed Christians (much like myself). His younger brother is the only one that occasionally attends church, though according to my husband that's just to "pick up chicks".
Mich - not a task I would want to take on, or recommend, but once you've taken it on, well, you've taken it on.
My thoughts would be:
Start with what you know. What you stated above is a great place to start, and your husband should respect your right as a mother to pass along these ideas to your child. At the same time, your husband will have that same right to present his opposing views. When your children are little, they are less prepared for a non-unified front, so you need to find points you can agree on and present those. If, for example, your husband believes that the teachings of Jesus, whether He be God or simple prophet, are at least applicable and beneficial, you can start with that common ground.
As your child gets older, they should hear both sides and then be encouraged to find the answers by looking at other resources, including the Bible. At the very least, the Bible is a fine piece of literature with historical accounts, prose and poetry and insight into ancient cultures. Reading the Bible should be encouraged on those points alone.
Your husband should keep himself open to new ideas, too. If he wants to produce a child who is open-minded, curious and interested in exploration, then he must also be open to exploration of ideas, including the idea that there is a God, or common divine source of humanity.
I knew I had started a thread on this topic sometime in the past! (I didn't realize it was before Avery was born though!).
So my husband and I had a "heated discussion" regarding this topic the past weekend. Because even though we are both on the same page as for letting her make her own informed decision, there is still the question as to how to handle her toddler/childhood years.
His idea is that neither of us say anything for now. My objection is that me not saying/teaching anything is basically passively teaching his beliefs. But at the same time, I feel like if we are both bombarding her with "There's a God. No there's not." it would almost be worse than me just keeping quiet.
__________________
“There's such a lot of different Annes in me. I sometimes think that is why I'm such a troublesome person. If I was just the one Anne it would be ever so much more comfortable, but then it wouldn't be half so interesting.”
I knew I had started a thread on this topic sometime in the past! (I didn't realize it was before Avery was born though!).
So my husband and I had a "heated discussion" regarding this topic the past weekend. Because even though we are both on the same page as for letting her make her own informed decision, there is still the question as to how to handle her toddler/childhood years.
His idea is that neither of us say anything for now. My objection is that me not saying/teaching anything is basically passively teaching his beliefs. But at the same time, I feel like if we are both bombarding her with "There's a God. No there's not." it would almost be worse than me just keeping quiet.
Given your circumstances and beliefs... is there a Unitarian Universalist church near you? Perhaps you could get some counsel from the pastor and maybe attend. They are VERY open to all expressions of faith... even atheism. They specialize in synthesis and harmony between people of different belief systems.
Has your husband explored a spirituality called "Pantheism"? Essentially pantheists are "spiritual atheists" that see the universe that we live in as being the only "god" what we have. Life on earth is the only conscious life we have and there isn't an invisible sky palace with an invisible king in the heavens. They do believe that existentially we live on after death. However, they believe that we live on in the memories of those that we love and our bodies break down and become one with the cycle of nature. Therefore, one's molecules may one day be part of a waterfall, a mighty oak, a field of grass, eaten by an eagle and assemilated into the eagle's being. Thus... we are reborn in these very things, though "consciousness" is a state of being that ends at death. They generally have a high regard and reverence for nature, science, and humanity. While they don't pray (seeing that they dont' have a god), some meditate.
Here's a link to a website expressing their beliefs:
In your situation, I would just teach moral, ethical and charitable giving/sharing/caring behavior while a toddler. then when the child is grown, arguments for and against the existence of God and the purpose of church/worship(even though ethical living is the greatest worship). Children's bible stories/bible as literature might be a good way to influence in a godly direction without outright affirmation until she is old enough to decide for herself.
Given your circumstances and beliefs... is there a Unitarian Universalist church near you? Perhaps you could get some counsel from the pastor and maybe attend. They are VERY open to all expressions of faith... even atheism. They specialize in synthesis and harmony between people of different belief systems.
Has your husband explored a spirituality called "Pantheism"? Essentially pantheists are "spiritual atheists" that see the universe that we live in as being the only "god" what we have. Life on earth is the only conscious life we have and there isn't an invisible sky palace with an invisible king in the heavens. They do believe that existentially we live on after death. However, they believe that we live on in the memories of those that we love and our bodies break down and become one with the cycle of nature. Therefore, one's molecules may one day be part of a waterfall, a mighty oak, a field of grass, eaten by an eagle and assemilated into the eagle's being. Thus... we are reborn in these very things, though "consciousness" is a state of being that ends at death. They generally have a high regard and reverence for nature, science, and humanity. While they don't pray (seeing that they dont' have a god), some meditate.
Here's a link to a website expressing their beliefs:
I'm not necessarily promoting the organizations found at these links. I'm just trying to help.
The Pantheism site, lead me to an interesting quiz: Are You Atheist, Agnostic, Pantheist, Deist, Pagan or what?
My results were: 100% Panentheist and 95% Regular Monotheist.
As I have never heard of Panentheist (the "en" being an extremely important distinction), I headed over to wikipedia. I recognized a few things, it made mention of Open Theism (I've read several things by Greg Boyd on this subject,) and universal reconciliation, which I believe to a certain extent. And opened up a fascinating area of "Process Theology" for future study
I love it when I find new names to call myself, LOL
__________________
“There's such a lot of different Annes in me. I sometimes think that is why I'm such a troublesome person. If I was just the one Anne it would be ever so much more comfortable, but then it wouldn't be half so interesting.”
The Pantheism site, lead me to an interesting quiz: Are You Atheist, Agnostic, Pantheist, Deist, Pagan or what?
My results were: 100% Panentheist and 95% Regular Monotheist.
As I have never heard of Panentheist (the "en" being an extremely important distinction), I headed over to wikipedia. I recognized a few things, it made mention of Open Theism (I've read several things by Greg Boyd on this subject,) and universal reconciliation, which I believe to a certain extent. And opened up a fascinating area of "Process Theology" for future study
I love it when I find new names to call myself, LOL
100% Naturalistic Pantheist, which makes sense, I suppose, given the info in Antipas's post (interesting stuff, btw!). But it also gives me 53% for Regular Monotheist, and I have no idea how I got there. And 0% Agnostic?! What the?
__________________
Hebrews 13:23 Know ye that our brother Timothy is set at liberty
The Pantheism site, lead me to an interesting quiz: Are You Atheist, Agnostic, Pantheist, Deist, Pagan or what?
My results were: 100% Panentheist and 95% Regular Monotheist.
As I have never heard of Panentheist (the "en" being an extremely important distinction), I headed over to wikipedia. I recognized a few things, it made mention of Open Theism (I've read several things by Greg Boyd on this subject,) and universal reconciliation, which I believe to a certain extent. And opened up a fascinating area of "Process Theology" for future study
I love it when I find new names to call myself, LOL
Well then perhaps you are both Panentheists and will NOT have to raise your child in a divided home.
I have a great friend who is UU... one of the most balanced and completely decent people I know. I myself have looked at Unity (a Christian church with a universalist lean) because there is one local.
I do think that children who are raised without some kind of religious indoctrination are rarely able to see the need for religion later in life. It seems to be a pretty easy leap from one religion to another but the complete lack of religion in youth seems to make it of no importance later in life. So if you have any desire for your child to wind up religious you might want to get some early training in, in some kind of faith system.
Christianity comes with it's own culture and even language and in my experience seems very alien to those without any early exposure. Just something to think about.
Last edited by Titus2woman; 06-04-2013 at 10:52 AM.
I knew I had started a thread on this topic sometime in the past! (I didn't realize it was before Avery was born though!).
So my husband and I had a "heated discussion" regarding this topic the past weekend. Because even though we are both on the same page as for letting her make her own informed decision, there is still the question as to how to handle her toddler/childhood years.
His idea is that neither of us say anything for now. My objection is that me not saying/teaching anything is basically passively teaching his beliefs. But at the same time, I feel like if we are both bombarding her with "There's a God. No there's not." it would almost be worse than me just keeping quiet.
Mich... is there a God? If no, then you would be foolish to indoctrinate your child(ren) into a false belief system.
If there is, don't you think it would be necessary to let her know about that?
I feel for you, you are indeed in a difficult situation.
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