Children – Jon's Quora content

If you love your children, you discipline them to keep them from harm. Why can’t people understand that a loving, caring, God, does the same to His creation, especially those who love Him?

Atheists in general have no problem understanding that an authority figure might have to use sanctions as well as rewards to encourage good behaviour. But in the first place, there is no evidence that any gods exist at all, and hence no evidence that they ever do anything of the sort. And secondly, the things …

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As an atheist, how would you react if your child chose to follow a certain religion?

Most atheists would be surprised, but not particularly distressed, unless the religion was an extreme one that might put their child or their relationship at risk. Atheists generally don’t regard religions as particularly important, and committing to one is just an ordinary life decision that can be reversed at any time. Any parent who has …

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If you were required to do so, how would you explain atheism to a child?

The same way you would explain it to an adult. “Atheists are people who don’t believe in any gods”. And then deal with any follow-up questions as honestly and directly as you can.

Atheists, are your children atheists too or do you believe in giving freedom to let them choose in a non-biased way?

Yes and yes. The two options are not mutually exclusive. Most Western atheists, at least, seem to believe in bringing up children to reason things out for themselves; and most of the children who are allowed to do so seem to end up as atheists—as do many of the children of believers, under similar circumstances.

As an atheist, how do you explain to your young children that god does not exist, yet it is normal that most of their friends, and society in general, believe otherwise?

Generally speaking, children will assume that their parents are correct unless they have a convincing reason to think otherwise. It’s not necessary to ‘explain’ why unless there’s some good reason to. They will know from a very early age that their parents don’t agree with other parents on some things, but this will generally not …

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Why do people say abstinence education doesn’t work?

Because it doesn’t. Studies have shown that the rate of unwanted pregnancies among teens given ‘abstinence education’ is statistically exactly the same as that among teens given no information about contraception at all. It also has no effect on the other undesirable consequences of unprotected sex, like HIV infection and other sexually transmitted diseases.