<p>how often are your children subjected to the Religion of your choosing?
How often are your children subjected to the God of your choosing?
How often are your children subjected to the prayer of you choosing?
How do you explain to your children the difference between Buddha and Muhammad?
How do you explain the difference between Jesus, the father, the son and the Holy Ghost?
And what of the Jews?where do they fit in the puzzle?
Where do you start and why are the others wrong? The others must be wrong! Isn’t that right? So, we are looking for someone to make since out of it all…any takers.</p>
<p>I am contented living with the glorious ambiguity, ambivalence and uncertainty of life. I don’t have a need to know the absolute and universal truth to explain everything. Therefore, I don’t need to prove if I or anyone else is right or wrong.</p>
<p>I leave it to my child to make her own exploration.</p>
<p>I raised my children in the faith I was raised in. They are free to seek their own path, their own faith or lack thereof and we have discussed that. My own faith goes from belief to non-belief back to belief again every so many years. I felt it best to give them the experience of that faith, and the freedom to leave it, change it, etc later in life. To deny them that upbringing, which worked for me and countless generations of my family would be denying them something that “worked” for those generations and into something that was unproven, at least in our family. So giving them that experience was positive, at least for me. YMMV.</p>
<p>I was raised in a Southern Baptist home. I was in church every Sunday morning, Sunday night and Wednesday night whether I wanted to be or not. I also spent several years in a private Christian school. By the time I left for college, I felt “church smothered” and haven’t really been back since. DH was baptised Lutheran, but his family didn’t attend church. He was raised in Catholic schools and, on occasion went to church with his Catholic friends. We were married in a United Methodist church because it was the prettiest church in our college town where we met. </p>
<p>When DD was young, she would often ask which church was ours when we would pass a church with a steeple. I felt guilty that we’d never taken her to church so she and I visited a few … Baptist, Methodist, non-demoniational, etc. I was going for her only so, when she told me one Sunday morning that she really didn’t care about going back, that was fine with me. She spent a few years in a Catholic school because they offered a great program for gifted children. She didn’t seem to mind the religious teachings that went along with it. When me moved to the next county over, she attended public schools. </p>
<p>All that to say, DH and I don’t go to church, but do believe in God. DD doesn’t go to church and considers herself agnostic. I am comfortable with our choices. DH occasionally says he wishes we’d had DD baptized when she was a baby, but I guess that’s the Catholic school upbringing coming out in him.</p>
<p>The use of “subjected to” bespeaks a mind already made up and opinion firmly established. Maybe looking for an argument but not sincerely looking for answers.</p>
<p>Faith and/or religion (or lack thereof) is a puzzle. You can talk about it, examine it, intellectualize it, dissect it or ignore it. No one can explain it, but if it works for you, it works.</p>
<p>I belong to Ethical Culture - we have even less structure than the Unitarians. My kids went to Sunday school through middle school. There is no requirement that they believe in God as part of my religion. We believe it’s what you do that matters not what you believe. If believing in God helps them be good people that’s fine with me, but I don’t think it’s necessary. Some of my best friends are Jews. Some are observant and some aren’t.</p>
<p>I believe in god and am a Christian, but sure don’t have the answers…never have and probably never will, but the thing I know for sure is that I feel better when I try to be closer to god and live a life trying to make good choices. Those good choices might include some of the ten commandments, but mostly are decisions that I chose may or may not get me into heaven.</p>
<p>I don’t know the bible extremely well and don’t (normally) preach or judge others for their choices. Life is too hard, to each their own when it comes to which faith they chose. I don’t necessary think that children always follow the religion that they were brought up in, my children are free to live as they wish, but have been baptized and have a personal relationship with their god and I think that is the most important thing.</p>
<p>I was tempted to ignore this post due to the “subjected to” tone. However, I have a really good answer for one of the questions (Ok, it was my Mom’s answer but I always liked it :-).</p>
<p>“How do you explain the difference between Jesus, the father, the son and the Holy Ghost?”</p>
<p>I’m a woman, a wife and a mother. One person who plays different roles. Maybe not the perfect answer, but it works for me!</p>
<p>^^ That’s a good answer! Here’s one for adult questioners: The three persons of the Trinity reveal three aspects of God: Creator, Savior, Comforter.</p>
Never. I choose to have no religion, and never mentioned the subject to my kids, so my kids are never subjected to the religion of my choosing. But then again, my kids are always subjected to my no-religion religion, so maybe the answer is always.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Never. We don’t talk about God really. Sometimes I mention the universe, but I guess that would be more astrophysics than God. But I do like to think of some force out there that I can send my thoughts to, so maybe the answer is always.</p></li>
<li><p>Never. I don’t pray out loud. </p></li>
<li><p>I don’t. For some reason, my kids have never asked me to explain the difference between Buddha and Muhammad. Maybe they learned about this at school, or maybe they’re just intellectually challenged.</p></li>
<li><p>I don’t. See #4.</p></li>
<li><p>What does this question even mean? Please explain yourself, and I’ll get back to you.</p></li>
<li><p>Well, there’s your problem right there, you’re assuming that anyone with or without a religion automatically assumes that everyone else is wrong. Problem solved :)</p></li>
</ol>
<p>I was planning to ignore this post, too, but I want to say how impressed I am with the honesty and tolerant attitude of the people who have posted (starting with #2).</p>
<p>For me, one of the nice things about being Jewish is that the question of whether other people are wrong rarely comes up. Judaism does not ask (or, strictly speaking, permit) people who are not born Jews to practice Judaism, so there’s no need to attack their beliefs. (More observant Jews than I may dissent a bit from that, believing that they DO have a duty to oppose polytheism and perhaps false prophets – which of course immediately gets you into dangerous territory.)</p>
<p>I took the route of making certain that my kids grew up as members of a Jewish community and received basic education about Judaism, but not demanding that they continue any level of Jewish practice after their B’nai Mitzvot (and, for the most part, they didn’t, although one of them goes to synagogue sometimes). Disbelief or uncertainty about God is fairly common among practicing Jews, so from an early age they knew that faith and religion were not necessarily the same thing.</p>
<p>We talked a lot about Christian theology of various stripes, because I wanted them to understand how deeply it was embedded in their culture, and also to be self-critical about viewing all religion, especially their own, through the lens of Christianity. We didn’t talk as much about the Buddha or Mohammed, although they were exposed to lots of Buddhism (our synagogue has a significant population of “Juddhists,” including one of our rabbis), and we have an English-language Quran at home. They did read Siddhartha and The Satanic Verses – that’s probably where they got most of their information about the biographies of the Buddha and Mohammed.</p>
<p>Why did the OP stop at religion? My kids are “subjected” to all facets of our belief systems: what we believe is “good” and “bad” with regard to how we treat each other, our neighbors, other human beings in general, what we believe regarding rewards/responsibilities of being a member of our family, values about the importance of work, the value of play, giving to others, social and environmental responsibility, and on and on. I always thought it was part and parcel of being a parent that you model and teach values and beliefs. You know, “subjecting” them to our philosophies in all manner of subjects. We know that just like we did, and our parents before us, they will integrate some of these values into their own lives, and will reject to some degree, if not totally in some cases, other values that we taught and/or modeled for them. That’s what happens in “families.” We are not here just to feed/clothe them/provide a roof over their heads, we are to provide a foundation for living life and interacting with the world-for finding some way to make sense of it all. Of course that foundation will reflect our beliefs-who else’s beliefs would I be teaching/modeling?</p>
<p>As far as religion, yes, we practice our religion and have exposed the kids to it, just as we would have made clear the decision to not practice any religion or that our belief systems did not include any kind of deity. They took confirmation class (both given the option to participate, both did) with the understanding that ultimately THEY would make the decision to accept or reject what they learned there and if they made the decision to reject, they would not be required to continue to attend our church. A large part of the communion class experience involved learning about other religions (D1 was so intrigued by this that she is getting a minor in religious studies-not any one religion, but the history, influence, and substance of many). We expect that their faith and spiritual beliefs may evolve over time as a result of more education, experience, and further reflection, just as many of their beliefs and values may evolve over time. We respect that.</p>
<p>Finally, I too found the “and where do the Jews fit into the puzzle” comment to be rather bizarre. What’s up with that?</p>
Some are observant and some aren’t.</p>