We didn’t use the word “sin” much in my childhood home or raising my own kids. Certainly we did encourage kindness and “Do unto others…” (treat others the way you want to be treated) etc. I assume most parents do the same, with or without church visits.
In church of “sin” was mentioned in bible readings and sermons. But the more important thing for us was the regular opportunity to ponder our behavior, ask for forgiveness. The same thought process of course can happen outside of church, but the tendency for many (including me) is to not do so when not regularly involved with church (or similar) activities. My own kids probably won’t take their kids to Sunday School, and admittedly that makes me sad.
Please. There is no “assault” on Christianity in this country. We have Christian (many claim to be non-denominational but they are Christian) prayers that open most government meetings, 10 commandments posted everywhere, national Christian holidays, etc.
My German-Jewish immigrant grandmother (who has no filter) always gives people a piece of her mind when she hears nonsense about Christianity being assaulted/oppressed in this country. Her family was secular Jews in Germany but the yellow stars and gas chambers still claimed most of her family (she and her family were sent to live with an uncle in the US).
Ok, so she’s a liberal atheist. I’m a conservative atheist. Atheism, by itself, doesn’t say anything about your ethics or morals. To me, labels like “atheist” and “white” are just boxes to check for religion and race, respectively. The quote above is especially inane, because the “white” refers to snow, not race, but “white” is now seen as somehow tainted in their world and the daughter has picked up on that. I was once something of an anti-theist as a teenager and young adult, but I’ve long since stopped caring about stupid things other people believe. I agree with @SatchelSF that the article author belongs to a “church” and doesn’t even know it.
I think the essence of the “sin” issue is the underlying source motivating behavior. There is the idea of intrinsic motivation towards doing what is good and right — people who do good things and refrain from doing bad things because it makes them feel good to believe themselves to be good people. Religion and the notion of “sin”, especially coupled with notions of an ultimate judgment, heaven, and hill – relies on extrinsic forces – people who do good things and refrain from doing bad things in order to be rewarded in heaven and avoid punishment in hell.
The problem is that if the person’s primary motivation is extrinsic, then if that person loses their religious faith at some point in life at least in theory they would also lose their moral compass.
Though I think that there are bigger societal forces at play so that people like the author-- who left her church – really don’t end up as criminals – they simply evolve and refine the belief system by which they guide their lives. “Belief system” doesn’t necessarily mean religion – an atheist has a belief system that includes the belief that there is no such thing as God. But the atheist probably shares a common belief system about broad concepts right vs. wrong with most religious people – murder is wrong, theft is wrong, lying and cheating are wrong, etc.
Religion complicates this with an array of non-universal rules and prohibitions: rules about eating pork or wearing immodest clothing or engaging in premarital sex, or baptizing or circumcising infants, etc.
But secular society comes with its own set of external, non-intuitive rules and prohibitions.
And of course, there are issues that are sources of major disagreement --which often are tied to religious justifications, but don’t have to be. Where are the lines drawn?
I don’t think that the concept of “sin” is at all necessary – but I do think that all society rests on shared understandings of right vs. wrong, good vs. bad. It’s just that those precepts are much more likely to be adhered to when they are stem from intrinsic feelings than from external enforcement, because with the latter it often becomes a matter of battling temptations. If the gut level impulse is that something is o.k., despite an external prohibition… then there’s a good chance that gut-level impulse will win out.
Something like that did happen to me. I was approached by a girl from New Zealand in a public library during my freshman year of college, and ended being invited to the weekend retreat of her religious cult. To make a long story short, the group used the entire arsenal of psychological techniques to get the invitees to join. My favorite memory is during a prayer session when everyone’s head was bowed and I was looking around and made eye contact with the leader, who was totally not praying, and who then immediately put his head down. At the next meal session, he came around from behind me and gave me a big, aggressive hug. By this point I was clued-in as to what the game was, but I observed that they had more success with recruiting some of the others. (None from my school.) I do think the danger these cults pose for vulnerable young adults is real, but I’m not sure what parents can do about it.
Just because children are raised without a formal religion does not mean that they know nothing about religion. My daughter and I had many talks about what our neighbors in our majority African-American neighborhood believed, and then the beliefs of families at the schools she attended. As secular Jews, lesson #1 was about Santa Claus and then Christmas in general.
So, I admit I stopped reading and began to barely skim when I read sin was equated to her father’s belt. There is an existent, pervasive broadbrush of Christianity.
I was raise to understand sin, and my kids were too. We never thought “oh, if I steal this candy bar it is a sin.” Nope, it was just wrong and illegal.
I don’t think sin plays a big part in right v wrong.
@gouf78 second-gen atheist here and so far cults other than Christianity haven’t been an issue for kids or me. (“The difference between a cult and a religion is the amount of real estate it owns.” F. Zappa) Although when one child was in gradeschool her friend couldn’t understand what “she was,” referring to my daughter. In the other little girl’s eyes, as she explained it: “You’re either Jewish or Christian. What are you?” It was hard for her to grasp that there was a box to check titled “none of the above.” Once my child explained that to her friend, she really never had to grapple with defining herself to others again.
As far as fears about atheist children falling into cults in college, they’ve had 18+ years of practice NOT falling into cults by the time they get there. The further you step away from Greek mythology, Norse mythology, Judeo-Christian or any other mythology, the more odd the stories seem – except as fascinating tales with teachable moments. And I think it’s important to be versed in the various tales.
My instructions to my kids has always been to respect religion in others, because people really and truly believe it, no matter how hard that may be to grasp.
^ Agree, but the appeal of cults is not intellectual, per se. It’s really about giving attention and offering affirmation and a sense of belonging. This can be hard to resist if you are a lonely 18-year-old who is a long way from home. I think what protected me was well-developed cynicism, but I still felt the attraction.
It seems to me that non believers would definitely have a strong sense of cynicism.
I can’t imagine being a non-believer, but feeling compelled to instill in my children a religion for which I have no affinity, do not embrace, and do not believe is remotely true, just on the off chance that they will go to college and be drawn into a cult.
We took our children to church as youngsters. When they were in 9th grade, we asked them to go to Confirmation class, where among other things, they were educated about the beliefs of other religions, and were required to attend services at those institutions. We told them that at the end of the class, they were free to decide whether or not to be confirmed, and afterwards to make their own decisions about whether or not to continue to attend our church. If either girl had balked at taking the class, we would have respected that choice. But they both took the class, both were confirmed, both continued to attend youth group functions into high school. Our oldest D allocated all of her college electives to classes on the history of various religions (I think she even had enough credits to minor). When she was a senior, she told us that she didn’t identify with Christianity per se, but believed in a higher power. She now has decided that she doesn’t believe in a deity at all. D2 is agnostic. Neither was ever approached by or attracted to any cults, unless you count sororities ;), and even then, both of them ended up deactivating from them and going their own way.
Exactly! I was definitely struggling in that second regard. Getting the attention felt great. I have no recollection why I was at the public library in town, but obviously I wasn’t socializing with friends at school.
How so? Being an atheist just means “not a theist”. You can believe that people are fundamentally good, or whatever, and still not believe in deities. I’m both a cynic and atheist, but that’s just me.
Lol is someone really trying to claim that because we’re raised without religion, we’ll fall into a cult in college? Give me a break.
I know it’s really difficult for non-atheists to understand the complete and utter lack of a religious system (not a criticism - I can’t understand what it’s like to be religious), but most of us view all religions the same way: they’re all a cult.
I don’t understand how you interpreted my statement that atheists have a strong sense of cynicism to mean that people who do not believe in deities would assume that people are not fundamentally good.
I think that living in a society which largely believes in a God and pushing back on that often means that a person has put thought into these questions and assertions, and has made a conscious decision to reject them. Many atheists were raised with at least some degree of religion in their families, but decided to reject those family values, usually after much thought and consideration. To me, that means that the atheist has the kind of cynicism that would cause them to be highly resistant to the machinations of a cult. JMO.
We could all use a lesson in not posing as holier than thou. No one side is more right. Everyone has some belief system(s) and could benefit from standing back and recognizing what that is. If you think all religious folks are loonies, you aren’t as fair minded as you assure yourself.
“By failing to teach my child the meaning of the word sin, had I somehow failed to give her a moral foundation?” Well, religion or no, had she given her child a sense of ethics and morals? That’s on her, the parent. I would never have asked myself that. We weren’t “running from” something we ourselves hated or were hurt by. It didn’t frame our philosophy. It didn’t make us adamant, we didnt point fingers simplistically, “them and us.”