Children are precious gifts from God only if you believe that God created them. This is what you believe, however, others may not. Simply believing there is something in the afterlife does not make it so. Believing you have no immortal soul does not mean this is the reality either.

Why pray for the children of non-believers? How are they victims of their parent’s lack of an affiliation with religion? They are only victims if for a fact you can prove that God would damn them to eternity for not being Christian.

For that matter, what of people living in isolation in the jungles of SOuth America or islands around the globe? They know not of Christ or his alleged ascension, so how can they be held accountable for not having recieved the memo on God? I find it hard to believe that one could lead a virtuous and selfless life only to be sent o Hell because you did so without a ritualized faith in God.

Jesus taught that tolerance and compassion should be practiced in all things. I consider it likely that God himself would probably practice what he preaches.

jonb’s last entry was The Challenge of Single Mom Dating

The most important one is the question of ‘critical thinking,’ the necessity of checking claims against the evidence and not accepting them simply because ’someone said them’ — even if the someone is Daddy. I consider this the most important skill someone can have, and would teach it to my children. If, with this, they still felt that a particular religion ‘held up,’ then, since it is their life, and since they are individuals, not ‘mini-me’s’ it would be their choice.

I’d argue with them, and explain my own position, of course. But another thing I would hope to pass on from my parents — who were Catholics — to them is that it is okay to disagree with Daddy. (Many parents are willing to engage in arguments with their children — as long as, in the end, the parents win the arguments. My parents weren’t like that, and many a time I’d leave the room shaking my head at their arguments which I could not accept, and we’d ‘agree to disagree.’ That they could accept this is just one reason why I consider myself luckier than anyone I know in having the parents I did.)

A second point. While I consider religion totally without any truth, I consider it both fascinating — in all its many varieties — and important to know about, since it is and has been an important factor in people’s lives and in History — both for good and for bad. I would want them to understand what people believe, and why, and would encourage them to read as much as possible in the field if they were interested. I certainly would suggest, as soon as they could get on the net, that they make the Internet sacred-text archive one of their favorites, and would provide them with books on any particular religion they showed interest in — and books that presented the religion in the same light with which believers saw it. (I’d also explain my own reasons for disbelieving in it, of course.)

Finally, I would hope they would grow up in a neighborhood similar to the one I currently live in in Brooklyn, where one religion might predominate — in mine it is Jewish, and predominantly Orthodox within the Judaism — but which would be highly mixed so they would, daily, come in contact with people of all faiths and none — and people of all backgrounds. (We have a substantial Muslim population, some Christians, and others whose faith I do not know. We have Asians — both South and East — blacks, Hispanics, whatever you want, we got at least one of ‘em.)

But this is all academic. I do not consider myself parental material, and neither my wife nor I have ever wanted children.

Children are precious gifts from God, why wouldn’t you want your children to believe in something better than dirt when they die? Prayers for the children because they are the real victums of parents who are unbelievers …..