azazel

I was very drunk last night, and my head slowed down long enough to get me thinking, "Hey! Assuming I have kids, How do I protect them from big, bad, Jesus the Christ? What if my liberal upbringing turns them into one of them born-again St.Augustine types. All the schools in my country have Christ in 'em. Unless of course, I send them down south to gt jiggy with Mohammed. And then, what about the Jehovans and born-agains knocking at the door? [ Will telling them, "Don't to to strangers wearing crosses" help?] What happens when they find out that no else is like them? You know how kids are, if teacher and all their friends tell 'em they're wrong and that I'm wrong... Children weren't designed to fight their surroundings, they might incur trauma or something. Are they better off ignorant and happy?

Viti

I was raised liberal (really liberal...mom a card carrying ACLU member and dad a hippy) and mostly secular and all the Jesus stuff sounded like fairy tales to me, though I tried to believe. I wouldn't worry too much about it

scarmig

Just bring them up on the idea that there is nothing more nobel than asking questions. If you encourage inquisitiveness, critical thinking isn't far behind. Once critical thinking is achieved... religion loses all it's luster.

Never

I still don't know how they'll turn out as adults (11 and 13 now), but so far I haven't actually DONE anything. We really haven't brought up the subject until recently (due to the fundies at the door). I know people suggest teaching critical thinking and science and such and that sounds like a good idea, but we were struggling with an attention deficit problem in the older one combined with immaturity and a serious reading comprehension problem in the younger one.
However, after the (then) 10 year old went once to the fundamentalist Baptist church with a friend, she asked really good questions. "How can they celebrate Jesus being the son of God when that means God has to have been a man to be his father yet they said that God created all men?" Yes! She's thinking. She did not just accept whatever she heard there.
We've had a few good discussions since then. It'll all work out.

Thalia

All the ideas here so far sound good. I was raised by liberal, non(anti) religious parents. However, almost everyone we knew was Catholic, and I went to a Lutheran Preschool with Bible stories, prayers, etc. I liked the Bible stories; I just thought of them as fairy tales, too. I didn't talk about it with other kids, and it wasn't a big deal. (but other communities might be different)
I actually felt like I was privy to knowledge that they weren't like when I found out about Santa before all the other kids.

My parents made a habit of asking critical questions in front of me about a lot of things, especially things on TV. E.g. "Do you think the toy in that commercial really works as well as they show?" "If someone did that in real life, they would be seriously injured." "Why would God perform a miracle for this sick man, but not that other one?"
So critical thinking and a healthy dose of skepticism has helped me a lot.

OCLonghorn

All the above ("let them figure it out for themselves", "don't push them", "teach critical thinking") sounded good to me until I actually had kids (8, 6 & 3).

Only then do you fully appreciate how intrusive religion is in our society and how often people "presume" that you are at least a theist in some form, if not christian. We're in Texas, for whatever that's worth.

I found that if you, as a parent, are neutral, your child will still experience a heavy theistic bias. Especially so if you didn't grow up in a atheist family...I can always depend on both grandmas to give each of my kids a guardian angel locket, a "footprints" poster, or a stuffed angel bear for easter, birthdays, etc. I don't get confrontational with them, but I have made it clear what my beliefs are and that they make it hard for me to be neutral, which is what they both wanted when we started having kids. I figured that was no big deal, because the larger pressure would come from their peers.

After hearing me doubt all claims christian and giving them other codes on which to base their morality their whole life, they still admonish each other with threats of "going to the devil" if they catch the other saying a bad word.

WTF?! Exactly how easy is it to indoctrinate them with this stuff? If anyone could figure out how to make money off this, they'd be rich...

Oh, wait...they have and they are.

Godless Dave

And it's tax exempt to boot!

Beleg_Strongbow

When I was young, my parents never spoke about religion. I was sent off the bible day camp during march break, though. In grade one, someone told the teacher on me because I didn't believe in god. Through all this, I remained an atheist. My point is, teach your kids to ask questions, and they should be fine.

ieyeasu

I was raised by an agnostic (leaning towards deism); but so long as I can remember, even without my father's input, I was an atheist. I remember being dragged to church by my grandma and thinking, "This is such BS. He's invisible!"

Ab_Normal

My daughter thinks I've gone overboard... there were about four times Friday when she asked me a question and my response was, "I don't know. Have you done any research?" (There were all things she should be able to get from the encyclopedia... I don't think I'm expecting too much from a nine year old!) By the fourth iteration, she just rolled her eyes at me and said, "Moooom" with those fourteen extra syllables they throw in when they're disgusted with you.

[anecdote]Of course, I probably gave her reason to do it. One time we decided she should look up any word we used in conversation she didn't recognize, so I made sure to throw in "sesquipedalian". Mean ol' me.[/anecdote]