think I have a relatively good idea. Record all religious arguments on this website that show the logical fallicies in the Bible and Christianity in general. Including this thread. When your daughter is mature enough to understand this website,
Sounds good until I realized Four words seared forever in my brain:
Trinity vs. Mary Poppins
LOL Ya know I never even read that thread. Good for me...lol. Anyways, you could just select the threads you think are good for her. But then again, if she wonders what the source is and the website is still around...you have a dilemma if you don't want her to read the smut on this site. ROFL But I think you should let her read the whole site if you don't want to seem hypocritical in that you are showing her the truth about religion and then not showing her the actual website. lol So what I would personally do is wait until she's around 16...my age when I came here.
Who's the more foolish, the fool or the fool who follows him? -Obi-Wan Kenobi
"In the unlikely event that someone comes here, hates everything we stand for, and then donates a big chunk of money anyway, I will thank him for his stupidity." -Darth Wong, Lord of the Sith
Hmm... My parents sent me to a Christian private school when I was in pre-school. I don't remember learning anything religious except that there was a God, and some guy somehow survived living in a whale for 6 days. I was kinda agonistic, then just mellowed out into the atheist I am now...
My parents raised my brothers and me Catholic, even though they weren't really into it. My grandparents put pressure on them, and instead of making us deal with an obscure religion called B'hai (which they mostly agreed with), they sent us to Catholic religion classes and public school. The reason I'm telling you this is so that you know that there wasn't much religious pressure in my house, other than "We really need to keep you in religion class because your grandparents wouldn't understand if we took you out." Not that I gave a crap about what my grandparents understood, but--that's another story. My parents were weak and succumbed to their wishes.
When I was about your daughter's age, Stravo, I started my religion class. I asked questions all the time about the readings and discussions we had. Things like, "How can there be a Hell if God is all-forgiving?," "Why is our church full of gold and jewels when we're supposed to help poor people?," and "Why would people go to war over believing in Jesus if 'Thou shalt not kill' is one of the Ten Commandments?" often drove my teachers positively crazy.
My parents never talked to me about religion, but they always encouraged me to come up with my own opinion on things. When it got to be time for me to be confirmed into the Catholic faith (when I was in 7th grade--about 12?), I told them that I had been thinking about it for a long, long time and that I didn't agree with many things and shouldn't be confirmed. Unfortunately, my great-uncle had already been called to do the confirmation, so they made me do it anyway. So, my 12-year-old self sat in the pews, going through the motions of the sacrement and apologizing to God the entire way under my breath for botching up his big admissions party (that was back when I believed there was a god).
Anyway, the point is that your daughter will question things if she is encouraged to do so. And even if you don't ever talk to her specifically about religion, if she knows it's her right to look for proof or jusitification, she will come out alright in the end. If you just tell her what you wish she would think for herself, then she will learn only to rely on what others have to say and not what she can think up herself.
And by all means, do what you think is best; don't do what someone else thinks is right for your daughter (other than her mom, of course). Kids pick up on insincerity remarkably well, so whatever you decide, your heart has to be in it all the way for it to get through.
"On the infrequent occasions when I have been called upon in a formal place to play the bongo drums, the introducer never seems to find it necessary to mention that I also do theoretical physics." -Richard Feynman
Not as an atheist... But as a fellow human.. I would choose to put my child in a private school until old enough (say 4th or 5th grade IMO) for my child to be ready for public school. Then throw them in there, and let them make their own choice when the time comes. I believe it is a matter of the heart what a person chooses to follow, but that is only my opinion. Shouldn't be forced upon anyone to have to believe ny religion, or non-religion, as the case may be.
But I think you should let her read the whole site if you don't want to seem hypocritical in that you are showing her the truth about religion and then not showing her the actual website. lol So what I would personally do is wait until she's around 16...my age when I came here.
