Madness In My Method

This is in response to a friend's question of raising a non-religious child. Apparently I had a lot to say on the subject and went past the word max for a comment. I'm personally not posting this looking for a discussion, but to merely comment back to him and to record my thoughts for my own posterity. (I was planning on posting a copy of this into my lj anyway.)

I've had to do some serious thinking recently about whether a kid raised without religion is a good thing. Perhaps it's better to give them one and let them grow out of it?

The only thing she needs to learn is that her consequences have actions. That's all that religion teaches anyone and yet religion and imaginary friends are not required in order to learn those lessons. She will WANT to learn what it all means and how it all works for others, and that's readily apparent in her actions and questioning already.

For me, a child raised as non-religious*, I never understood the point of Sunday school whenever my friend's Baptist family invited me along. It was just a boring outing which usually involved a lot of memorizing of some huge monstrosity of a book called a Bible. It was work, and although I kept agreeing to go because it usually involved a snack and hanging out with my friend, I wasn't impressed and enjoyed the fact that my parents didn't make me do (the lessons, the classes, etc.) that her parents made her do.

Aside: My friend's older sister was the one that managed to get me to memorize the Lord's Prayer when I was younger. Each week she wrote out one line of the prayer at a time on a little piece of paper. The paper was rolled up and placed inside a capsule, and by capsule I mean an empty pill casing, which I was asked to memorize and repeat with any previously learned lines of the prayer. Looking back on that little gem of a story, the irony still kills me today. Every time I hear the Lord's Prayer, I feel like I'm being given a happy/poison pill or something.

Growing up I never knew nor understood other people's fascinations with their religions. As such, I grew up wondering and curious and at most times confused. I watched in junior high as another good friend began going to a non-denominational church, which I attended with her a couple times, but again I never understood the fascination. In my teens I read some philosophy. Around the same time I was introduced to industrial music and finally found something that resonated in me, but the Vampire players I saw at The Church seemed just as empty headed as religious folks, so I always spent my time on the dance floor immersed in the music. During my first year in college I read about Satanism and the biography of LaVey. In my early 20's I joined a Nazarene** church out of absolute sheer curiosity, and for the first time I actually started to read the Bible. I joined knowing that I would not be converted, but that there was no way for me to understand all those people that pray and pray and pray and "feel Jesus" unless I got out there and tried it myself. I found that same lesson holds true for meditating and lsd: you won't understand it unless you have tried it yourself. I realized that my mind was more scientific in nature, so without knowing anything at all about it I purchased from Half Price Books a massive hardback Scientology book and a very nicely leather bound Dianetics book. Needless to say, I read through both of them completely and laughed my ass off the entire time. I then discovered all the horrible stories on the internet about Scientology, which only confirmed my bat-loco view of their mentality.

I learned what I was seeking once I got into psychology (in college) and began reading the views of Erich Fromm. He pretty much defined authoritarianism and the need to have someone else in control in order to justify/judge actions. It was then that I was finally able to understand religious people and be able to put my thoughts about them into words, for Fromm pretty much took the words right out of my mouth. I reached this point a scant 2 years before meeting you and Mel and all of my other like-minded friends.

What I discovered in the journey is a need to answer the question, "What's the big deal?"

I'm still not religious, and despite my lengthy time of once calling myself an atheist and then later on an agnostic (once I learned that term existed and what it meant), I now refer to myself as simply a living human being. I don't like labels and "non-religious" is the only thing that properly describes me. I'm alive now and one day I will be dead, and when I'm dead I will simply cease to exist. That is my view and my philosophy and no one ever taught it to me. I learned it on my own, and that is how my parents raised me. I was allowed to go with my Baptist friend to Sunday school. I was allowed to go to both church and The Church. My parents were there with me when I purchased the Hubbard-horde books, along with their eye rolls. I was never judged by them and neither discouraged nor encouraged in any direction.

Trin has an inquisitive mind and she will keep questioning what it is that she sees. There is absolutely nothing wrong with raising her as atheist, agnostic, religious, or non-religious, so long as you continue to be truthful and honest with her and let her discover her own path. Continue helping her in her understanding. Perhaps Erich Fromm's concepts will be just as helpful to her as they were for me, so I do recommend that as something to consider explaining to her. If she then chooses to still follow a religious path in the future, let her. It will be a part of her own self-discovery journey.

*The closest to defining "non-religious" would be to say I was raised agnostic with Christian values of right/wrong, but we just never talked about religion in my family.

**I still have no fucking clue as to what separates Nazarene doctrine from any other Christian doctrine. All I know is that I did to some extent enjoy their relaxed proceedings and they really were good people, which is why I didn't mind joining that particular church for my reconnaissance mission.