Well it is kind of relative, if you know me you will get it and if you don't you won't.
I honestly want to know specifically. Why exactly do you believe in one god over another? Why did you choose to believe in this particular god? What makes your feelings more real than the equivalently powerful personal feelings of someone who does not believe in your god, but believes similarly in another god? Is that person wrong? Why are you right?
Well Rym, to answer all those questions I will be either very precise or very vague. Why? Because, I believe that is how my life have being so far. And by my life I mean my memories. Stuff that I have kept since I was as small as 3 or even 2 years old.
I was not aware that there were other religions until I was in 4th grade. Before that I always though that there was Catholicism and that everything was created in seven days. I knew about Christmas but I never knew about its true meaning (even though I always felt good during that season, sometimes I think that it was because of the presents :P ). One day I saw a short animated feature in TV about Darwin and how many people were against evolution (that short was in favor and it was back in the 80's also it was in Spanish). I started to question myself and thinking about more about my religion. It was also during that time when I read a scientist " that the more I know about science that more closer I feel to God".
When I was 7th grade I met someone that was a Christian but was not Catholic. I asked myself ... What is up with that? And then he told me that he did not had priests but pastors. I was very confuse. So I decided to educate myself about the history of the Catholic church. And, I got to tell you, that as I was reading its history I became angrier and angrier for all the atrocities it did in name of their church. I was angry at my church but for some reason I was still believing that there is a greater force out there bigger than anything that I could imagine with me. Not guiding me but looking at me. I guess people have different names for it I like to use my language so I will call it Dios, other may call it Cosmos, Yahweh, Universe, Allah, etc.
So when I was in 10th grade my class went through Confirmation. I was not force to do it neither by the school nor by my parents (I think my dad was a little oppose to it) . Neither my brother or my sister are confirmed yet. It was every Saturday for about 6 months. I really did not know if I wanted to do it. My friends registered and I had nothing much to do on Saturdays, and it was only two hours so I decided to register.
Confirmation was a really neat experience. I mean there was nothing of Bible reading, they told us that we could read that by our self but if we had any questions we could ask. We mostly focused on why we pray and how we pray. Prayer is not necessarily the "Our Father" or the "Virgin Mary" praying can be any sentence or thought that we might have. We can be praying and we do not even notice it. I felt good about that, because until that day I always felt bored when I prayed. During that time I also felt connected to my environment, everything that I did felt right. Everything that I wanted to happen happened. If I was hoping for my dad to bring a cake from the street I will get to my house and find one. There was one moment in which my dog was going in to labor (she is a pekingese) and my brother and I had to leave for school and my dad was no where to be found (we had no cellphones and my dad was never at his agency, he was always on the street). We had no money and my Mother would not have accepted for us to miss a day of school for a dog. So we left the house and when we get to the bus my brother asked me to pray for our little dog. I think that was the first time I heard my brother asking me to pray for someone. So I prayed and when we came back my dog was OK. My father came just a little after we left and took her to a Veterinarian. She underwent cesarean delivery and had 4 puppies.
By the end of Confirmation I learned how lucky I was to be who I am. During that time I felt very close to my classmates and I learned why they were the way they are. It was as if I was one with them and they were one with me. I felt peace inside me. I even gave a speech during my Confirmation Ceremony.
I think the my life lead me to Catholicism, the same way a different life would have lead me to Buddhism.
My feelings are not more real than anyone else. You do not have to believe in one specific religion to feel or know what True Love is. I also believe that Dios is the same in all religions and they are not wrong. Even the people that believe in different gods (such as Jupiter, Venus, etc) are right, is their way of life. I can't critic someone if I can't imagine being in their shoes. I do critic what human kind did, do and will do in name of religion. Ultimately I can't say that a religion that is based on Love is wrong in their teachings.
I have chosen Catholicism because I like to live my life under certain rules, rules that fit me and I am pretty sure not the rest of the world. I will disagree with my church in many ways (such as their stance in homosexual marriage). But they also believe in my two big ones that are redemption and preservation of life.
Now, how do I know that I am right if I believe that others are not wrong?. Well, I guess that comes with the way my life is :P
This is what I was talking about when I wrote in my first post that I've never heard a religious person give a straight answer to this question.
I think the problem is that genuine religion tends to be based on experiences that are very hard to relate in words in a believable way.
I was brought up in a fundamentalist Christian family, and I had a number of religious and spiritual experiences. These happened in various Christian churches, so what else was I to think except that "I prayed to my God for this to happen to me, and it happened to me, therefor my God is real and my relationship with him is real."
Later in life, after drifting away from church, I had experiences that were very similar to my previous spiritual experiences and realised there was nothing supernatural about them. For example, the sound and the sights and the general atmosphere at the front of a "revival meeting" is like being at a rock concert, so of course it is going to hit you at a gut level. The spiritual experiences are akin to being at the front of a rock concert and feeling overwhelmed, but also a bit like a fantastic sexual climax, and also like being on stage during a show finale with thousands of people giving you a standing ovation, and also like almost dying in a car crash and then not dying, and also like catching a huge wave when surfing and everything going perfectly, and also like like looking over at my girlfriend and falling in love with her all over again. And also like many other things.
Looking back I now see that if I was still a hardcore Christian like I was aged 13 or 14, each of these experiences would have lead to the same kind of feeling. But then instead of attributing them to being just part of an exciting or good life well lived, I'd say "God touched me so strongly today!" The standing on stage would only happen in churches, the rock concert would be a Christian rock concert too, so those things I'd attribute to God. The sex thing wouldn't happen as I wouldn't have sex before marriage, and if I did I'd feel so guilty I'd not enjoy it so much.
Anyway, if you want to know more of my story I was a guest on the Infidel Guy Radio Show, and you can download that interview here: A De-Conversion Story and Inside GodTV. Yeah, I worked at God TV.
I can see where you're coming from on the culture angle, but it seems like you are having trouble separating the culture from the religion. I'm jewish, but only ethnically speaking. I'm able to separate in my mind the ideas of the Jewish state, nation, culture, religion, heritage, etc. into completely separate things. I can celebrate holidays, use judaism as a means to connect with other people, and enjoy and practice jewish traditions, rituals, and customs, while separating out the belief in the supernatural.
I see many people who really stick with religion for these non-religious benefits such as the friendly community of people at their church, but aren't able to separate one from the other. There are plenty of atheist parents out their responsibly raising awesome children without having them believe in easter bunnies or afterlives. It's not necessary for responsible childhood development at all. There's obviously an urge to raise children who share your culture, and your values, but there are other vehicles for doing that other than presenting fairy tales as truth.
I would agree that many people never bother to critically analyze what they do, in religious or other senses. I would disagree, though, with stripping away all the 'magic' from childhood. Yes, you can do that and I suppose you'd be justified logically, but my intuition is that you'd be depriving your children of certain things. Let them believe in faeries, man, it's ok.
We have "Santa Claus" at Christmas time, we have the "Tooth Fairy" and the "Easter Bunny", we give thanks at Thanksgiving and mealtimes in general, etc. These things are our cultural heritage.I would be doing my children a disservice to not allow them these things.
So if you choose not to teach kid to believe in Santa, do you believe they will be less happy/ less profitable/ less intelligent? What kind of "disservice" do you believe this will cause them? Will it harm their social standing in elementary school? Will it harm their relationship between you and them, or them and their peers? Will it limit the number of friends they will have as they grow up for they will be ostracized from too many communities? You can't tell me you know the coloration it will have with their adult lives, but you may have some speculations on how it will affect their adolescence. May I infer as to what these effects are?
I can see 2 of them out weighting the rest in terms of making sense. You wish to be close with your children, and you wish for them to be accepted by their peers. Will teaching them Christian believes achieve these goals better then every other path to these goals that you know? If the answer is yes, then lying to them is the correct choice... if you believe in "the ends justify the means". But maybe I am looking at this wrong and putting too much emphasis on things that don't matter.
and if you want to know what i will do with my kids, I can not tell you. I am 21, raising kids has not been on my mind as often as it needs to be to make these decisions. But I as of this moment would not tell them the lies about the tooth fairy or Santa, but I will teach them to be thankful and nice to people. I will celebrate X-mass, for if I didn’t they would be upset that their friends get presents and they don't... but flying reindeer won't enter the equation. There will be Easter candy hunts, but no magical bunny will have hid them.
Thus all the fun and games and learning, without the lies. We will watch the X-mass stories on TV, but they will be talked about just as any other cartoon is... it's just a cartoon with a moral.
I support leaving as much magic in childhood as possible. I don't know that depriving them of religious context would be harmful, necessarily, but I believe their childhood will be "less full" without it. Even my kids I'm sure, young as they are, really know that there aren't really ghosts or goblins or bogeymen or faeries or any of it, but as children it is so easy to go along with the magic and have fun. This debate came up when my wife and I were celebrating our first Christmas together - do we do the Santa thing? The answer was yes, because it is harmless fun - as simple as that. You can pick and choose to your taste - but to stomp out all of the supernatural for your kids? Are you going to stomp out their imaginary friends too? Tell them that their dreams are just their neurons firing randomly during sleep? That going to the moon or becoming President is impossible? They are people, not robots. Let them have a little fun while they can - the world will darken for them soon enough.
Back on the original topic... I do not mean to imply that I think my religion is completely fiction, and I'm just rolling with it for the culture. The culture is a big part, though, of why I am in it - if I'd been born into another religious context, I'd likely roll with that one (hopefully retaining my healthy questioning nature). While I am flexible on many of the details, at the core I am and will remain theistic.
xyzzy I think your problem is the assumption that a world without magic, the real world, is dark. It is true that there is no magic in the real world, and there are bad things in the real world, but it is far from dark. Look at all the amazing things in this world, rainbows, fishies, science, video games, people, rockets, books, I could go on forever. I think that by teaching your kids magic, and then having it taken away from them later in life, they acquire the view of the world that you seem to be professing. That the real world is dark and crappy, and that magical escapism is where the joy is to be had. If you teach them the joys of reality from the get go, they will cherish those joys forever, and they will never have to be told there is no santa. You can replace the temporary joy of santa with a permanent joy of any, or all, of the wonderful things that are real in this world. Also, when your children become adults they will have a lot more respect for you as a parent who didn't treat them like children. Remember, you're not raising children, you're raising adults.
I support leaving as much magic in childhood as possible. I don't know that depriving them of religious context would be harmful, necessarily, but I believe their childhood will be "less full" without it. Even my kids I'm sure, young as they are, really know that there aren't really ghosts or goblins or bogeymen or faeries or any of it, but as children it is so easy to go along with the magic and have fun. This debate came up when my wife and I were celebrating our first Christmas together - do we do the Santa thing? The answer was yes, because it is harmless fun - as simple as that. You can pick and choose to your taste - but to stomp out all of the supernatural for your kids?
Why do we have to lie to our children in order to make them feel "magic" in their lives? Is the universe and quest for knowledge about it not enough? Why not introduce them to real mysteries and beauty in the world?
Ghosts, faries, Santa, easter bunnies? These are all vapid and shallow childish attempts by society to define how a kid should act. Teach critical thinking and give them a love for the world around them. Don't lie to them by telling them fictional stories are real. You are only wasting their time and yours with nonsense. Also, I don't think it's totally harmless. Kids are extremely impressionable and by telling them that supernatural element exist in our world as a kid may only reinforce that idea when they grow old.
While you may think it's fun to tell them stories about creepy old men, I'll be striving to instill a sense of love for the universe and science.
xyzzy I think your problem is the assumption that a world without magic, the real world, is dark. It is true that there is no magic in the real world, and there are bad things in the real world, but it is far from dark. Look at all the amazing things in this world, rainbows, fishies, science, video games, people, rockets, books, I could go on forever. I think that by teaching your kids magic, and then having it taken away from them later in life, they acquire the view of the world that you seem to be professing. That the real world is dark and crappy, and that magical escapism is where the joy is to be had. If you teach them the joys of reality from the get go, they will cherish those joys forever, and they will never have to be told there is no santa. You can replace the temporary joy of santa with a permanent joy of any, or all, of the wonderful things that are real in this world. Also, when your children become adults they will have a lot more respect for you as a parent who didn't treat them like children. Remember, you're not raising children, you're raising adults.
Excellent points. I think there is room to teach all of it, but I see your point about "taking away". Even so, it is more "growing out of" than "having it taken away" - just as they grow out of imaginary friends like Link and Zelda, they will grow out of caring about Santa at Christmas. It is not so much "teaching them magic" as "presenting the magical". I don't think this will lessen their ability to appreciate the miracles of nature or their understanding of the way things work, any more so than it has lessened mine.
I will not take God away from them, as I do not concede that God doesn't exist. In the same vein, I will continue to raise them as Catholics and, as they grow up, if they question the specifics we will discuss it at that time. I will also continue to raise them to observe the beauty of our natural world and to appreciate it for what it is - how could I not? I expect them to grow up to be critical thinkers, and discovering and understanding reality from fantasy is one step on their journey.
Why do we have to lie to our children in order to make them feel "magic" in their lives? Is the universe and quest for knowledge about it not enough? Why not introduce them to real mysteries and beauty in the world?
Ghosts, faries, Santa, easter bunnies? These are all vapid and shallow childish attempts by society to define how a kid should act. Teach critical thinking and give them a love for the world around them. Don't lie to them by telling them fictional stories are real. You are only wasting their time and yours with nonsense. Also, I don't think it's totally harmless. Kids are extremely impressionable and by telling them that supernatural element exist in our world as a kid may only reinforce that idea when they grow old.
While you may think it's fun to tell them stories about creepy old men, I'll be striving to instill a sense of love for the universe and science.
This is armchair parenting. Children are not adults yet, and are not prepared for adult concepts and purely logical thinking.
I believe that you can instill critical thinking and a sense of love for the universe and science, and in addition raise them in religion. I believe that I actually do a fine job in this regard. It's not like we enforce belief in fictional stories... we tell them stories about Santa, and we all run with it and have fun, and later when it occurs to them to question things then we are ready to answer them with reality. And I do expect them to question it. I understand that children are impressionable, but I don't think for a moment that I am somehow ruining their critical thinking by exposing them to either religion or to any of various supernatural folk tales. You are dismissing out of hand the value inherent in a wide array of cultural heritage, and ignoring the fact that these things are presented in addition to critical thinking and respect and appreciation for the beauties of the reality around them.
Feel free to be strictly logical and clinical with your children, but I'll wager you will have difficulties if you do. You don't have to "teach" magical thinking - children possess it, naturally! You work with it, over time, introducing concepts and logic to ultimately develop strong critical thinking without destroying their sense of wonder and imagination.
I believe that you can instill critical thinking and a sense of love for the universe and science, and in addition raise them in religion. I believe that I actually do a fine job in this regard. It's not like weenforcebelief in fictional stories... we tell them stories about Santa, and we all run with it and have fun, and later when it occurs to them to question things then we are ready to answer them with reality. And I do expect them to question it. I understand that children are impressionable, but I don't think for a moment that I am somehow ruining their critical thinking by exposing them to either religion or to any of various supernatural folk tales. You are dismissing out of hand the value inherent in a wide array of cultural heritage, and ignoring the fact that these things are presentedin addition tocritical thinking and respect and appreciation for the beauties of the reality around them.
I'm perfectly fine if it's presented this way, but there are certainly people who honestly believe such ideas are real and present it as fact to their children.
There was a good book I saw a while ago about raising a religion neutral child, but I can't seem to remember the author nor the books name. I'll post it here if I remember it.
Just a quick note: after being lied to all my life by my parents I now have zero respect for them. My father told me that, because he believed in God and Jesus, that the ONLY way he could ever conceive of raising his children was so they also believed the same thing. Otherwise how could he be a good parent?
It turns out that for some that fantasy and myth are a lot less important than reality. Let your children decide how much fantasy they want in their life. Children under 8 don't even have the capability of distinguishing their own fantasy words from reality anyway, so they can entertain themselves without you putting more confusion into their minds.
Maybe I'm an armchair parent, but I'm real life child of a parent like xyzzy. Don't lie to your kids.
I was raised with my parents telling me that Santa and the Easter Bunny were real. As I got older I eventually figured out that they weren't. There was not any sort of falling out with my parents about it, it just created a lot of good memories. It was fun and I wouldn't want my inevitable kids to miss the fun that I had.
Religion, on the other hand, was not fun. I went to a private school for three years and in religion class I asked the questions that my teachers did not want to answer. Catholicism confused me to no end. If god created the world in 7 days and humans were around from the beginning... where were the dinosaurs? Bill Nye told me that the dinosaurs were around 65 million years ago, so when did god create the world? Oh, he didn't. Everyone has been lying to me just like Santa and the Easter Bunny, except this time it wasn't fun. The inevitable children will not be raised Christian or any other religion, because all it does is give false hope and create far too much confusion and stupidity.
When I was 7th grade I met someone that was a Christian but was not Catholic. I asked myself ... What is up with that?
I remember that, about the same time, I had an epiphany that not everyone was Anglo-Saxon. I was totally freaked out for about a month.
There was one moment in which my dog was going in to labor (she is a pekingese) and my brother and I had to leave for school and my dad was no where to be found (we had no cellphones and my dad was never at his agency, he was always on the street). We had no money and my Mother would not have accepted for us to miss a day of school for a dog. So we left the house and when we get to the bus my brother asked me to pray for our little dog. I think that was the first time I heard my brother asking me to pray for someone. So I prayed and when we came back my dog was OK. My father came just a little after we left and took her to a Veterinarian. She underwent cesarean delivery and had 4 puppies.
Dog stories always get to me. I'm glad your dog was okay. I had a few experiences exactly like that with other animals that didn't turn out so well. Those experiences really put a twist on the normal anti-school feelings I had as a kid.
Whether you like it or not, most humans have a need to believe that they can ask a higher power for help. Whether you think it's right or not, the act of asking for that help confers a psychological benefit to people who have no control over a situation. In that respect, I think prayer fulfills a real purpose.
I was raised in a "Protestant" household (Mom is Baptist, Dad is Methodist) so straightaway the understanding was that, while people may disagree about the specifics, God is a given. Later, I switched to Catholicism - the thought at the time was that if you're going to do something, you should do it properly - Catholicism seemed the most authentic version of Christianity.
That's how I was raised too. Our Baptist upbringing had a severe Puritan twist. After I was married, I began going to Catholic Church with my wife. I haven't converted or anything, but Catholicism has it all over Baptism. They have better suits, you can pray to a host of saints that are assigned to do specific errands for you, you can drink at church functions, you have prayers written out for you, you always know exactly what mass will be like (in Baptist church, you never knew what was coming next), and you can go to confession. The only thing wrong is that they don't use the King James Bible. I remember when I first realized that. It hit me like a pile of bricks. I mean, it made sense to me, even then, because of King James himself, but it was just really hard imagining church without it.
One of the things that I didn't like about Baptist church was how the preachers would pick fights with Science. They would say things like, "The weatherman can predict the weather, but he can't tell you why the wind blows." I thought to myself from a young age, "That's kinda insane", but most people thought it made perfect sense. I have never heard a Catholic priest say that sort of thing.
I don't have any problem with people having a personal faith. However, I believe it should stay personal. The moment you start trying to evangelize or try to make secular decisions based on it, you've gone too far.
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I was not aware that there were other religions until I was in 4th grade. Before that I always though that there was Catholicism and that everything was created in seven days. I knew about Christmas but I never knew about its true meaning (even though I always felt good during that season, sometimes I think that it was because of the presents :P ). One day I saw a short animated feature in TV about Darwin and how many people were against evolution (that short was in favor and it was back in the 80's also it was in Spanish). I started to question myself and thinking about more about my religion. It was also during that time when I read a scientist " that the more I know about science that more closer I feel to God".
When I was 7th grade I met someone that was a Christian but was not Catholic. I asked myself ... What is up with that? And then he told me that he did not had priests but pastors. I was very confuse. So I decided to educate myself about the history of the Catholic church. And, I got to tell you, that as I was reading its history I became angrier and angrier for all the atrocities it did in name of their church. I was angry at my church but for some reason I was still believing that there is a greater force out there bigger than anything that I could imagine with me. Not guiding me but looking at me. I guess people have different names for it I like to use my language so I will call it Dios, other may call it Cosmos, Yahweh, Universe, Allah, etc.
So when I was in 10th grade my class went through Confirmation. I was not force to do it neither by the school nor by my parents (I think my dad was a little oppose to it) . Neither my brother or my sister are confirmed yet. It was every Saturday for about 6 months. I really did not know if I wanted to do it. My friends registered and I had nothing much to do on Saturdays, and it was only two hours so I decided to register.
Confirmation was a really neat experience. I mean there was nothing of Bible reading, they told us that we could read that by our self but if we had any questions we could ask. We mostly focused on why we pray and how we pray. Prayer is not necessarily the "Our Father" or the "Virgin Mary" praying can be any sentence or thought that we might have. We can be praying and we do not even notice it. I felt good about that, because until that day I always felt bored when I prayed.
During that time I also felt connected to my environment, everything that I did felt right. Everything that I wanted to happen happened. If I was hoping for my dad to bring a cake from the street I will get to my house and find one. There was one moment in which my dog was going in to labor (she is a pekingese) and my brother and I had to leave for school and my dad was no where to be found (we had no cellphones and my dad was never at his agency, he was always on the street). We had no money and my Mother would not have accepted for us to miss a day of school for a dog. So we left the house and when we get to the bus my brother asked me to pray for our little dog. I think that was the first time I heard my brother asking me to pray for someone. So I prayed and when we came back my dog was OK. My father came just a little after we left and took her to a Veterinarian. She underwent cesarean delivery and had 4 puppies.
By the end of Confirmation I learned how lucky I was to be who I am. During that time I felt very close to my classmates and I learned why they were the way they are. It was as if I was one with them and they were one with me. I felt peace inside me. I even gave a speech during my Confirmation Ceremony.
I think the my life lead me to Catholicism, the same way a different life would have lead me to Buddhism.
My feelings are not more real than anyone else. You do not have to believe in one specific religion to feel or know what True Love is. I also believe that Dios is the same in all religions and they are not wrong. Even the people that believe in different gods (such as Jupiter, Venus, etc) are right, is their way of life. I can't critic someone if I can't imagine being in their shoes. I do critic what human kind did, do and will do in name of religion. Ultimately I can't say that a religion that is based on Love is wrong in their teachings.
I have chosen Catholicism because I like to live my life under certain rules, rules that fit me and I am pretty sure not the rest of the world. I will disagree with my church in many ways (such as their stance in homosexual marriage). But they also believe in my two big ones that are redemption and preservation of life.
Now, how do I know that I am right if I believe that others are not wrong?. Well, I guess that comes with the way my life is :P
Later in life, after drifting away from church, I had experiences that were very similar to my previous spiritual experiences and realised there was nothing supernatural about them. For example, the sound and the sights and the general atmosphere at the front of a "revival meeting" is like being at a rock concert, so of course it is going to hit you at a gut level. The spiritual experiences are akin to being at the front of a rock concert and feeling overwhelmed, but also a bit like a fantastic sexual climax, and also like being on stage during a show finale with thousands of people giving you a standing ovation, and also like almost dying in a car crash and then not dying, and also like catching a huge wave when surfing and everything going perfectly, and also like like looking over at my girlfriend and falling in love with her all over again. And also like many other things.
Looking back I now see that if I was still a hardcore Christian like I was aged 13 or 14, each of these experiences would have lead to the same kind of feeling. But then instead of attributing them to being just part of an exciting or good life well lived, I'd say "God touched me so strongly today!" The standing on stage would only happen in churches, the rock concert would be a Christian rock concert too, so those things I'd attribute to God. The sex thing wouldn't happen as I wouldn't have sex before marriage, and if I did I'd feel so guilty I'd not enjoy it so much.
Anyway, if you want to know more of my story I was a guest on the Infidel Guy Radio Show, and you can download that interview here: A De-Conversion Story and Inside GodTV. Yeah, I worked at God TV.
Back on the original topic... I do not mean to imply that I think my religion is completely fiction, and I'm just rolling with it for the culture. The culture is a big part, though, of why I am in it - if I'd been born into another religious context, I'd likely roll with that one (hopefully retaining my healthy questioning nature). While I am flexible on many of the details, at the core I am and will remain theistic.
Ghosts, faries, Santa, easter bunnies? These are all vapid and shallow childish attempts by society to define how a kid should act. Teach critical thinking and give them a love for the world around them. Don't lie to them by telling them fictional stories are real. You are only wasting their time and yours with nonsense. Also, I don't think it's totally harmless. Kids are extremely impressionable and by telling them that supernatural element exist in our world as a kid may only reinforce that idea when they grow old.
While you may think it's fun to tell them stories about creepy old men, I'll be striving to instill a sense of love for the universe and science.
I will not take God away from them, as I do not concede that God doesn't exist. In the same vein, I will continue to raise them as Catholics and, as they grow up, if they question the specifics we will discuss it at that time. I will also continue to raise them to observe the beauty of our natural world and to appreciate it for what it is - how could I not? I expect them to grow up to be critical thinkers, and discovering and understanding reality from fantasy is one step on their journey. This is armchair parenting. Children are not adults yet, and are not prepared for adult concepts and purely logical thinking.
I believe that you can instill critical thinking and a sense of love for the universe and science, and in addition raise them in religion. I believe that I actually do a fine job in this regard. It's not like we enforce belief in fictional stories... we tell them stories about Santa, and we all run with it and have fun, and later when it occurs to them to question things then we are ready to answer them with reality. And I do expect them to question it. I understand that children are impressionable, but I don't think for a moment that I am somehow ruining their critical thinking by exposing them to either religion or to any of various supernatural folk tales. You are dismissing out of hand the value inherent in a wide array of cultural heritage, and ignoring the fact that these things are presented in addition to critical thinking and respect and appreciation for the beauties of the reality around them.
Feel free to be strictly logical and clinical with your children, but I'll wager you will have difficulties if you do. You don't have to "teach" magical thinking - children possess it, naturally! You work with it, over time, introducing concepts and logic to ultimately develop strong critical thinking without destroying their sense of wonder and imagination.
There was a good book I saw a while ago about raising a religion neutral child, but I can't seem to remember the author nor the books name. I'll post it here if I remember it.
It turns out that for some that fantasy and myth are a lot less important than reality. Let your children decide how much fantasy they want in their life. Children under 8 don't even have the capability of distinguishing their own fantasy words from reality anyway, so they can entertain themselves without you putting more confusion into their minds.
Maybe I'm an armchair parent, but I'm real life child of a parent like xyzzy. Don't lie to your kids.
Religion, on the other hand, was not fun. I went to a private school for three years and in religion class I asked the questions that my teachers did not want to answer. Catholicism confused me to no end. If god created the world in 7 days and humans were around from the beginning... where were the dinosaurs? Bill Nye told me that the dinosaurs were around 65 million years ago, so when did god create the world? Oh, he didn't. Everyone has been lying to me just like Santa and the Easter Bunny, except this time it wasn't fun. The inevitable children will not be raised Christian or any other religion, because all it does is give false hope and create far too much confusion and stupidity.
Whether you like it or not, most humans have a need to believe that they can ask a higher power for help. Whether you think it's right or not, the act of asking for that help confers a psychological benefit to people who have no control over a situation. In that respect, I think prayer fulfills a real purpose. That's how I was raised too. Our Baptist upbringing had a severe Puritan twist. After I was married, I began going to Catholic Church with my wife. I haven't converted or anything, but Catholicism has it all over Baptism. They have better suits, you can pray to a host of saints that are assigned to do specific errands for you, you can drink at church functions, you have prayers written out for you, you always know exactly what mass will be like (in Baptist church, you never knew what was coming next), and you can go to confession. The only thing wrong is that they don't use the King James Bible. I remember when I first realized that. It hit me like a pile of bricks. I mean, it made sense to me, even then, because of King James himself, but it was just really hard imagining church without it.
One of the things that I didn't like about Baptist church was how the preachers would pick fights with Science. They would say things like, "The weatherman can predict the weather, but he can't tell you why the wind blows." I thought to myself from a young age, "That's kinda insane", but most people thought it made perfect sense. I have never heard a Catholic priest say that sort of thing.
I don't have any problem with people having a personal faith. However, I believe it should stay personal. The moment you start trying to evangelize or try to make secular decisions based on it, you've gone too far.