[jdanieli]

From the article:

> As to religion, my parents said that they believed that God really does exist and that the Bible is a historical record of man's interactions with a real God...

Just by saying the fact that they themselves believe in god, they are giving the child a reason to bias towards that answer, aren't they? In the mind of the child, the foremost authority on all things occurring in the world around them is their parents, are they not?

The best way to answer this question is simply, "Noone knows", and leave it at that. Any further explanation will only lead the child one or another. Actually, not its not, because even by saying "Noone knows" you suggest a direction of thought, pushing them towards agnosticism rather than Catholicism, or Judaism, or Muslimism, or Whatever-ism. There is no right answer to this question. No matter what, by answering this question you are effecting the way they think about it. So just don't answer the question.

[reidman]

"So just don't answer the question."

Are you seriously suggesting this? It seems clear to me (and presumably to anyone else who has ever interacted with curious children) that this is a completely impractical and unrealistic solution. Have you ever tried _not answering_ a question from a kid? ;)

This dramatic influence-avoidance thing seems pretty ridiculous.

[jdanieli]

I'm saying that if you do not want to influence them in any way the only option is to not answer the question. Otherwise, you ARE influencing them.

I'm not saying whether or not it is possible to not answer the question when a child asks you one. I'm not saying you SHOULDN'T answer the question. But if you do not want to influence a child's thought patters in any given situation you have to not say anything (though likely silence will also influence them in some way as well). Hence why I said, "There is no right answer to this question".

"This dramatic influence-avoidance thing seems pretty ridiculous."

yes, it is ridiculous, which is why we lie to kids, because we have to give them some answer they will be satisfied with. There is no way to NOT lie to kids and not be pretty ridiculous.

[euccastro]

You made the topic slip from lying to influencing. Influencing their children is a big part of what parents do. It's called "education." It's unavoidable, and there's nothing wrong with it if you do it with honesty and respect.

[jdanieli]

I agree, influencing is what parents do, but influencing is also a form of lying:

> Influence: the power or capacity of causing an effect in indirect or intangible ways.

The effect in the case of parents is that the children will end up believing the same things as their parents did. This is completely distinct from education, because education is the teaching of what is known to be true, or at least a non-biased account of the available information. This is something most people cannot do as its very difficult to do right. Either you stick to known facts (1 + 1 = 2) or you give a non-biased account of history (say, a war) by arguing for and against both for both sides equally. If you look at any moment in history and think someone was evil or good, you probably misunderstand something and need to go back to that topic and learn more.

Influence breeds from a onesidedness that is not evident in education. Education breeds from understanding. If one tells their children they believe in god and this makes them believe in god, is it really significantly different then saying there is a god? Either way they still have a choice, to believe you are right or not. As they are the child's parents, isn't it almost guaranteed that they'd trust your judgment at such a young age? (I'm assuming an age of around 4 years old.)

> It's unavoidable, and there's nothing wrong with it if you do it with honesty and respect.

This is also true, almost. As described above it will take more energy to fully explain the correct answer to any question then the child is willing to listen to. I'm not arguing that there is something wrong with it. I'm just acknowledging that it is lying, albeit unintentional and without malice, but it is still lying.

[euccastro]

Influence may be a goal of lying, but it may also be a motivation for honest communication.

If your intentions are self serving, or anyway if you are covertly selective in what you tell to others, if you use fallacies, or if you outright lie, you are probably doing wrong. There's a word for that, and it's manipulation. Influence doesn't have neutral connotations in English. Much on the contrary: when you say someone has influenced you, or is/was influential in general, you're praising, not condemning them.

Full neutrality is impossible. You should keep neutrality as a general aim, while recognizing you're more biased than you realise.

More specifically, arguing equally for and against both sides of any war is not neutral; it's a futile attempt guided by political correctness. My first impression on reading that is that you're overreacting to typical western (esp. American) good vs evil rhetoric.

You can teach about a war without making explicit moral judgements about either side. There are many reasons to study a war that don't require you to discuss ethics (for example, you may be studying socioeconomic motivations and impact.) Or, if you want to discuss morals in a non judgmental way, you can describe the system of values that was current in each side at the time of the war.

That said, using the narration of a war as an illustration of some point in ethics is no worse, per se, than making such point in first place. In general, one side of the war will conform better than the other to some system of values. As a parent who is transmitting your child a system of values anyway, making a taboo of stating explicit judgments on either side of a war is pointless.

Hiding your beliefs from your children just not to influence them is a form of lying, and it's futile IMO. Do you have to make up cover stories about where you're going when attending church? Do you have to tell your relatives to keep the secret? Ridiculous.

And anyway, where would a 4 year old get his first ideas about religion from? Will they discover the Truth by themselves from cogito ergo sum? Nope, they'll be marked by the next influential person they meet: a teacher, a friend, etc. How is that any better?

Just stating your beliefs, while acknowledging the possibility that you're wrong, is a very honest thing to do. The child will grow to make their own opinion before it matters for any practical purposes anyway. That's what my parents did with me, and I stopped believing in God at around the same time I stopped believing in Santa Claus. I never felt pressured either way, and I carry no trauma that I know of.

[jdanieli]

This was a very good response to what I wrote. I applaud you.

> Full neutrality is impossible.

Completely agreed.

> You can teach about a war without making explicit moral judgements about either side.

True, and the more I think about it, the less I believe it'll come up in a conversation with a 4 year old. Especially on specifics such as the morality of a specific war.

> Hiding your beliefs from your children just not to influence them is a form of lying, and it's futile IMO.

Very true. Hiding information is definitely a form of lying. See Mark Twain's On the Decadence of the Art of Lying, he makes a very good argument for saying lying is not a bad thing, in certain circumstances, but also that not telling the whole truth is also lying.

> Do you have to tell your relatives to keep the secret? Ridiculous.

My general belief was that relatives would have less of a dramatic impact on the child's behavior patterns than the parents of the child. So while the child might know they believe in god, it wont necessarily translate to the child believing in god himself. Oddly, I never connected Christmas with Christianity when I was a child.

> Just stating your beliefs, while acknowledging the possibility that you're wrong, is a very honest thing to do. The child will grow to make their own opinion before it matters for any practical purposes anyway. That's what my parents did with me, and I stopped believing in God at around the same time I stopped believing in Santa Claus. I never felt pressured either way, and I carry no trauma that I know of.

I believe your point was well made. I took things a bit to far with the not lying. I still believe influence is a form of lying when working from the perceptive of a parent to a child, but I now believe that the effect is far less than I had originally believed. Thinking back on it, my own parents did the same thing yours did, though I was pressured slightly into believing in Catholicism, the pressure wasn't so harsh that I felt compelled to actually do so. I guess I was a bit harsh on the naivety of children, thinking ideas would be implanted in their young minds far easier than they actually are. I think also, that I was tying the words 'influence' and 'manipulation' a bit closer than they actually are. It does irk me though, that some children take their parents beliefs to heart without even thinking about it, sometimes without even realizing it.

[euccastro]

Influence doesn't have neutral connotations in English.

Sorry, I meant to say it doesn't have negative connotations.

[mark-t]

The best situation is probably for the parents to disagree, actually.

[jdanieli]

I'm not sure disagreeing makes much sense if the question is "Is there a God?" What are you disagreeing to? That there isn't a god? Then you will be lying to your child and this is what the thread is about NOT doing.

If instead you mean, you must always disagree with whatever your child's opinion is, I don't disagree. You have to argue both sides of any philosophical question though, less you accidentally push your own beliefs on them, and this is extremely difficult to do correctly. Orson Scott Card's character Han Fei-Tzu is an excellent example of the type of teaching discipline I hold sacred. When someone makes an opinion about anything, you have to argue the other-side as well as you possibly can, and if your charge changes their mind, you have to switch sides and argue for that side. This requires an incredible amount of knowledge and intelligence which most parents are not going to be able to replicate.

Teaching in this matter will force the child to learn how to look at any problem from different viewpoints.

[axod]

"Scientific evidence to date suggests there is no God"

IMHO That's the truth, and the facts.

[jdanieli]

The truth is also that scientific evidence to date does not suggest there isn't a god. Unless, of course, you know of something I don't. Ideas such a creationism have long since been dissolved, but the existence of God? Not so much.

Additionally, I believe there was a very good essay somewhere that argued there was a heaven and a hell. Saying that if we know there are an infinite number of other dimensions with an infinite number of possibilities, whose to say there isn't one where ONLY good things happen and one where ONLY bad things happen. These places would be heaven and hell, respectively. Of course, if someone is actually sent to one of these places, they will immediately change it if they do something contrary to what is expected in that specific realm, no longer making it heaven or hell, and a new heaven or hell takes its place where that even didn't happen.

So, if heaven and hell exist, who is to say god does not?

[axod]

Well, true. But you could argue the same about Santa Claus or any number of mythical creatures.

Do fairies live in the bottom of my garden? I'd say scientific evidence to date suggests not.

[axod]

Luckily the question doesn't really come up in a community of non religious types.

[noonespecial]

I think the community here just knows that science is not really the right tool to use to decide if God exists or not.

We probably also know that the argument degrades rather quickly once started.

[axod]

Oh I was meaning in my real life community. In the UK I think religion is quite a bit rarer these days, so it doesn't really come up as a topic of conversation here.