Raising Kids Without Religion

My husband and I raised our children without religion. We gave them no religious identity (as in claiming to be Christian or Jewish because of our parentage). We are both devout atheists, and I use the term devout with purpose. We don’t believe in a higher power, or any gods, or even the possibility of one. We are not agnostic. We believe awareness begins by the sixth month of gestation and ends at death. Upon birth, our combination of chemistry defines individual uniqueness, so often mislabeled as a ‘soul.’ No heaven, or hell. No rebirth awaits us after death. Reincarnation is a myth. There are no second chances to get living ‘right,’ and we never ‘ascend to a higher plane of existence.’

You, me, Hitler, all end up the same. We cease to exist upon death. Only our contributions throughout our lifetime remain when we die.

Frightening and harsh though this may seem to believers, the fantastical bible stories and the ‘jealous’ malicious god, (Exodus 20:4–5), described in them never resonated with us. Much to our parent’s chagrin, we grew further from all religious ideologies with their spiritual indoctrination. Ancient dogma conjured by men to control the masses by creating an outside deity that could not, and by its own commandments, must not be questioned, religious leaders were telling us not to think. They required blind faith, and neither my husband nor I were willing to buy into thoughtless beliefs.

We agreed before having kids that we’d raise them without religion. We could not teach them what we do not…