I was raised a Christian, non-denominational, but almost the Baptist kind. Went to college, became an atheist almost, agnostic for sure. Did DMT in grad school, like a couple hundred times, now I think that all religion grossly misses the mark on what reality and God(s) is/are, etc.

Now I have a few kids, and my Dad now expects me to bring my kids to church, he wants me and him to teach them the Bible stories, traditionally, and all that mess. But I can't bring myself to do it, I will not teach them all that terrorizing, brain-washing crap. I will also not fake it in front of him.
I want to teach them all the religions and let them make up their own mind, not force any set of beliefs on them. It sure is a pickle, mostly because I have a good relationship with my Dad.

What can I do? Anyone else in my shoes?


~Love and Light

If you have a good relationship with your dad, maybe he should respect your decision as a parent to raise 'your' kids as you see fit, especially when it comes to religions/belief systems/ways of living.

Here's an idea also - maybe instead of teaching them all religions, don't teach them anything and let them decide when the time is right and they're old enough, on their own? Let them figure out what they will on their own without any personal intervention?

Just my 2c

My only advice would be when you decide to tell your dad that you don't want to raise your kids in the church just stress that you fully respect his faith and you appreciate the way he raised you. These are two questions that will cross a parents mind when you reject their faith probably because it feels threatening that someone they love does not share the same beliefs that they do. Sometimes people jump to the conclusion that you think they are full of shit or believe nonsense, etc. I think that addressing those concerns at the same time that you let him know your decision will soften the blow and help keep any rift from forming between you two and could possibly even bring new growth to your relationship.

Church doesn't necessarily have to be indoctrination. Maybe some non-fundamentalist form of church would be acceptable to you (Methodist, Lutheran, Presbyterian, Episcopalian). My parents were raised Southern Baptist, which is why we went to Presbyterian and Methodist Churches, to get away from the whole "Fire and Brimstone/YOU MUST BE SAVED" thing. Later I became Atheist/Agnostic/Open-minded Skeptic. My son occasionally went to Episcopalian Church with my parents when he was younger and it didn't seem to do any damage.

That being said, just my few exposures to Southern Baptist Church and Church Camp, with friends had a negative impact on me. That satanic imagery garbage is not something you want to imprint on a youngster (IMHO).

Totally agree with this. I try not to be too superstitious but that stuff still really gets to me as an adult. It looked kinda cool when I was a kid.

The first thing that pops into my mind is you probably need to make a clear boundary between you and your father. Your father needs to recognize that you are your own man now, nay a father. His job as your father should now be in a period of dismantling. He needs to step back and let you take the reigns of your life, and the life of your family's. He should be there when you need him, but he needs to learn to mind your decisions.

Both of my parents families are very religious. Catholic and something (i really don't even know what schism of christianity they are). And my parents on numerous occasions were assailed on both fronts because they did not raise my brother and I to be religious.

Instead my parents inspired in us an incredibly heightened valuation on education and learning. Grades were important, school was important, learning was important, reading was the pinnacle.

If I ever had kids I wouldn't teach them religion in any form. If they asked me something like "What do we believe happens after death?" I'd answer along the lines of "Well, this is what I believe happens and here's why..." Then after I explained my view I'd tell him "Now what you believe is entirely up to you."



I think the best things to focus on teaching children are simple no-nonsense morals and values that everyone can agree on. First and foremost is the Golden Rule, how would you feel if you were treated that way? Basic sympathy for your fellow man. All high morals are distilled from that basic principle. Beyond that instill an intrinsic value on reading, learning, and asking the 5 W's and How.

With those incredibly simple values you'll end up raising a person who is fully capable of thinking for themselves and empowered to come to their own conclusions.

I agree with this, however I also believe it is important to create a sense of tradition and belonging in the child's environment.
It is great for the child to question and to think for itself, but there should be guidelines and traditions that you feel are most suitable.
Without tradition, the child will feel lost to some degree.
It is very important to preserve knowledge and traditions by passing along the ones that you personally find suitable, and discarding the ones that you find unhelpful.

Hey DisEmboDied,

I can relate a bit with my personal experience: I grew up in a conservative Jewish household, typically liberal, regular household. I'm the one I guess who became the explorer out of our typical traditions. Early on I was drawn to the metaphysical, mystical and esoteric, like Kabbalah and Gematria. As an adult, even further into the occult sides of spiritual traditions. Then woke up one day, realized I'm something of a pantheist. Well, that doesn't gel with the foundations I was taught. I had started forging my own metaphysics and spiritual expression now.

What this meant to me, coming to understand down into the core of my femurs, that where my parents end up, or my siblings, or myself, where our personalities go after we die, well - it may be in very different places. Boom. When I felt that, I felt a shift, like a tectonic plate moved around and in me.

So now there's an irony: I've never felt closer to my dad, even though we likely have vastly different experiences and understandings of the world. Or, I could just be older now, that's why I'm feeling close and chummy. Dad's personality though, it was never insistent. So that we're raising our son outwardly as a secular humanist, only my mom resisted a bit, she thinks our son needed to be raised up in a community. My take is a little different, it's about growing up engaged in the world. Plus I know my son is picking up on my Magick work, if it interests him, cool. If no, no worries. So mom sees how happening the boy is, he's happy, curious and spirited, she figured that that's what's important. Whew!

I see your situation can be a gate, you can even frame it as a gift. Your situation can open a serious conversation with your dad, do the archaeological dig together of what values, sense of metaphysics, everything that lays at the core of who we may be. Would you ever have a conversation like that with him? You're an experienced user of psychedelics, you are familiar with the deep question territory. So you have maps that your dad doesn't have. Could this be an opportunity to share them? Or for you to learn things about your Dad you didn't know? It could be a way that fosters a next level of understanding in your relationships with each other?

I know you stressed the importance that you see in tradition. You may have to make your own. Bringing a Christmas tree at the start of my married household was a huge challenge for me. I never had a Christmas Tree under a roof where I lived. My wife grew up in a communist country, to her the Christmas signaled "Children's Day," and the rest is fairy tales. To me the tree felt foreign, alien, weird. And I was definitely not keen on Santa at the time. So I had to create and weave in my own tradition which started the process of deprogramming my holiday sensibilities.

My tradition: the Xmas Iguana, who brings presents, protector of children, and keeps Krampus away, though they will on occasion play poker together. (I made the mistake of showing the Krampus parade in Austria to my son too young... well he asked?! Those images stuck with him for a long time. The forest demon and Satyre archetypes run deep in our Collective memories)
So I have a Star Trek Gorn mask, and I'd done a Santa Cap and Cape, and my wife, who was kinda not thrilled, would take photos of me putting presents under the tree (and now I can also pretend to be a Druid).

My son and Linus would be great friends. I think my son told his friends one year about the Christmas Iguana. If anything, he believed in the Christmas Iguana, who kept Krampus away. There's some real Magick!

So we are creating our own traditions to count the cycles of time, and to explain the World and things unseen. Maybe you can explore this with your family. It's a good time writing your script.

My exposure to simple country church christians (I am Jewish) as been extremely positive. I have found people of faith to be among the kindest and least egocentric people I have come in contact with. Real Christians, that is those who endeavor to put the teachings of Christ into practice do, i believe, transform themselves in a very beautiful and profound way. To expose your children to such people would not be a negative thing. Of course, I have no knowledge if the church in question is such a place.

Have you actually told him that you are bit in fact a christian ?
There is a christian fundamentalist in my family and i can only tell you to set boundaries and clear things up quickly, because these people take a long time to adapt, if at all.

I wouldnt take my kids to church if I had them, and I wouldnt teach my kids stories I dont believe.... Wouldnt make sense.

They are your children, and it is your decision how to raise them, not your fathers. If I was in your shoes I would just tell dad that I dont believe in the dogma they teach at church and I would also explain that churches often spread ignorance and hate and I dont want to participate in that. You can share reasons why you belive this or keep it to yourself - shouldnt matter either way because you are an adult and can make your own decisions. I would also say that whatever the kids get into as they age you will support them, and when they are old enough they can make their own decisions about religion just like you did.

It might bother you dad a bit, but it wont stop him from loving you. Might even help the both of you understand each other better in the end - might bring up some interesting conversations. I dont know any families where everyone has the same exact religious and political beliefs - but I know many families who love each other anyways.

This is how I was raised & my parents are the "real Christians" that poonja is talking about here.

In fact, our church, that my great-grandpa & grandpa helped build was a Quaker church & I learned how to meditate & hallucinate there long before I ever experienced Buddhist meditation & psychedelics. It certainly was a beneficial head start for me.

My parents understand, due to me expressing my views on this subject to them in the past, that I am a very spiritual person, but I don't put a lot of stock into groups, meetings, churches, schools, etc.



I love this!!! This is sort-of what my wife & I have done in raising our kids. We make up our own traditions. I thank the Universe nearly every day for giving me a wife who hates traditional holidays as much as I do!!!

If you take all those religious texts/wisdom not literal, but as allegories or metaphors, then a lot of pressure goes of. For both yourself and children.

Interpretation makes for the weight.

So I think you can teach them bible stuff, if you add a much wider interpretation than the traditional church or your father does. You could make it an opportunity to teach them your own gathered wisdom, and find an allegory in the bible that matches. And find an allegory in another religion that says the same in other package, but means the same between the lines, and show it's all actually coming down to the same.

This could make the children see though religious texts of any kind, and help them to build bridges, the opposite of fundamentalism or literal texts fanaticism.

It's still not the same as going to church though, but not being anti religious neither.

There is a lot of deep wisdom in parts of the bible and the gnostic texts. You just have to drop the last 2000 years of bullsh*t that has bloomed in the wake of that, and it is hard to do. Most people respond one of two ways..they accept it all as presented, or they outright dismiss it all and turn away. I have decided that neither of those approaches seems very constructive.

Last time i tried to build a bridge to said fundamentalist family member, i mentioned exactly this and it was apparantly enough for said member to flip out on me the first chance he got. These people have a very narrow interpretation of the bible. In fact, so narror they can't understand how anyone could ever see the bible differently than they do. They KNOW that there isnt any other way to look at it than the way thhey do. If you want a fundamentalists christians respect, its not enough to "believe" - you have to believe in the way they do. If not, you could be a muslim or hindu or satanist and it would be the same...

They even have a hard time accepting different christian confessions....

It is interesting to ponder why people end up like this. I guess they are so afraid of the diversity of life that they reduce it to something manageable/elemental/simplified. A choice to open for the mystery of life as all loose ends, or closing that shut with slamming doors.

The bible is a code and not literal stories with many good lessons. Why not let your children learn what they will from it for themselves-as you have? The world is full of nonsense and misinformation and by sheltering them from this you leave them blind in a way... Let them go to Christian church, take them to Hindu Temples, listen to songs of hare krishna, teach them about atheism, Scientology, show them the catholic view-expose them to all the world has to offer and let them choose their path. They will ultimately choose for themselves.

I dont know that the Bible is really full of that much wisdom.... Some wisdom that others might call common sense, and also some not so wise parts... It supports racism, sexism, war, slavery, violence, judgement, fear, homophobia.... It has a couple good parts, but has some nasty stuff in there too.... Hard for a child to be able to sift through the bad and discern what is appropriate - especially when the Bible makes all those battles sound so cool and "holy!"

I think there is a reason why some Christians are so wonderful and some are so evil - because both sides of the coin are in the Bible, and people choose which parts to focus on....

(BTW - I do find the Bible to be a fascinating read, I just find a lot contradictions and outdated ideas in there too - I'd rather read my child stories of the Buddha or Dao or something more uplifting I think....)

"If you want a fundamentalists christians respect"

I don't. Seeking respect in this context does little for personal growth and expansion. It is at best, a surface level commodity, of which the novelty will soon fade and leave you just as empty as before.

I would leave it be. Let people believe what they wish, smile, and move along. Don't waste your breath, it's a finite resource.

I was raised catholic but abandoned the faith in my adolescents. After a few years of atheism I slowly gained something of a faith in all faiths. While I'd like to introduce these views to my children once they reach late elementary school age, I don't feel it's appropriate for small children - especially the rote memorization I was subjected to without assistance or capacity for comprehension.

There's a Vedanta society within a reasonable drive from where I live and I feel the attitude of accessing spirituality via the intellect, and an openess to the validity of all religions are presented there eloquently and even handedly. I hoped to introduce my children to religion there but live in a very christian area and the ideas of heaven/hell, god/devil duality are being presented to them by small neighborhood children. While I have gotten a 'pass' from my family regarding my decision, including from my catholic nun aunt, I find myself unable to counter my children's new ideas of God. They're developing some of their own religious ideas, independent of my influence.

In the face of this I find myself most surprisingly unalarmed. I'm well into my middle years and find my own beliefs are still rapidly evolving. I may be able to offer guidance and present points of interest to my children but I won't be able to do any believing for them.