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Dear
Atheist, Agnostic and Humanist Parents,
I am
writing an essay about raising children without the beliefs in God and
Religion. Would you be kind enough to share your experiences how you raised
your children in a secular humanist environment? How did you answer your
children when they asked questions about:
A,
Issues of belief in God, Prophets, Scriptures and Life after Death.
B,
Issues of rituals….prayers, fasting and pilgrimage.
C,
Issue of ethics and concepts of sin and guilt.
Please share some of the stories of your family life especially when you had
to deal with those relatives, friends and teachers who believed in God and
Religion, performed rituals and promoted concepts of sin and guilt in your
children. Your answers will be a lot in writing about that topic.
Your secular humanist friend,
Khalid Sohail
March
31st, 2007
Ps…This letter is inspired by Abderrahim’s following letter who wants to
raise his 6year old twin daughters in a secular humanist environment.
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AAMER RAFI |
My father was a closet agnostic. I never realized it when he was alive. He
died when I was just 19 years old. He never asked me to read Arabic Quran,
offer prayers or any such thing. My mother was a traditional Muslim. I don’t
recall seeing either of my parents offering prayer except for special
occasions like Eid or funerals. I am not even sure we owned a prayer mat. My
dad belonged to an Ahmedi family. The entire family had a consensus about my
father that they still maintain; that he was fun to be with, persuasive in
his arguments but some felt that there was something wrong about his
ideology. He had a rebellious thread in his thinking. When Ahmedies, en
masse, were categorically against ZA Bhutto for engineering the move to
declare them non-Muslims, my father used to praise Bhutto’s politics
unabashedly. I used to watch him argue with his brothers, friends and their
children with a lot of interest. At almost every family gathering, those
arguments used to be one of the main events. Usually these arguments were
about the prophet hood of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, a concept that my father was
vociferously against.
As I said, I never realized in his life that he was an agnostic. He never
told me that he was skeptical about the existence of a God. He used to have
long discussions with me on various topics, including religion, but never
did we talk about the existence of a deity. Some years after his death, I
realized that he had been dropping clues all over the place and silently but
methodically guiding me towards skepticism. One of the things that led me to
realize that was the fact that he had never given me any gift other than
books on my birthdays and when I tried to recall every book that he had
given me, it was almost impossible to mistake the message he was sending me.
The first ever book that I can recall that he bought me was a small 50 pages
book called “kya, kaisay, kyun” (“What, how and why”) printed by Ferozsons
in Lahore. The
book described why rain falls, how earthquakes happen etc. The other books
that I can recall getting as birthday gifts were “Origin of Species” and
“Descent of Man” by Darwin, “Out of my later days” by Einstein, “Ten days
that shook the world” by John Reed, “Why I’m not a Christian” and “Science
and Religion” by Russell and some more books on the same line.
Within his lifetime, I had shown my disinterest in Ahmadiyyat. I joined Tolu-e-Islam,
the organization mentored by late Ghulam Ahmad Parvez and at a very young
age, I was writing articles on Quran for Tolu-e-Islam. My father always
showed my articles to his friends proudly but never discussed their contents
with me. I took it as his agreement. He had never read the books by GA
Parvez (at least he never told me that he had. One of my cousins recently
informed me that my father used to quote Parvez quite frequently in his
discussions). I made him read some of the books because I desperately wanted
him to go to Tolu-e-Islam gatherings with me. He never cared for that. One
day while discussing something with him I referred to the book “Insaan ne
kya socha” (“What have humans thought”) by Parvez as the best work Parvez
had done. In this book, Parvez had attempted to deconstruct materialism,
democracy, Marxism etc. and dismissing them as futile attempts by human
intellect to solve human problems driving at his belief that only God can
provide the ultimate solutions. My father listened to me and said that when
he read the book in question, he thought that it was the weakest work by
Parvez. I remember him saying, “Parvez knows Quran and he should stick to
it. In this book, he is exploring territories that he doesn’t know anything
about”. At age 16 or 17, it was inconceivable and unacceptable to me that GA
Parvez could be wrong about anything. To me, at that time, he was the
ultimate thinker of his time. My father’s assertion ignited the only
argument that I ever had with him (well, only in the sense of ideological
arguments. We had numerous when it came to cricket). During the argument, he
told me patiently that no scholar, however great he/she might be, was worth
following blindly. He asked me to take any one thing in the book in question
and study it independently. His claim was that I would soon see that things
were not as simple as Pervez made them out to be. When I refused to budge,
he asked how convinced I was on the thoughts of Parvez on Ahadees. I told
him that Parvez had made a slam-dunk case and I was convinced that most of
the collections of Ahadees were fabrications. He said, “but I have never
seen you reading Sahih Bukhari. How do you know what Parvez is saying is
really in Sahih Bukhari or he is not quoting it out of context?” I couldn’t
answer that. He then bought me Maududi’s “Tafheemaat” and I began to see
that the arguments presented by Parvez were not as rock solid as I always
thought they were. That was an important lesson in skepticism and later in
my life I started reading every book with a fair amount of skepticism.
Anyway, fast-forward to my own married life. I am much more out of closet
than my father as an agnostic. Many people among my family and friends know
that I am a skeptic to the core and those who don’t know for sure, suspect
it. My wife is a believer. Unlike my mother, she occasionally offers
prayers. We own two prayer-mats. I voice my opinions about religion openly
and my wife knows full well that I have doubts about the existence of God
but, strangely, she has never pushed me to state it in black and white
terms. My own assessment is that she wants me to be a believer. I think she
suspects what the answer would be if she pops the question and I think she
wants to live in a comfortable state of uncertainty. Respecting her wishes,
I have never been “in her face” with my views. I have a 10 years old son and
a 7 years old daughter. I do not tell them what to believe and what not to
believe. I encourage skepticism in them. I have always answered their
questions with rational reasons without resorting to God. When my son asked
me why was it bad to steal, I didn’t tell him, “Because God doesn’t like
it”. My wife does teach them as much religion as she knows like reciting
“Bismillah” before eating something. I have never objected to that. As for
myself, I tell my kids all the time to approach everything with an open
mind. Because of this approach, we have no friction at home regarding
children’s upbringing. My wife once asked me if we should teach them how to
read Quran and I told her that nobody had done that to me and I know Quran
much more than an average Muslim. She has seen me reading and quoting Quran
frequently so she was convinced and dropped the issue.
The most interesting episode in this regard occurred in 2004. We have an
Islamic organization here in NJ that runs a summer Islamic school. All my
friends enrolled their kids in the year 2004. My wife wanted our kids to
join too. I thought about it for a long time and then agreed with my wife.
One day my son came home from the Islamic school and he had a visibly
confused expression. When I asked him what was the matter, he said, “our
teacher in the Islamic school said that the humanity began with one man
named Adam and one woman named Hava. Is that really true?” I kept talking to
him about this for a couple of days, encouraging him to ask the teacher
whatever questions he had in mind. His conclusion few days later was that he
was not convinced that there was enough proof to believe that account. He
kept up having similar discussions through out that summer. My wife wanted
me to give him traditional answers to his questions. I refused and asked her
to do it herself. Eventually, she saw that my son was getting more and more
confused just because he has a tendency to doubt and I was not clamping down
on his doubts with iron boots. In fact, I was encouraging him to think about
things on his own. There were other such episodes as well. I guess my wife
decided that this wasn’t going anywhere and that is why she didn’t ask me to
send our kids to the Islamic school next year.
So, when it comes to mixed unions, I don’t see much of a problem there if
the partners in the union learn to respect each other’s spheres. Of course,
there are reasons for a friction in such a union but there are always
reasons for a friction when two people are married to each other. If it’s
not ideological, it can be something else. I haven’t seen any friction-less
union in my life. That doesn’t mean that the possibility of co-existence
should be ruled out. As for the children of mixed unions, I consider them
luckier than the other kids since they have options and can see both
perspectives and make up their minds about their ideology.
Rafi Aamer
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Dear Dr.
Khalid Sohail,
The
subject is very sensitive and touchy, especially for me. As I am going to
share my own experience of dealing these issues while I was raising my
children. I don’t have exactly correct knowledge how much generally parents
love their children but as far as I was concerned in those days I was deeply
in love with my children. I was sincere and honest with them, being an
atheist I was reluctant to imposed my thoughts on my children in spite of
the fact, I had no doubt in mind about my own belief. I never ever talked
against the norms of society of that time and general Muslims beliefs but I
never tolerated any wrongful, fundamental or any thought against general
commonsense.
Out of my
three children, my daughter Farah was the youngest. When she was six, one
day she said to me that Sheas are very bad people, during muharram when they
cook "Pullaoo" they kill children and add their meat in the rice. I got
stunned, I never heard that kind of statement before. I picked up my
daughter, put her in my lap and asked her who told you this. I don’t
remember who told her this stuff, but very softly I explained to her that in
my opinion this is absolutely wrong, I added that my mother was Shea and I
used to go to Majlis and many times I had eaten that Niaz. The Sheas are
normal people they don’t do this kind of evil acts.
When
she was in grade 7th, at that time I was in the US but I was in contact with
her via email. Once she wrote me that these western people are very biased
and against Islam because when Armstrong landed at the Moon he heard the
voice of Azaan at Moon but he did not told the world about it, I asked her
that who told you this. She said one of teacher told me. The school she
was studying was a famous English Medium School. I asked my daughter to
tell me the name of teacher so I talk to the Principal of the School because
the teacher is preaching baseless and wrong things to the students. my
daughter never told the name of the teacher. However I insisted again &
again and later I felt that my daughter does not have courage to stand in
front of that teacher.
I never
had such situation with my both sons. I never preached any thing against
religion to them but as I was a roll model for them, I tried to demonstrate,
honesty, truth, humanity and other human values (although I was not
perfect), Their questions, were never controversial like my daughter, and I
always gave my truthful opinion to them.
Thanks,
Malik Khan. |
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Dear Dr. Sb,
I have not yet been a parent who has raised children but I am just about to
be one. Since this is so imminent for me in the near future, I feel like
a stakeholder in the discussion too. My situation is going to be a bit
different from my father's situation because in my case, my wife is also
secular, we live in a secular society (Toronto) and we don't have too many
relatives around to simulate the social pressure religion thrives in. But
first I will comment on the situation which my father was a subject to, that
is, if you are a lone rationalist (or atheist if you like) and rest of the
society including your wife are normal Muslims.
This looks to be a very dismal situation to me because no matter how
reasonable you may sound to your kids, you can never have complete control
over your children's acquisition of ideas. Probably the best thing in such
as situation would be something very close to what my father did. In such a
situation, one should try hard to make sure that his/her children do not get
thoroughly and completely indoctrinated with ideas religion is try to
instill. This does not have to be and should not be done with confrontation.
One should try hard to make children develop critical thinking in various
aspects of life while cleverly avoiding any direct confrontation with
religion which can cause psychological damage to a child's mind who is not
ready to decide for himself at that stage. In other words, when a child asks
if Prophet Mohammad was the most pious man in the world, your answer should
be 'Yes'. The emphasis at this time should be to help the child develop
mental tendencies and capabilities which can help him to critically analyze
any belief he/she may encounter through out his life. The important thing is
that a child's brain has to be conditioned in right way for him to
understand what is good for him and what is bad. There should be no
imposition of ideas on him, whether religious or otherwise, for every person
has his own truth which he has to discover for himself.
==================
Now I will come to my situation and will try to speculate what will happen
to my child who is one year old in terms of accepting ideas about 'bigger
questions' of existence, morality and beliefs.
I strongly believe that if a child's mind is positively conditioned in a
certain way, he can never fall prey to any institution of religious bigotary.
This conditioning would include the assurance that he develops the following
traits:
- develops a personality without complexes of identity and purpose
- scientifically approaches problems through education and experience
- puts himself in other people's shoes in order not to be carried away by
his own subjective experiences and opinions
- has knowledge of human history in an un-biased way and various theories
trying to explain human behaviour such as modern psychology and evolution
I feel that my responsibility towards my children will be to ensure that
they get the above mentioned traits in their early life. After that, they
will have a right a choose any ideology which appeals to them and I am sure
they will never choose any idea that stinks.
=====================
Now coming to the direct questions you answered in your email:
A, Issues of belief in God, Prophets, Scriptures and Life after Death.
B, Issues of rituals….prayers, fasting and pilgrimage.
C, Issue of ethics and concepts of sin and guilt.
A:
I think that parent should take an impartial stand on the questions of God,
Prophets, Scriptures. They should be told that many people believe that
there is a god who is like an elder brother and he sends Prophets to show
people the right way. They should be told that they have a right to believe
or disbelieve in this information. At the same time, they should be told
that all these messengers were good human beings who were good role models
for being a good person. About the questions of paradise and hell, I think
they should be mildly told that in their parents' opinions, these places do
not exist as I feel that such unreal concepts would not be healthy for
children psychologically. In contrast to this, concepts like existence of
Santa Clause can be okay for children to believe.
B:
Rituals, Prayers, Fasting and Pilgrimages should be something we can do
without. These are unnecessary responsibilities which can cause tension and
guilt in a child's mind.
C:
Children should be conditioned to come up with a version of morality of
their own which is based on their innate feelings of good and bad,
transparent and positive education and liberal teachings from their parents.
They should be taught to take the responsibility of their actions, not
believing in useless concepts such as fate. They should be told that there
are no lines drawn anywhere which define a moral act from an immoral one.
They should be taught the evolutionary process by which human morality has
been shaped. They should be taught that their way of life should include
defending their right to pursue happiness in a way which does not come in
anybody else's right to the same.
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Children and a
humanistic view of life
With My wife and I
being parents of four children and having both humanistic views of life some
may wonder how we have taken on the challenge to explain to our children
they may have different views other than the large percentage of their
fellow classmates and even extended members of our family. I have always
thought that every child should have the gift of being able to think for
them selves when it comes to understanding life in our universe. I feel
everyone should have a clear mind when one starts to wonder of our existence
on earth and within the universe. I have always told my children from a very
young age to question a thought or idea before agreeing on it to be true. I
have told my children that they will be faced with situations that can not
be explained at our present time but that does not give us reason to come to
some conclusion to define it for the sake of having an answer like calling
it an act of god. They have had many questions addressing religion and
science and I have always let them give their best explanation first. I have
always been truthful to them in saying that we have no evidence to prove a
universe created by a god but many facts through science that explain how
life has evolved in our universe to the best of our knowledge. This maybe
revised in time as science and man advances but at this point in time we do
have answers to back up our most defining theories. What I have just
explained took a few different twists and turns to get them to comprehend
and make it enjoyable for such short attention spans considering their age.
It is true that not
every child or person takes the same interest in knowing about our existence
and I have observed this with our children. Some have different interests
such as an attraction to space or animals or even dinosaurs. The great thing
about this is that each of these topics has proof to explain a world created
without a creator or designer labeled as a god as we know of one in
religious scripture. I have observed their confidence towards life compared
to other children who have an understanding of a god created world and shows
me the advantages that are benefited with a humanistic view. They see the
world as one, a place shared by everyone else that has evolved here through
the same process for the same purpose. They see the problems in the world
which are caused from racism, greed and religion and view them from the
outside instead of being consumed from within by the man made evils that
infect our cultures world wide. They know their beliefs of earth are based
on facts not mythological ideas. Now that all said I am sure it’s not as
clear in their minds as we read the above and consume it but that have
planted their own seed and all we have done is added a little sun and water
to help its growth were as religion plants a seed and waters it as well.
We have spent many
nights at the dinner table discussing the widest range of topics from space
to plants, religion and even disease. This year 3 of the 4 children had
speeches to do for school. The oldest at 14 did hers on Global warming, The
12 year old did his on Charles Darwin’s Evolution and the youngest at 11 did
his on Cancer. I was very proud that the each took on the task of actually
having to learn about a topic rather than choose something they were more
familiar with like a sport or social activity. I feel the result of their
decisions is from the talks and explanations of how our world has proven to
be.
I remember attending
a family Baptism with them all and once we were home I was surprised at
their logic in explaining and taking apart what was said and what we saw.
They have been taught to respect others beliefs and understand that most
people have never had the chance to decide for themselves as what to
believe. They all know how they became victim to believing in a Man in a red
suit who brings gifts each year with the same hand writing and gift wrapping
skills as Mommy and Daddy.
I have found some
wonderful tools to help in my explanations which I will share with you. Here
is one which is quoted from Author and biologist Richard Dawkins which he
read and used to explain to his Daughter the size of the universe. This
gives a child an easy way to visualize the size of our universe. They can
then feel their place in our world and realize there is a lot more out there
than our planet and our home and most of all us.
“To show how real
astronomical wonder can be presented to children, I'll borrow from a book
called Earthsearch by John Cassidy, which I brought back from America to
show my daughter Juliet. Find a large open space and take a soccer ball to
represent the sun. Put the ball down and walk ten paces in a straight line.
Stick a pin in the ground. The head of the pin stands for the planet
Mercury. Take another 9 paces beyond Mercury and put down a peppercorn to
represent Venus. Seven paces on, drop another peppercorn for Earth. One inch
away from earth, another pinhead represents the Moon, the furthest place,
remember, that we've so far reached. 14 more paces to little Mars, then 95
paces to giant Jupiter, a ping-pong ball. 112 paces further, Saturn is a
marble. No time to deal with the outer planets except to say that the
distances are much larger. But, how far would you have to walk to reach the
nearest star, Proxima Centauri? Pick up another soccer ball to represent it,
and set off for a walk of 4200 miles. As for the nearest other galaxy,
Andromeda, don't even think about it!”
I will end with some
other wonderful educational tools for children and for that matter parents
because I have learnt so much from them as well are some fascinating shows
now available on DVD.
Here is a short list of
DVDs which are all available
Carl Sagan’s – cosmos 13
series set
David Attenborough’s -
Planet earth and many other before that as well
Richard Dawkins Growing
up in the Universe – Just released on DVD from the
Christmas Lectures on
BBC In 1991
The illustration below
is a wonderful look at our 14 Billion year old universe scaled into a one
year calendar with the month of December in full. This is the wonderful work
of Carl Sagan who has a great passion for life and I can’t think of anyone
better to explain it than him. This calendar is also in the Series Cosmos
mentioned above.
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