On a recent CNN iReport, a user named TXBlue08 provides seven reasons why she chooses to raise her children without belief in God. Her essay has already been viewed over 800,000 times. Given its popularity, I'd like to examine her seven reasons:

"1. God is a bad parent and role model.

Good parents don’t allow their children to inflict harm on others. “He has given us free will,” you say? Our children have free will, but we still step in and guide them."

Parents discipline their children, but they don’t reprogram them to be mindless, obedient robots. If God eliminates all evil his children commit, will any of his children even be left? God loves his children so much that he allows them to exist, even if they disobey him.

"2. God is not logical. 

How many times have you heard, “Why did God allow this to happen?” And this: “It’s not for us to understand.” Translate: We don’t understand, so we will not think about it or deal with the issue."

While TXBlue08 says God is illogical, I think she really means humans are illogical. She complains, rightly so, about people who give trite answers for evils like the Newtown school shooting (i.e., “God is mad we banned prayer in public schools”). But Jesus says that God doesn’t cause evil in order to punish sins.

When they saw a blind man, Jesus' disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus answered, “Neither he nor his parents sinned; it is so that the works of God might be made visible through him" (John 9:1-3).

God can allow evil so that goods, such as love or courage, can also exist. Since God has made us our brother’s keepers, we have a responsibility to care for each other. If atheism is true, we can ignore problems in the world that don't move our conscience, since in a strictly material universe there is no objective fact that we ought to help others.

"3 – 4. God is not fair. God does not protect the innocent.

If God is fair, then why does he answer the silly prayers of some while allowing other serious requests to go unanswered?...Why can’t God, with all his powers of omnipotence, protect the innocent?"

These two reasons are essentially the perennial question, “Why does God allow bad things to happen to good people?” I can’t fully answer this question in a blog post, but a few points may help shed light on this mystery.  First, God is fair in that he does not favor certain groups of people more than other groups. Jesus says God makes “his sun rise on the bad and the good, and causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust” (Matt. 5:45).

Second, we are not in a position to know if God can bring more good from the evils he tolerates. The goods that result from evil may not emerge for hundreds or thousands of years.

Finally, God bears the sufferings of all people and redeems them with his sacrifice on the cross. Ultimately, good will defeat evil, and the innocent in God shall have their eternal reward.  But if atheism is true, then all suffering is pointless, and our deceased loved ones are nothing but worm food. For more on this important topic, I recommend C.S. Lewis's book The Problem of Pain.

"5. God is not present.

Telling our children to love a person they cannot see, smell, touch, or hear does not make sense."

It makes as much sense as telling an adopted child his mother loved him even if the child cannot experience physically his mother’s existence. The fact that the child exists is evidence he had a mother, just as the existence of the universe is evidence of its cosmic creator.

"6. God does not teach children to be good.

It’s like telling a child to behave or Santa won’t bring presents. When we take God out of the picture, we place responsibility of doing the right thing onto the shoulders of our children."

If God does not exist, then the concept of “good” is meaningless. Think about it: If there is no God, then we are just atoms in motion that came into existence as part of a cosmic accident. Morality deals with the way things should be. But if life is an accident, then there is no way anything should be, and morality is a feeling we can ignore like any other feeling.

Under Christianity, God teaches us to be good because he teaches us to be like him, the perfect Good, which we were made to follow. Scripture says, “Like obedient children, do not act in compliance with the desires of your former ignorance but, as he who called you is holy, be holy yourselves in every aspect of your conduct” (1 Pet. 1:15-16).

"7. God teaches narcissism.

Telling kids there is a big guy in the sky who has a special path for them makes children narcissistic; it makes them think the world is at their disposal and that, no matter what happens, it doesn’t really matter, because God is in control."

This is backward. It is atheism that encourages narcissism, because if everything is an accident then all that matters is how life turns out for you. The only alternative to narcissism for atheists is nihilism, or the belief that nothing really matters, since the universe has no plan or purpose.

If God exists and has a plan for us, then that is truly humbling, because the infinite creator of the universe wants us to cooperate with him to bring about good. And he will give us grace to help! If that doesn’t make you tremble with joyful fear, I’m not sure what will.
 
 
Originally posted at Catholic Answers. Used with author's permission.
(Image credit: JChristoff.com)

Time Magazine's recent cover story "The Childfree Life" has generated a good deal of controversy and commentary. The photo that graces the cover of the edition pretty much sums up the argument: a young, fit couple lounge languidly on a beach and gaze up at the camera with blissful smiles—and no child anywhere in sight.

What the editors want us to accept is that this scenario is not just increasingly a fact in our country, but that it is morally acceptable as well, a lifestyle choice that some people legitimately make. Whereas in one phase of the feminist movement, "having it all" meant that a woman should be able to both pursue a career and raise a family, now it apparently means a relationship and a career without the crushing encumbrance of annoying, expensive, and demanding children.

There is no question that childlessness is on the rise in the United States. Our birthrate is the lowest in recorded history, surpassing even the crash in reproduction that followed the economic crash of the 1930's. We have not yet reached the drastic levels found in Europe (in Italy, for example, one in four women never give birth), but childlessness has risen in our country across all ethnic and racial groups, even those that have traditionally put a particular premium on large families.

What is behind this phenomenon? The article's author spoke to a variety of women who had decided not to have children and found a number of different reasons for their decision. Some said that they simply never experienced the desire for children; others said that their careers were so satisfying to them that they couldn't imagine taking on the responsibility of raising children; still others argued that in an era when bringing up a child costs upward of $250,000, they simply couldn't afford to have even one baby; and the comedian Margaret Cho admitted, bluntly enough, "Babies scare me more than anything." A researcher at the London School of Economics weighed in to say that there is a tight correlation between intelligence and childlessness: the smarter you are, it appears, the less likely you are to have children!

In accord with the tenor of our time, those who have opted out of the children game paint themselves, of course, as victims. They are persecuted, they say, by a culture that remains relentlessly baby-obsessed and, in the words of one of the interviewees, "oppressively family-centric." Patricia O'Laughlin, a Los Angeles-based psychotherapist, specializes in helping women cope with the crushing expectations of a society that expects them to reproduce. As an act of resistance, many childless couples have banded together for mutual support. One such group in Nashville comes together for activities such as "zip-lining, canoeing, and a monthly dinner the foodie couple in the group organizes." One of their members, Andrea Reynolds, was quoted as saying, "We can do anything we want, so why wouldn't we?"

What particularly struck me in this article was that none of the people interviewed ever moved outside of the ambit of his or her private desire. Some people, it seems, are into children, and others aren't, just as some people like baseball and others prefer football. No childless couple would insist that every couple remain childless, and they would expect the same tolerance to be accorded to them from the other side. But never, in these discussions, was reference made to values that present themselves in their sheer objectivity to the subject, values that make a demand on freedom. Rather, the individual will was consistently construed as sovereign and self-disposing.

And this represents a sea change in cultural orientation. Up until very recent times, the decision whether or not to have children would never have been simply "up to the individual." Rather, the individual choice would have been situated in the context of a whole series of values that properly condition and shape the will: family, neighborhood, society, culture, the human race, nature, and ultimately, God. We can see this so clearly in the initiation rituals of primal peoples and in the formation of young people in practically every culture on the planet until the modern period. Having children was about carrying on the family name and tradition; it was about contributing to the strength and integrity of one's society; it was about perpetuating the great adventure of the human race; it was a participation in the dynamisms of nature itself. And finally, it was about cooperating with God's desire that life flourish: "And you, be fruitful and multiply, teem on the earth and multiply in it" (Gen. 9:7).

None of this is meant to be crushing to the will, but liberating. When these great values present themselves to our freedom, we are drawn out beyond ourselves and integrated into great realities that expand us and make us more alive.

It is finally with relief and a burst of joy that we realize that our lives are not about us. Traditionally, having children was one of the primary means by which this shift in consciousness took place. That increasingly this liberation is forestalled and that people are finding themselves locked in the cold space of what they sovereignly choose, I find rather sad.
 
 
Originally posted at Real Clear Religion. Used with author's permission.
(Image credit: TIME Magazine)

In my part of the country, it's common to raise your kids to be "open-minded about religion." I know quite a few parents who are taking this route, and it seems to be a more and more popular choice every year. I've always respected the sentiment that drives this decision. The parents I know who want their children to be open-minded in this area typically seem to do so out of a desire to respect different viewpoints, and a hope that their children will think for themselves rather than blindly believing what their parents tell them to believe. The sentiment is admirable, but recently I've started to wonder:

Is such a thing even possible?

If being in a state of open-mindedness means that you're asking questions, seeking knowledge, and attempting to evaluate data without bias, it seems that that should be a transitory state: At some point, you either find answers, or determine that the answers are not findable. In either case you now have a defined belief system, even if it's agnosticism. At this point, while you may be open to hearing new perspectives, you are no longer "open-minded" in the sense of not having any opinions about matters of spirituality -- you've found your belief system.

The problem comes in when people speak of open-mindedness about faith as a long-term state of being. I recently heard about a local family where the son converted to Christianity in college, and it caused problems with his parents since they had raised him to be "open to all belief systems." The parents' and the son's two different interpretations of this directive led to painful confrontations: The son was surprised that his mom and dad reacted negatively to his conversion, since he thought that he was simply following the tenets of his childhood worldview to their logical conclusion. He explored the world's belief systems with an open mind, then, when he saw that one made more sense than the others, he became a member of that religion. The parents, on the other hand, were shocked, since the image of their son tearfully giving his life to Jesus Christ and playing guitar for a praise and worship youth group was not at all what they had in mind when they raised him to be open-minded about religion.

I would encourage modern parents to think about this issue carefully. As this concept increases in popularity, it's easy to go with the flow and become an "open-minded about religion" family without first fleshing out all the implications of that credo. If you believe that objective truth cannot be known, then you are in fact not open to the religions that say that it can be known. It may be possible to say that you're agnostic but taking bits of wisdom from various world religions, but to be truly open-minded about religion is always a short-term state.

To take it a step further, I would encourage modern parents to shun the concept altogether, and embrace the search for objective truth instead.  You can guess where I think such a search would lead, but even if your conclusions are different from mine, I think that it would be more fruitful -- and would probably lead to a healthier family dynamic -- than aiming for near-impossible task of being in a permanent state of evaluating data without coming to any conclusions. I would love to see a change in the tone of the typical playground chit-chat about faith, when instead of saying, "We're raising our kids to be open-minded about religion," more parents would say, "We're raising our kids to seek the truth."
 
 
Originally published at National Catholic Register. Used with author's permission.
(Image credit: Copmi)

I grew up in a home where my mother and father, both fallen-away Christians, wanted to let my sister and I “decide our own beliefs.” The idea, of course, is that we are blank slates and my parents would not indoctrinate me into a particular religion, thus letting me collect data and inputs over time and eventually grow up and choose my own beliefs or worldview. I can see how someone would think this makes sense.

But in fact my sister and I both became agnostics, mirroring the (un)belief system of our parents. This was no accident, because it’s impossible to rear your child in a vacuum. Whether you like it or not, you are teaching them things about the world, existence, and faith (through your actions, the things you say and don’t say, etc.)

They bought us books on evolution that claimed humans evolved from single-celled organisms. We never once said a prayer in our home thanking “someone” for the many blessings we had. We only went to church for a short time, and that was at the Unitarian Universalist church where people believed all kinds of contradictory things. In short, the guidance we were given supported an atheistic materialism worldview and argued against a Christian one.

It is not surprising then that my sister and I both became agnostics (though in truth I was militantly atheistic, seeking to convince Christian friends that God did not exist). Did we choose this? Yes, but the unbelief of our parents was an instrumental influence in our decision, as it is with any child.

There is no escaping influencing your child. The only question is: what will you influence them to believe?

This great responsibility is all the more reason to yourself delve into philosophy so as to understand the right use of reason, allowing you to penetrate into the truths of existence and ultimately supporting the assent of faith. Along these lines, I would highly recommend Dr. Edward Feser’s book The Last Superstition, which refutes atheism via the right use of reason for reason is on the side of Christianity.

You can only give what you yourself possess: form yourself in the truth that you may pass it on to your children. Do not be fooled when someone claims you are “indoctrinating” your children into your belief system. You are teaching them the objective truth of existence. They are seeking to do the same, only their beliefs may be false and if so, they're passing on errors to their children.

Whether Catholics or atheists, we have the responsibility as parents to teach our children how to reason cogently. If we instruct them in this invaluable skill, we can be hopeful that they will be able to discover the truth.
 
 
Originally posted at St. Joseph's Vanguard. Used with author's permission.