You tell me why should I baptise the kid instead of converting it to muslim. It's just as harmless proccess as baptising, and maybe my kid will like to be a muslim, and by not converting him I will just "iimit his possibilities!"

Seriously, I believe that being baptized as an adult is way easier than erasing yourself from fucking church's records and from the church itself.

And as orcishgamer brilliantly said - religion isn't about conformity and presents, which is a valuable lesson. Many people I know go to church only because "others do", which has nothing to do with spirituality.

I believe that a choice if you want to believe in God A instead of B and to be a member of its church, is a choice that should be made with consciensce. I know, from my perspective, that I would be glad if my parents spared me attending to brainwashing masses, humiliating confessions and some other crap that is required to take the communion etc even though they didn't require me to go to church every sunday.

Having to tell some old prick that you touched yourself (because that's what they teach you in school) is humiliating and kids shouldn't be forced on kid just because "communion presents, yay!"

I will teach my kid, that being religious is not something you are born with, it's something you choose - and you choose freely, you don't choose something that is chosen by majority just to adapt.

And I seriously hope that families started by people like you (no offence) will be diminishing, so religion will not be an excuse to conform to society and getting some presents. Because that's just retarded.

And last but not least, a little selfish thing: I will not let my kid being brainwashed in primary school. To attend to communion you have to take religion at school. And when you are 7 year old, some old fuck will scare your kid to death with images of hell and eternal damnation if he doesn't follow some idiotic rules like "attend to church every sunday".

For many people, choosing different belief or not believing at all, would be much easier, if they weren't indoctrinized as children. And I want my kid's mind to stay clear, to make a choice on his own. And no, I will not indoctrinate my kid into atheism, because that's a bad thing too. If I'm going to teach him about religion , I will try to stay as neutral as possible. Because that's what in my opinion, a good parent should do.

So are you planning to home school them then? That would still be brainwashing, just by you instead of the primary school.

When it comes down to it, we have an obligation to teach our children what we think is beneficial for them to learn. That's just as true for math and science as it is for religion. Even teaching them how to evaluate evidence is a form of indoctrination itself.

No. I don't know if you understood me, buy in Polish schools there are religion lessons. And if you don't want to attend to religion lessons, you have to cross your kid out of the list. And If you wanted your kid to take first communion because "presents and big party", you can't do that. You have to agree that your kid will be taught bullshit by a priest for two years.

And by religion lessons you would rather mean catholic religion lessons with a priest teaching your kids. So these lessons usually tell nothing about other religions (other than "you will go to hell if you believe in that crap!") than catholicism.

I think I needed to clarify that, because in USA in state schools shoving religion (and only one religion) down children's throat is unthinkable. More than that, in Poland religion lessons take more hours paid by taxpayers than history lessons, for example. In one year you can have 2 hrs of religion and 1 hrs of history (a week). Imagine that.

It's not a philosophical lesson about religions, gods or anything. IT's just learning catholic rules, prayers, and scaring small children with hell and eternal damnation. And I was literally taught, in primary school, for public money, that going to rock concerts is evil and only satanists go there, and if you do that, you will end up in burning flames. In public school.

I can trust schools in other subjects like maths or history. But I will of course encourage my kid to seek for answers and knowledge, and I will seek them with him or her.

And I'm sure as hell I don't want my kid to be taught that there is only one God, and it's JHVH and everybody who thinks otherwise is damned.

Oh no. You can't get the easy way and eat the cake and have it at the same time.
First Communion is holy sacrament and not bullshit "gimme present day".
All that believers hating in so called developed countries make me hate Europe.

Yeah, good luck finding a kid who will say "you may not give me any gifts, it's all about spirituality!" Tell that to a jewish kid at his bar mitzvah, and he will laugh at your face.

It is kinda sad, that this gifting tradition is "used" to buy children into religion, but well...

And this is a lesson I would want to teach my kid too: You are not religious because you want gifts. You can't teach them that by "we have to baptize our kid and let it take his first communion, because he will cry that other kids have parties and presents", as was suggested above.

This is what we are discussing here. lukaszthegreat said nothing about spirituality, all he said was "communion, presents and church wedding"

It was a bit tongue in cheek because we essentially send our kids to school to get brainwashed, so the only way not to have them brainwashed in school would be to brainwash them elsewhere. The point is that we indoctrinate our children about what and how to think based on what we think is valuable for them to learn. If parents think it is valuable for their children to learn about a certain religion or atheism, then they should teach them that. Trying to remain neutral, especially concerning life's most important questions, seems negligent. What if that happened to be true?

Then we will all live in hell, instead of being separated! :D

It's good to keep a sense of humor about these things, but I think if there is a hell, then the very last thing you would want would be for the people you care about to be there with you.

So think about that: our kids who choose christianity, they are in heaven. Knowing that their atheists parents are burning in hell.

Eternal happiness? :D

The stereotypical picture of Hell with brimstone and devils with pitchforks has never made any sense to me.

Even the idea of living for a few years and those few years deciding your fate for the rest of eternity is kind of absurd.

The (usual) buddhist theory of reincarnation and karma would make more sense - but I dont believe in that either. Not the karma part anyway - But the question between (kind of) eternal reincarnation and atheist/nihilist nothingness is far more interesting.

So you go round and round and round, another life another wound.
From death to birth, from birth to death, no time to waste, no time to rest.
So you go round and round and round, another life another wound,
and when you finally touch the light, they send you back into the night.

Reincarnation, torture never ends...

This is malarkey, it's not a "bit of water" it's what lesson your kid takes from the fact you did it when they know you don't believe. They take the lesson "conform or else". That is a horrible life lesson and will do more harm to that child should they find themselves outside of the norm on anything else than anything you're proposing.

Telling your child how the world works, as best you've been able to learn it, is expected, that's not "pushing your beliefs" on them. It's not like you're excluding them from others beliefs, as an atheist parent you're far more likely to explain all ranges of beliefs, not just the ones that float your boat.

Finally, if you think a couple of weeks of classes if they want to join a church later in life is a lot of effort. How fucking much is their faith or that religion worth to them?

What you're proposing is a life lesson I would never wish taught to any child whatsoever. There is more harm in it than anything you have proposed as "harm" by them not getting baptized. When I was a kid they still had prayer in schools, how exactly do you think the non-Christians felt, already being minorities in the community? Perhaps they should just stand up and take part in something that possibly offends them (not that we're doing it, but them doing it)? That's why we eliminated that shit in the US, it's oppression.

I thought cows were?:)

Or Dolphins.

If we stick to animal kingdom, then id guess no other species has as many mental issues as we have. For example, if you have pet dog or cat - they dont really have identity crises. They'll just happily wag tail, sleep on your keyboard and eat your remote controller until they die of old age. ...while we humans have this NEEEED to BE something, BECOME something, GET more stuff, HAVE more money and bigger willy/boobs etc. Then there's need to distinguish oneself from everyone else by either having some bling bling others dont have or whatever.

I dont understand what so damn superior about never being content with anything - its like great many people have whole lot of wants, simply to prove themselves that they are "something".

Animals dont have any burning need for having some sort of moral superiority and thats something many people could learn from I think.

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...and I give my vote for superiority of household cats as pinnacle of all life o/