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How Do You Help Your Child Follow Their Religious Explorations If You Are Atheist?


My son is quite impressionable, and he has shared with us quite often his tender musings about god and what he associates himself as being (Christian Nondenominational). So, I intend to fully support his right to worship, but I refuse to go to church myself. He is 12 years old, so naturally, I asked him to speak to his friends who attend church and ask their parents if he can attend with them. I told him most religious people would be glad to have a guest come to their church. So far, he has not followed through. We have bibles in the home, but he doesn’t read them. I really think he should read the bible and see what he is choosing to believe in, but he doesn’t seem compelled to do that either. Since I am not pushing anything on him or restricting him from anything, I don’t know where he is getting all this religious fervor from, but I would like to see him think about things more instead of jumping into murky tanks of water. How do you do that gently? For example: Yesterday at the dentist’s office while waiting to be seen, my son has this dialog with me (the atheist mom):
“Mom, look at this picture (Some place in BFE, Texas, it just had a cross on it) is this where Jesus died?”
“I don’t feel qualified to answer such a question, son. But I would have to rationally guess, no.”
“Mom, do you know when Jesus is coming back?”
*I cringe*
“Um, I think you should ask a religion professional that question. But keep in mind, humans are prone to make errors with predicting the weather, and they have meteorology schools to teach this skill. I don’t think we can accurately predict a thing like that if it is so.”
So…you see some of my problem. Then most of my family are hardcore fundamentalists and I don’t want to expose my son to that. The friends I have that are “Christian” are unaffiliated or loosely affiliated and they don’t do church. What would you do in my situation?

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