It is almost a given in our society that kids should be raised with religion, because if they aren’t they will grow up to be juvenile delinquents, right? Wrong. Wronger than wrong. Not even wrong. The assumption is so bigoted and breathtakingly inane that it doesn’t deserve a debunking, but it gets one nonetheless in this volume, from nonbelievers of all stripes, who show how and why raising children without religion is not only a loving and ethical approach to parenthood, it is an honorable one.
– Michael Shermer

The preceding quote is from the forward to Dale McGowan’s Parenting Beyond Belief: On Raising Ethical, Caring Kids Without Religion, a collection of essays on raising children with a nonreligious, skeptical worldview.  Reasonable, honest atheists would never claim that raising a child with religious belief would by nature cause the child to grow up as a bad person (although some might argue that such belief can lead toward some unfortunate intellectual consequences), as no honest religious person would likewise claim about us.

The dishonest anti-atheist bigots, though, have no such scruples.  They ignore the fact that morals come from many sources, and that religion in practice has no historically valid claim to moral perfection.  That is, considering that the majority of people on our planet are religious to some degree, crime and acts that would be considered “immoral” by the religion’s own standards are still common by those who follow such faiths.  Clearly, being raised with religious belief does not in any way guarantee that one will be a “good person,” however that is defined.

If being raised with religious belief doesn’t in any way suggest one will end up a good person, there is no logical reason to think that the lack of such would make a child any more likely to turn out badly.  The burden of proof then gets even harder for the bigots to meet.  Being unable to logically suggest that the lack of religion during childhood would necessarily lead to negative consequences, they must show evidence that those without religion are more likely to be immoral.  There is no evidence at all for such an assertion.

It’s abundantly clear that the claim that instilling religious belief is needed for good parenting comes not from any evidence or even a logical train of thought, but simply from bigotry against the nonreligious.  The bigots come to the discussion with their minds made up from day one.  They know atheists cannot be good people, no matter how many atheists exist that would fit their definition of a good person save simply lacking religious belief.  No matter the facts, atheists will always be fatally flawed, and even bad people, because they are.  No evidence will ever sway them from this.  Just as an avowed racist will, in general, never accept that a black person can be an equal to them, it is the same with the anti-atheist bigots.  That’s what makes it bigotry, after all.

Don’t misunderstand me; I’m not being pessimistic.  We still need book like this, not only to let nonreligious parents know they are not alone, but to counter such notions in those who have been swayed by what I have frequently called the “pervasive bigotry” against the nonreligious in America but have not fallen fully into the mind-poison of bigotry.  We should and can show them that we are just like everyone else.  Some of us are good people and some of us aren’t, just like anyone else whether religious or not.

Tags: atheism, atheist, Dale McGowan, michael shermer, nonreligious, Parenting Beyond Belief