Religion ( ducks behind couch!)

Nayeela - to answer your question, personally my kids can adopt what ever religion they think works for them.

However I would like them to be rational about the questions they ask from the outset.

I have no issue "in theory" with religion - whether it is Islam or Christianity or what ever else goes along with it.

I think the problems that I have with established religions in general are:-

What ever religion you (fill in who ever you are here) are in must always be the right one - for some reason everyone else appears to be doing the wrong religion as opposed to one person is doing.

Religious zealots who believe without a shadow of doubt that what they believe is correct, and everyone else is wrong. I think a healthy dose of scepticism is good for anything that becomes this all consuming.

Intolerance - it always appears to be the religion that feels they are being prejudiced against the most, always feel the need to be the most intolerant to others.

I struggle when the main motivation for someone being religious is because if they aren't they will burn in hell or not get ever lasting life or what ever else the prize is.

Any war that has a religious person standing there going - yes this is a good war, we are on Gods side, go and kill those fellas who aren't! Right there you can cross that religion off my list of religions I think meet the 'top 10' this-is-a-great-religion-to-follow list.

Nayeela wrote:

Just one question though to those that said that you do not mind if your children follow a different religion later in life, would you be ok if for example your child embraces Islam when your whole family is of a different religion?

Am using Islam here as an example as that is what I know.

Congrats Nayeela - seems you have gotten a good balance going there. I would have no problem with my daughter embracing Islam - it's a positive religion. I would only hesitate if she wanted to join some kind of cult that could potentially harm her .

I just don't want to sit on the fence - which is what I feel I am doing - I wish I had sufficient conviction in my OWN befeifs to be able to just pass them on to the daughter - but I don't so I guess I'm going to have to find some kind of middle ground.

RM - my daughter found a particularily gruesome crucifiction picture in amongst the recycled paper bin at school and it disturbed her and I've had to explain it and rationalise it - people really should be careful of what they throw away!

Again...don't know if what I'm going to say fits in here...

I also grew up in a Christian home...went to church, did the whole "Sondagskool" and "Aanneming & Voorstelling"...

But....Jayden is turning 5 this year and he has not been baptised. When he was born we lived in Rustenburg, without transport at the time. We wanted to come back to my home to baptise him here (strangers in a strange place, don't know which church or where to go), and the "dominee" in my home church (who was new) said we must first attend church in Rustenburg. So I thought stuff that. I have been in my home church since I was 9, got married there and everything, now I can't come and baptise my son there?

Now I keep getting asked - when are you going to baptise him. I just answer, if he dies today, he won't go to hell because he has not been baptised! We do tell him about Jesus etc etc, but I just now have this thing that one day he must decide where he wants to go and how he wants to do it - eg "groot doop".

I am currently busy reading a book called "Lewe na die dood. Hemel & Hel" (sorry for all the Afrikaans), and it is very eye opening for me - especially after my dad passing away, and having all these thoughts of where has he gone, will we see him again one day, will we regognise each other...

I have blended traditions from my husbands family with our own traditions. DH comes from a Christian family so when its easter and christmas we celebrate and we celebrate Eid and we fast too. My in-laws actually celebrate Eid with us too even though they are not Muslim.

With regards to Christmas, we celebrate Family so we do not attach the same meaning to it as the Christians do and that is what we are teaching K too.

I love the fact that we have managed to blend our family traditions so well and we are really proud of that.

Just one question though to those that said that you do not mind if your children follow a different religion later in life, would you be ok if for example your child embraces Islam when your whole family is of a different religion?

Am using Islam here as an example as that is what I know.

I just can't reconcile my practical scientific side with my wanting to have faith in something that is essentially abstract. I have no issues with religion at all - I am , I suppose a spiritual person - I believe in karma and I also see the beauty and merit in tradition and ritual and the neccessity for a sound moral code. I just feel it's such a personal thing - that really needs to be sorted out for yourself but then as a parent, I am responsible for some kind of spiritual education for my child and this is where the problem lies!

Yes, I have found this a particular difficult hurdle to get over, and I still stumble a bit.

We are pretty much agnostic and my son when to a CBC initially as I really liked the school.

So he got Mary, Jesus and Joseph pretty much all day - and they had a rosary and the entire bit (very very Roman Catholic especially in his class).

I am not a catholic in any sense of the word, and am rather opposed so some of their beliefs, but .......

I decided to let it go and "go with the flow" of the school - he got really upset when he heard that Jesus had been killed. My son was CRYING UPSET when he came home before Easter, and needed to be consoled.

I did not contradict the school's teaching but I did find it was a great springboard to discussions.

I would keep asking my son "so what do you think?" or "what do you think really happened there...?"

My son after listening to a discussion about creation, asked me on the drive home how it was that there were dinosaur bones older than people were meant to have been around for, and how did God do it in 7 days. (I am simplifying what he said but that was the point)

I asked him again "so what do you think happened?"

And he came up with his own theory which I felt was a healthy mix of creationism and evolution.

I am sort of on the fence about it, so we discuss both ideas easily in our household.

My mother is a Jehovah's Witness so when my kids go there she chats to them and does bible stories and my kids refer to God as Jehovah.

My mom does not do Xmas or Easter, and chats to my kids as to why it is not part of her belief structure.

However I also discuss with my kids as to why we celebrate certain things and what it means to us as a family, and that we also respect others who might not share our belief system.

Our slogan is: "It is not wrong or right, or better or worse, it is just different..."

I also chat to them about other religions.

To be honest - for me it is important that they are exposed and they are tolerant.

It is so easy for us to push our ideas on our children and they believe only what we believe because that is what we were taught.

My theory is that my kids can negotiate their belief system as they get older, I merely act as a guide - and in some cases I honestly say "I don't know" when faced with something I am unsure of.

My kids go through "religious" stages.

My daughter likes a bible story at bedtime (she knew who Enoch was before I read the story, so I was mighty impressed), my son likes to pray at meal times .... my daughter loves to quote bible scripture at the most inoptune times ........we do neither as habit, but if they wish to do them, I am happy to walk the road with them.

We are not a religious family, but my kids are religious, and I am happy to sit and have healthy discussions about them on religion.

Some times it is hard as I am not always sure what I believe, so sometimes my head does hurt a bit following one of those discussions.

I am not sure if that "model" would work for you.

Hi,

I am Muslim and I have only been to Christian schools. My schools even had a chapel that kids attended. However that never interfered with my beliefs and I learnt about Easter, Bible, Jesus etc too. We also had a class called Religion of the world where we learnt about all the other beliefs. However what was instilled in me at home is what I believed in. I will be doing the same with Kamilah. Its important to allow children to learn about the religions that exist but in my case, Islam will be the focus at home as that is what our family believes in and am hoping that she will have a similar experience at school to what I had.