What are
/r/atheistparents'
favorite Products & Services?
From 3.5 billion Reddit comments
The most popular Products mentioned in /r/atheistparents:
The most popular Services mentioned in /r/atheistparents:
Drupal
Cozi
Google Fonts
Barnes & Noble
The most popular reviews in /r/atheistparents:
Maybe Christian Mythology for Kids? This one has a bit of a mocking tone though.
If you want to talk about Christmas, The Christmas Story: A True History of the Holidays might be useful.
I wish there was a D'Aulaire's book of Christian Myths like their Greek and Norse books. I love those.
In 'Man's Search for Meaning', Victor Frankl pointed out that the meaning of life is not a question you ask.
It is a question you have to answer.
Your daughter gets to decide what her life means; it's one of the obligations that comes with the territory of being human.
Most people tend to find meaning in doing something that helps other people or helps to leave the world a better place, although that's not necessarily true for everyone.
This problem would exist if religion were true as well. Living your life just to receive some eternal reward is like a child who only treats others well because he's going to get candy from his parents; it's shallow and not genuine. You can't say he's really a nice person; all you can say for sure is that he wants candy. Even if she believes in god(s), she is still obligated to find a purpose for her life that has true and genuine meaning for her.
Get the book "lifetimes" it explains life and death as a natural process and leaves out any magical ideas. It helped both of my kids understand death when our dog died.
IMHO, trying to make jesus accessible to a 5yo will only expose him to indoctrination material. It's a trap. Maybe start with greek or norse gods then tend to be way more... fun?
https://www.amazon.com/Beginning-Creation-Stories-Around-World/dp/0152387420
I second this. I got R. Crumb's Illustrated Book of Genesis to read with my daughter. (Highly recommend! The illustrations are perfect, and he actually chose a decent translation. Given his history, I expected something entirely different.)
Such silly stories. Such interesting discussions. We got about 2/3 of the way through Genesis before we gave up. Her comment was, "They call it the good book, but it's not a very good book."
As an atheist myself, I've never seen a problem with children believing in Santa. I did, just as I believed in unicorns and fairies and mermaids. I had a big imagination and had a lot of fun making up stories about all such things. Children have wonderful imaginations, and there is no more reason to say Santa doesn't exist then there is to tell them that Mickey Mouse at Disney World is a college student in a mask working at minimum wage. Let them have their years of blended reality and fantasy, of magic and make-believe. That is the mind of a child growing, exploring and working exactly as it should. They'll grow out of it soon enough (though if they're lucky, they'll keep the visionary and exploratory mindset). Santa is as much a part of that as anything else. And, really, to say Santa doesn't exist is like saying Harry Potter doesn't exist. They're not physical people, but they are ideas that are so much bigger than one person could ever be. This mother sums it up nicely i think.
Bertrand Russell, A History of Western Philosophy.
That book is separated into three "books" (they're still printed as one volume). The second book is "scholastic philosophy."
Russell treats the material with deep respect, seeking out what is legitimately valuable, without, of course, treating any of the mystical garbage as real. I'm sure that having read that book will give a big advantage in a theology class.
(I should add that such a book has a danger to it. If you give that to a kid, make sure you tell them not to pretend to have actually read something just because you read Russell's summary of it. That's easy to do even unintentionally.)
In the case that this isn’t a troll attempt, I would recommend looking for the book Finding Darwin's God: A Scientist's Search for Common Ground Between God and Evolution by Ken Miller. He is a preeminent Biology textbook author and does a good job explaining how evolution by natural selection works. I was in your position a loooong time ago, you can message me directly if you want to discuss this further.
>Yes God does not want us to suffer in hell that’s why he sent his son Jesus Christ so all might be saved but the penalty of sin is death and Jesus Christ payed that penalty.
According to Christian mythology, your God character is all-powerful and creates all the rules of the universe. But apparently he does not possess power over the rules of admission into his own heaven. If he did, he could just, ya know, DECIDE to allow in whomever he wants. But instead, he sentences his own son (!) to death as a sacrifice to... himself. (How egotistical is that?!) Either he did so because he had no choice in the matter, or he just decided his son should die for absolutely no reason; Either he's not as powerful as the legends say, or he's just an enormous piece of shit.
Until then, nobody in this sub wants to hear your ridiculous proselytizing. We've all heard your ancient legends and concluded they're completely absurd. You may see yourself as some brave savior, but really you're just a fool.
my kids are now 21 and I can't remember the names of all the books we read. I have this book that I read to use to tell the kids stories, but I did have wonderfully illustrated books on creation myths that were age appropriate. I never found a book that covered them all. At the time the books tended to focus on a geographical area. I never found a book that included modern day religious mythology alongside ancient mythology.
The D'Aulaire's books are a really good place to start for Greek, Roman, and Norse Mythology.
Bruce Coville has some great fiction books that use mythology as a base.
Along with the other suggestions, we liked this book about various cultural celebrations centered around the winter solstice:
https://smile.amazon.com/Shortest-Day-Celebrating-Winter-Solstice/dp/0147512840/
It's perfect for 6 year olds.
We still celebrate a secular xmas, but we've tried to bring a little more spotlight on the "reason for the season". i.e. the solstice. What we do is we have a sort of mini-xmas on the solstice. After the sun sets on the solstice, we read the above book, light some candles and a symbolic yule log, eat some "xmas" cookies, and open some gifts. Then we open 1-2 gifts a day between the solstice and xmas, and then open the rest of the gifts on xmas. This helps gets our kid excited about the solstice and helps reinforce why this time of year is special.
Sure, the one we have is nice. The reading age is 9-12 but with an adult going through the book and pointing out interesting things younger kids can still enjoy it - I know my daughter did! Encyclopedia of World Religions
I had to check now that I'm on a desktop (way easier here!). The font is 'Coming Soon' and its description is, "Coming Soon by Open Window is based on the handwriting from mom when she was in 6th grade. Solid balance, masterful strokes, and just a touch of lemonade stand for good measure!"
Yes! Religions are full of stories. You can tell them right along with the traditional children's stories like Curious George and Dr. Seuss.
I picked up The Book of Genesis, Illustrated by R. Crumb, which is a fun way to get some of the old bible stories like Noah and Adam and Eve. "Back when people didn't know about evolution, they thought that God must have created the first people." We didn't make it through the whole thing, but my daughter got the idea. I remember at one point she said, "They call it 'the good book,' but it's not a very good book."
My theory is that early childhood is all about stories and nobody worries about truth. And then later childhood is about differentiating fact from fiction. Can elephants really talk like Babar does? Are chimpanzees really curious like George is? Did God really flood the planet and kill almost everyone and everything? If you've blended religious stories in with kids stories, it's natural to consider fact and fiction for all of them.
Talk about how its okay to be sad, and how sadness can come and go, and its normal for people "forget" they are sad for a while and then remember and be sad again for a little while. Sometimes people will feel guilty for those periods of non-sadness.
This is a helpful, non-spiritual book on coping with loss for kids: https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/0316404977/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1&fpw=alm
This is another non-spiritual book, but may not be exactly right for the loss of a child-friend. https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/0552567655/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1&fpw=alm
Finally, you can just use the "nobody knows" line. "Some people are saying that your friend is in heaven, or is a guardian angel. I don't really believe that stuff, but nobody really knows for certain what happens, so if it makes you feel better to think of friend as an angel, that's okay."
Having lived through similar from both sets of grandparents I cannot recommend the books by this author enough. Let them know about Christianity but also about every other religion out there .
The Belief Book https://www.amazon.com/dp/1908675314/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_Nr3ZCbSERR6QY
We were in a similar situation when our son was younger. Teaching him critical thinking skills was key. We bought him age-appropriate books like Maybe Yes, Maybe No by Dan Barker.
Give kids these skills is like giving them armor against bullshit.
https://www.amazon.com/Beginning-Creation-Stories-Around-World/dp/0152387420
My worry is that Christianity would somehow seem clever or would appear as unique. I always take extra steps to dilute its viral concepts, most were repackaged anyway. Usually by bringing in other religions to compare it with. Or labeling it as one of the Abrahamic religions so its idea is less of a monolith.
I got this book for my son when he was about that age: Meet Jesus
It did a really good job of explaining WHY people talk about Jesus the way they do, and it helped my son in these situations a lot.
I just stumbled upon this a minute ago online and have never read it myself, but you might like to check it out. It sounds cute at any rate: https://www.amazon.com/Me-Dog-Gene-Weingarten/dp/1442494131
> to be fair
I had to look up what Bibleman was. It's being described as "influencing young children into practicing Christianity". I don't think you have to let him watch anything that pushes the practice of a religion in a fairness attempt. Kids are impressionable, as you mentioned. I'd just go with the educational, comparative-religion route.
> books on evolution
My child is the same age and I have <em>this</em> one so far. It's very much like a school textbook, though. I either need to switch from reading it at night to reading it when my child is fresh and awake, or get something lighter and quicker for bedtime, or both.
Relax, It's Just God: How and Why to Talk to Your Kids About Religion When You're Not Religious is a good book. Start there.
I have a ton of those types of books in my "Wish List" on Amazon.
I've been winging it until I can afford one and/or they become available. In the meantime, I've been reading about evolution with my young child. There's a book about critical thinking that I bought, too, that was really good. I know you want books on religion; I'm in the same boat as you-- I need some comparative religion books now! (The ones at the local library children's section were written on a pro-religion slant.)
I thought the 30-day Amazon Kindle "unlimited" trial membership would help me but NOPE. Unlimited, my ass.
Another thought: The "Kindle Unlimited" trial had a couple adult books on comparative religions. I intend to read them, educate myself, and then explain it to my little one as best I can.
Those children's books have been so hard to come by for me!!
I love myself some Dan Barker so I will be snagging that one for sure, thanks! I didn't want to dive deeper after writing the novel to kick off this discussion, but I want books on evolution too! My son loves 'The Cosmos' and 'Your Inner Fish' on Netflix, and he also wants to be an Astrophysicist (which will change), but headed down the right path! I guess to be fair I should let him watch Bibleman or something of the sort right?! =) Thanks for the book rec! Also - I'm hoping one is done for the Koran soon, but The Skeptics Bible is pretty good!
Each Peach Pear Plum - get the boardbook version, it's adorable.
It's something you'll read to a kid for years and years: it's not overly long, it rhymes well, and as they get older they love trying to find the "hidden" fairytale characters.
I recommend reading Wendy Thomas Russell's book, Relax It's Just God. It's an excellent guide for secular parents wanting to educate children about religion, without indoctrination (either toward or against), and without ridicule. Easy read, and full of heart.
Handing out bibles seems like a normal thing to have happen at a church. If you let your kid go to church, seems you should expect normal church things to happen: singing, Sunday school, Jesus stories, hellfire and damnation, donuts, and handing out bibles.
But I don't have a problem with kids being exposed to religion. My view is that they're going to be exposed eventually, and it's better to prepare them for it than hide them from it. I think you can inoculate kids by telling them stories from lots of different religions. Tell them stories of Thor and Zeus and Santa and the Easter Bunny right along side stories of Jesus. (I bought R. Crumb's illustrated book of Genesis to read from.) When kids are young they just like stories. When they get a little older—six is old enough—you can start talking with them about which stories are real and which aren't.
Here are more details about the approach I took with my daughter.
I can't recommend Emily Oster's Book Expecting Better highly enough! She provides a thoughtful review of current research on topics like alcohol/caffeine/epidurals, etc., and empowers women to make decisions for themselves. I encourage every pregnant woman to give it a read. http://www.amazon.com/Expecting-Better-Conventional-Pregnancy-Wrong/dp/0143125702