Good people don’t always raise children who believe in God

By Maramis

While that headline may shock some people, I would dare say that many people who try to “push” God on their children end up with the opposite of what they were trying to do. Sad to say, they might end up like the youngest son (Ron Reagan) of former president, Ronald Reagan.

We are not born into this world believing in God. If we are not “exposed to God,” we might not even know that many people do believe in him.

And some may say, along with me, that they’re not afraid of burning in hell because they don’t believe hell exists.

It’s easy for Ron Reagan to say that he’s not afraid of burning in hell because he claims to be an avowed atheist — meaning he has publicly stated his position that he does not believe in God — never has — and as all believers in God know, God would be necessary for hell to exist. Even so, as an avowed atheist, he believes in promoting religious toleration, which, sad to say, is more than some hardcore Christians can say.

Before I continue, allow me to explain, as simply as I can, a little something about atheism as compared to believing in God. Atheism relates to theism (the basic belief in God) in this way:

All of the following are rough definitions of the various theisms...

—atheism — the opposite of theism; not believing in any gods or deities

—deism — believing that God or gods exist, but that they do not take part in our lives.

—agnosticism — believing we cannot know whether or not God or gods exist

—Gnosticism — believing that we can know for certain whether God or gods exist.

Sometimes those who believe in God are thoroughly concerned or worried about those who claim to be atheists. They can’t understand not believing in God or why anyone would choose such a “tragic” belief system. So let’s look at why people might be atheists.

Some people, quite simply, have never been taught to be believers in God. People raised by atheists, especially in an atheistic society, may never be exposed to the idea of God, therefore they grow up without that knowledge, experience, or belief. Remember, people, as a rule, do not suddenly become religious. In contrast, children raised in religious families in religious societies are usually trained to be whatever religion the family practices, whether they be Christians, Muslims, Jews, or anything else.

Other atheists were taught to believe in a God but could not ever really see the sense in it, therefore they abandoned their belief. They may feel they “outgrew” the need for God, or simply became too smart to believe “such stuff.”

Along with that mindset, an atheist sees that most belief is based on faith, not indisputable evidence. (If it were indisputable, we would all share the same beliefs.) With a little more thought, an atheist concludes that faith is not the way to distinguish truth from the untrue, but merely a way to justify whatever one happens to believe. Different people believe very contradictory things based on faith, so obviously faith has no real value as a way to decide what is true. And so goes the thoughts of an atheist.

So the answer to why many people have become atheists can be stated something like this: “Because there are no good reasons to believe in God, I won’t believe in him for bad reasons.”

Being an atheist says nothing about a person’s politics, attitude towards LGBT rights or views on gun control, abortion, church/state separation, or anything else. It is only about what they do not believe in. And usually, that unbelief leads to unbelief in other things that cannot be shown (proven) to be real, such as angels, heaven, hell or anything else that relies on faith.

Over the years, many religious people have had a very low regard for atheists. They have believed that atheists are immoral, dishonest, and untrustworthy, that they hate God (how can they hate something that doesn’t exist?) and love Satan (if they can’t believe in God, they likely can’t believe in Satan either) and that they go about ignoring God (something they don’t even believe in) so they can just behave whatever way they want. We should be smart enough and charitable enough to know that atheists are as human as the rest of us and as good and bad as any so-called religious person.

If we were looking for statistics to show some kind of value for atheism, we are likely to discover that atheistic countries have lower crime rates and less dysfunctional behavior than the heavily religious countries. (Not that that is a pitch for atheism, but check it out.)

These unwarranted beliefs about atheists have been around for so long that many atheists rather choose to identify as freethinkers or skeptics, or even just non-believers. Call them what you will, but remember they are human beings who have the right to think for themselves, and even God — yes, the one they don’t believe in — has given them the exact same free will that you and I use to believe that he does exist.

The good news for hardcore atheists — especially if they’d prefer to believe in God — can be summed up in a few passages from The Urantia Book:

“The divine spirit makes contact with mortal man, not by feelings or emotions, but in the realm of the highest and most spiritualized thinking. It is your thoughts, not your feelings, that lead you Godward.” (101:1.3)

“Religion lives and prospers, then, not by sight and feeling, but rather by faith and insight. It consists not in the discovery of new facts or in the finding of a unique experience, but rather in the discovery of new and spiritual meanings in facts already well known to mankind.” (101:1.4)

Science ends its reason-search in the hypothesis of a First Cause. Religion does not stop in its flight of faith until it is sure of a God of salvation. The discriminating study of science logically suggests the reality and existence of an Absolute. Religion believes unreservedly in the existence and reality of a God who fosters personality survival. What metaphysics fails utterly in doing, and what even philosophy fails partially in doing, revelation does; that is, affirms that this First Cause of science and religion’s God of salvation are one and the same Deity. (101:2.7)

“Faith unites moral insight with conscientious discriminations of values, and the pre-existent evolutionary sense of duty completes the ancestry of true religion. The experience of religion eventually results in the certain consciousness of God and in the undoubted assurance of the survival of the believing personality. (101:1.6)

“Thus it may be seen that religious longings and spiritual urges are not of such a nature as would merely lead men to want to believe in God, but rather are they of such nature and power that men are profoundly impressed with the conviction that they ought to believe in God. The sense of evolutionary duty and the obligations consequent upon the illumination of revelation make such a profound impression upon man’s moral nature that he finally reaches that position of mind and that attitude of soul where he concludes that he has no right not to believe in God.” (101:1.7)

“Religion must ever be its own critic and judge; it can never be observed, much less understood, from the outside. Your only assurance of a personal God consists in your own insight as to your belief in, and experience with, things spiritual. To all of your fellows who have had a similar experience, no argument about the personality or reality of God is necessary, while to all other men who are not thus sure of God no possible argument could ever be truly convincing.” (101:2.16)

Try mulling over those comments before you choose to be an atheist, yet for those who might be devout in their religion, remember that atheists, while not believing that there is a God, are still children of God. And God loves them all.

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Maramis Choufani is the Managing Editor of the Las Vegas Tribune. She writes a weekly column in this newspaper