Parenting Beyond Belief: On Raising Ethical, Caring Kids Without Religion Paperback – April 25, 2007

I have been looking for a book like this for awhile now. I don't have kids, however I plan to in the next few years. I have wondered and thought about how I want to raise children and worry about how I'm going to respond to the "big" questions. I grew up Catholic and was always a curious free thinking kid. I asked a ton of questions and I really care about the truth. Now I'm an educated scientific person. Being a scientist, it is impossible to follow traditional religion and remain intellectually honest. However, I think one can remain a deist, possibilian, pantheist, panentheist, or even a evolutionary theist in our scientific age. So I believe this book would be useful for anybody who also labels themselves as one of the above.I planned to teach my children the wonders of science and reason without ever mentioning religion. The more I thought about it, I realized it's probably better to be prepared since we live in a country that is mostly Christian. This book was everything and more to guide me with some of the questions I had regarding parenting.Chapter 3 Holidays and Celebrations was the only chapter that was not useful to me. I will still celebrate secular Christmas and Easter, but I would like to add Darwin Day. Chapter 1 Personal Reflections was worthwhile and an enjoyable read. I have read an extensive amount from free thinking scientists and philosophers like Bertrand Russell, so I'm really glad this book included their insights and listed the historical smart people who were atheist/agnostic or deist. This book is a must for anyone that wants to raise educated children who believe in reason, empirical evidence and science.My favorite and the most applicable chapters for me were:5 Values and Virtues, Meaning and Purpose7 Wondering and Questioning8 Jaw-Dropping, Mind-Buzzing Science

This is a collection of essays by various non-theist authors, most of whom have either raised children or grown up themselves as a non-theist, usually in a geographical area that is predominantly Christian. The fact that it contains the work of a large number of different authors is the book's greatest strength.As you might expect, the quality of these essays varies widely. To me, the Gaylor, Nelson and Barker essays were least useful. The Wernick essay "Parenting in a Secular/Religious Marriage" was most helpful.The format of the book makes it a bit difficult to find the answer to a specific problem/question, although there is an index at the end.The essays are easy to read. Most of them can be read in 10 minutes, which is a plus for busy parents.I only have two criticisms. First, because the essays are short, they do not dig very deeply into any particular subject. Much of the information is just common sense that most non-theist parents will already know. Second, philosophers, psychologists and people without any clearly relevant qualifications are over-represented. In my experience, giving children a hard-science education is one of the most powerful things that a parent can do to raise rational, socially responsible children. Sadly, there are essays by only two scientists in this book (Richard Dawkins and Emily Rosa, each of whom wrote very good essays).Overall, though, it was worth reading.

I confess that I did not finish the book. I got a little more than a third of the way through before I could not stand one more page of boredom. I chose the book because several people said that I would find it very interesting. Sadly, the only thing that I found interesting was the really warped idea those people must have regarding my thoughts on religion.I did find one essay in the book to be a bit interesting, but none of them were actually helpful in regards to raising a child. The sole interesting essay is "Passing Down the Joy of Not Collecting Stamps," by Penn Jillette (yes, that Penn of Penn & Teller fame). He's a bit harsher than I would be, but the general idea jibes with my own feelings -- one does not teach a child atheism any more than one teaches a child to not collect stamps. Thus, just as one does not need an entire book devoted to how not to teach your child to collect stamps, one does not need an entire book on how to not teach your child religion.It might have been interesting to find a discussion about how to raise a child to be aware of and respectful of the religious views of others and how to respectfully deflect religiously motivated verbal assaults on one's sense of well being (since some people can turn quite nasty when encountering a unexpected world view) -- but this is something that all people should seek to do and thus ought to be covered in general parenting books: Christians need to teach their children to understand and respect Hindus, Buddhists, atheists, etc. as much as atheists should teach their children to understand and respect Christians, Buddhists, and Hindus, etc., and Buddhists should teach their children to understand and respect Hindus, Christians, atheists, etc. and so on and so forth. And everyone needs to know how to deflect verbal assaults before they become physical fights (or wars). These topics, however, are not addressed -- at least not in the first third of the book.Too many theists mistakenly believe that atheist means "against theism," confusing the "a-" prefix, which just means "not" or "without" with the "anti-" prefix, which means "against" or "opposite." In this case, however, the majority of authors could be accurately described as "anti-theists" although a more respectful term might be "former" or "recovering" theists. I found that for the most part, the authors were still very much involved in their relationship with the Abrahamic God, although that relationship had become the avowed denial of his existence. Don't get me wrong, they have my sympathy. Many of these people have suffered harm at the hands of religious authorities or experienced a terrible personal tragedy -- and they blame the Abrahamic God for their pain. They are so hurt and so mad about that hurt that they strike back in the harshest way they can imagine: they deny his existence. But you can't blame or deny someone or something that you don't believe exist, so they end up affirming their belief in the vehemence of their denial. I wish them healing and peace, whether that path takes toward a genuine absence of belief or back into the flock of believers.I concluded in the end (or, more precisely, one third of the way through) that I'm not the type of atheist this book is seeking. In fact, I don't even consider myself an atheist -- in the same way that Christians don't label themselves as a-teotlians or a-asgardians or a-olympians because they don't believe in Quetzalcoatl or Odin or Zeus. "Don't believe in" is still a relationship. I have no more chosen to not believe in the Abrahamic God than the average Christians have chosen to not believe in Quetzalcoatl or Odin or Zeus -- they may or may not be aware of other gods and religions, but they're not "choosing" to not be a follower of any of the alternatives; they're just not. There's just no relationship there. (Nor am I an agnostic, as I'm not on the fence about this.)So, if you're an angry former theist looking to fuel the already raging fire, you'll probably love this book. If you're just not involved in the whole theist thing, you might find it interesting from a sociological perspective but not particularly useful from a parenting one.I do love this quote: "Truth just needs to be stated, it doesn't have to be hyped." -- Penn Jillette

Very interesting book. I bought it because I want to raise my daughter without forcing her to follow a specific religion, to give her the choice to make up her own mind about it and decide once she's old enough to understand what believing in a divinity implies. Interesting points of view and examples (from the life of the writers) on what it's like to be a non believer and raising kids, especially coming from very religious families.

This is a great book for those parents who want their children to grow up to be thoughtful, open-minded individuals. It is aimed mainly at atheists but that should not put off those who are religious, as long as they are prepared to let their children decide for themselves.

Different views but all from a standpoint of wanting to foster a parenting climate of encouraging true humanity and freedom of thought for our children. A very good read and some useful tips, thank you!

Rating in this case is easy enough. This tool (because it's far more than a simple book) inspires people to raise children in efficient, right and good ways in order to have rational, ethical children.The original idea is wonderful, and it works. And it works magnificently. All the contributions added a bit of something to the parenting task, every bit of argument is in its way useful.Clearly, reading this book has not been a waste of time. To the contrary, it has cleared my ideas on the subject and changed some of the views I had!I will surely re-read the excerpts when the time will come and I will find myself parenting. It's a wonderful guide, and one stunning collection of advices.