Deborah Mitchell has been writing for awhile about her experience as a mom and her encounters with religious people in her community in a blog called 'Kids Without Religion: Raising Kids as Independent, Logical Thinkers'
But her post on CNN's iReport titled, "Why I Raise My Children Without God," caused a big stir.
Lots of people disagreed with her. Tons. They flagged her iReport as inappropriate and criticized CNN for linking to her essay on the CNN.com homepage. Read more about her story at CNN and see below for the blog that caused all the controversy.
Why I Raise My Children Without God
When my son was around 3 years old, he used to ask me a lot of questions about heaven. Where is it? How do people walk without a body? How will I find you? You know the questions that kids ask.
For over a year, I lied to him and made up stories that I didn’t believe about heaven. Like most parents, I love my child so much that I didn’t want him to be scared. I wanted him to feel safe and loved and full of hope. But the trade-off was that I would have to make stuff up, and I would have to brainwash him into believing stories that didn’t make sense, stories that I didn’t believe either.
One day he would know this, and he would not trust my judgment. He would know that I built an elaborate tale—not unlike the one we tell children about Santa—to explain the inconsistent and illogical legend of God.
And so I thought it was only right to be honest with my children. I am a non-believer, and for years I’ve been on the fringe in my community. As a blogger, though, I’ve found that there are many other parents out there like me. We are creating the next generation of kids, and there is a wave of young agnostics, atheists, free thinkers and humanists rising up through the ranks who will, hopefully, lower our nation’s religious fever.
Here are a few of the reasons why I am raising my children without God.
- God is a bad parent and role model
- God is not logical
- God is not fair
- God does not protect the innocent
- God is not present
- God Does Not Teach Children to Be Good
- God Teaches Narcissism
Click here to read her reasons for the above in her entire blog
