As an atheist, I’ve never attempted to force my non-belief on my child. In fact, the subject rarely comes up in our home but when t does, I take the time to explain to her why I don’t believe. Unlike some of her friends, that have been indoctrinated as Christians, I allow my child to decide for herself.

I don’t care if my child is an atheist or not. It’s not important to me one way or the other. I do indoctrinate her though; I want her to be a skeptic, which takes something the school system doesn’t teach anymore : Critical Thinking.

Critical thinking has become a lost art. Most people today are unable to take information received, and analyze it to see if its true or not. We’re too willing to take the word of experts, whether what they say makes any sense or not.

I’m also raising my child to be a freethinker. Yes, I know that the definition of this is someone that rejects religious beliefs, but it also means someone that doesn’t conform to any ideology. I want her to have independent thought and to be an individual, not someone that goes along just to get along.

IF my daughter one day decides she’s an atheist, that’s okay with me. If she wants to explore religious beliefs, that’s all right with me as well as long as she has applied the tools she’s been given to discern truth from fantasy.

Even though I came from an ostensibly “Christian” family, my parents enabled me with those tools to become who I am today.

I can only hope I am giving my child the same.