Psst! Not to panic any of you Christians, but you should know that the person sitting beside you in church, just MIGHT be an atheistic scientist. Boo!

Courtesy of Live Science:

They may not find much meaning in the birth of Jesus Christ, but many atheists embrace religious traditions such as churchgoing for the sake of the children, a new study finds. 

The research, which focused on atheist scientists, found that 17 percent of atheists in the study attended a religious service more than once a year. The atheists embraced religious traditions for social and personal reasons, they told the study researchers. 

The atheist parents surveyed had multiple reasons for attending religious services in the absence of religious belief. Some said their spouse or partner was religious, and encouraged them to go to services as well. Others said they enjoyed the community that attending a church, mosque, temple or other religious institution can bring. 

Perhaps most interesting, Ecklund said, was that many atheist scientists take their children to religious services so that the kids can make up their own mind about God and spirituality. 

"We thought that these individuals might be less inclined to introduce their children to religious traditions, but we found the exact opposite to be true," Ecklund said. "They want their children to have choices, and it is more consistent with their science identity to expose their children to all sources of knowledge." 

For example, one study participant raised in a strongly Catholic home said he later came to believe that science and religion were not compatible. But rather than passing that belief onto his daughter, he said, he wanted to pass on the ability to make her own decisions in a thoughtful way. So he exposes his daughter to a variety of religious choices, including Christianity, Islam and Buddhism. 

"I … don't indoctrinate her that she should believe in God," the study participant said. "I don't indoctrinate her into not believing in God."

Personally I have seen this same scenario play out a number of times, where a non-religious parent still  either allowed or actively encouraged their child to attend Sunday school, Christian summer camps, or even accompanied them to church for Easter or Christmas celebrations.

Though they themselves are not believers they want their children to be exposed to a religious culture and allowed to make up their own minds, with no hard sell coming from them on the side of atheism.

Now compare that to the constant indoctrination that children are subjected to in many denominations across this country.

I myself had a very similar plan when my little girl was born. Neither her mother nor I were church goers, and we had determined together that we would let her attend whichever church she wanted to attend, or attend no church if that was her choice.

However after the divorce, her mother suddenly became EXTREMELY religious and joined one of the most fundamentalist churches up here, before following them when they uprooted and moved to Georgia.



Suddenly my daughter was being home-schooled with Christian textbooks, attending Christian summer camps, and learning things like evolution was a lie, man walked with the dinosaurs until they were killed in Noah's flood, and that Catholics were not REAL Christians and they were all going to hell.

It was extremely upsetting for me during this time.  But I stayed silent.

I knew my genes were in their someplace and that eventually they would have to kick in and let their presence be known. And eventually they did.

One day, at around age eighteen, my daughter sat me down to explain why I was wrong to trust science instead of believing what was written by God in the Bible. She threw out a number of memorized challenges to "Darwinism" and had whole segments of speeches at her disposal which she had been taught to use against the "unbelievers."

I am well versed in this debate, and always emerge victorious, but this was my baby. I had no desire to pick apart her argument or crush her spirit.

I patiently listened to her spiel.  Toward the end she asked me if I had ever read the Bible.

I answered, "Yes I have, all the way through. Twice. Have you?"

"Well not all of it" she said. "But we memorize portions of it during Bible study."

"Really?  Have you read Charles Darwin's Origin of the Species?"

"No."

"Well then," I said "Perhaps we cannot really have this discussion until both of us have the same information at our disposal."  With that I got up and ended the conversation.

My daughter took that as a challenge (As I knew she would), and went out that day to check "Origin of Species" out at the local library. Then later she checked out and read "The Descent of Man." That was followed by a couple of Richard Dawkins books from my personal library, and the "End of Faith" by Sam Harris.

After that summer she flew back to Georgia and promptly started to argue with EVERYBODY about their blind faith, and lack of knowledge about the subjects they were discussing.

That, plus her alternative lifestyle, got her kicked right out of that church. And temporarily out of her mother's home.

So she flew back here, where she knew she would ALWAYS be loved and respected. And she is still here today.

Essentially I did not have to indoctrinate anybody, I just had to allow them the freedom to learn.