#atheist parenting

[bli-o]

hey parents. never fucking name your kid “christian” or other religious titles. you failed “respecting my child’s self agency” before they could even walk.

if that kid grows up to be an atheist—which it is YOUR RESPONSIBILITY to be prepared for, because your kid is their own person and not a mini-you—they might understandably hate it.

My middle name is “grace” after the grace of god, and at least in my own experience, it’s just a reminder that my parents had already demanded me to fit into their mold and check all their boxes on my own birth certificate.

#religion #religous trauma #apostate #parenting #parenting tips #ex christian #atheism #agnostic #christianity #christian parenting #atheist #atheist parenting #secular talk #secularism #secular #secular parenting #blios rants

[tinyhandsonmyapron]

06.15.2022

Whew 😮‍💨 having to unfollow an unusually high number of transphobes today. Here's your friendly reminder:

Trans women are women!

Respect names and pronouns!

🏳️‍⚧️

Seriously, y'all "loving Christians" need a new hobby other being hateful for no reason. Maybe put some energy into actually being Christ-like, yeah?

*also generally respect all transpeople of all identities, I just usually see tradfems getting their skirts in a knot over transwomen specifically

**not up for debate, unsupportive commenters get an automatic block and the knowledge that I think you're a stinky doo-doo brain 😊

#trans is beautiful #trans rights are human rights #happy pride 🌈 #theyre better women than you so called tradfems #mine #lgbtq community #homemaker #homemaking is for anyone #sahm #sahmlife #momblr #parenting #bi wife #christian hypocrisy #atheist #atheist parenting

[keshetchai]

Do you ever just get obsessed with how cultural Christians (esp atheist or agnostic ones) often openly choose to maintain Santa Claus for their kids?

Like think about this with me:

A group of people who don't actively align themselves with religious life, religious institutions (churches) or other traditions, and may even be total atheists STILL sometimes choose to do Santa Claus for their children, because THEY had Santa Claus as children.

The parents give their child a folk demigod (lesser deity?) of outsized importance to children SPECIFICALLY, and teach them the demigod is definitely totally real. They maintain this active belief as long as possible through childhood. They may encourage and actively engage in this belief with their children moreso than anything else involving the religion it comes from (aside from perhaps, the easter bunny). They know Santa isn't real, does not exist, and is a fiction.

They know their children will learn this demigod is a lie. Subconsciously or consciously, the child then learns that Santa Claus is really only as real as the parent intention to make him real, and the child belief in that truth. The child grows up. Knows Santa is a fiction. And then they make Santa for their children too, because that's the only real thing about Santa — parents knowing it's a fiction and then passing it on anyways.

I just like...am deeply fascinated by this unique cultural training of accepting that the Santa deity isn't dead or anything so extreme, and even though he's made up, he is still extremely important and the fiction gets passed on while explicitly knowing and acting upon the fiction. Parents have to be Santa, they can't just encourage belief and sit back. No no, they must actively CREATE Santa's existence for the belief to work. And they do this willingly!

It's not that I think believing in a myth is unusual in any religion (like we don't need to believe hundreds of thousands of Israelites fled Egypt all at once to observe passover or even to think some Hebrews did flee Egypt and the legend developed from there, or w/e), so much as like, this is an incredibly obvious and well known one that every adult Knows 100% is Not Real, not even based on any kind of reality or possible actual legend, Santa doesn't have all those powers, he does not come to your house or get your wishlist (prayers).

No adult has a pure and genuine belief that Santa is a real being who visits and brings children gifts.

I just want to study everyone who actively is like "I don't believe in God or go to church but like, I'll obviously still do Santa for the kids, that's fun."

(Regina George voice: so you agree? Religion doesn't need to be grounded in imperial facts of science in order to provide substantial benefits to people, foster positive emotions and connections within communities, and for people to derive meaning from it? It doesn't matter if God is real, if you yourself make the benefits of God being real happen for yourself and others?")

#if youre an atheist who doesnt do santa this isnt about you so dont get worked up #santa claus is important religious training wheels for cultural christians #also i feel i should say this but im actually anti-modern santa claus because of capitalism and classism #but the love and parental lying isnt my problem lol

[what-is-it-to-be-pk-esque]

Ok I know I'm heavily biased here but like I kinda love that Astarion's romance is one of the few in this type of video game where you basically end up canonically unmarried and childfree in his "good" ending? Just travelling the world??

Like it's honestly the millennial dream lmfaoo cannot believe i chose what would undoubtedly be my favorite option, first try

#also love that he's basically atheist like ok thanks you made the man exactly coded to be my type #and the humor and beautiful curly hair is very much something my IRL partner has too so like... how can i resist #anyways not sure a lot of people relate cause i think a lot of people want that fairytale romance #even tho wyll is right there yall #but i love me an unconventional or nontraditional one!! #i'm TIRED of being married with children as the endgame pls let's not do it #also a lot of people seem into him being a dad and im like... how? why? where in canon did he ever lmfao #more power to ya if you dig it but i just dont see it being in character #like in DAI i loved cullen and my inquisitor getting married and having a dog #and they seem the type to wants kids one day. but Tav & Astarion? lol no #i just think it's neat #is this a hot take? i have no idea but i don't see it mentioned a lot as a new fan tbh #pls do not come at me you can enjoy whatever you like #i haven't seen the ascended stuff so idk if being his 'consort' is like being his bride #but i feel like overall it's not and the vibe isn't all that different in this sense #except that you're hosting evil parties instead of travelling :/ #Astarion #bg3 spoilers #baldur's gate 3 #baldur's gate 3 spoilers #bg3 #also YEA he's nice to Arabella but you can tolerate certain kids without wanting one or being 'good parent' material #case in point: me lmfao #OKAY update i saw the AA stuff and yeah you're kind of implied vamp married and he does mention spawn as children 😫 #but he also says in banter he won't make any other spawn??? so what is it dude #anyway that's also clearly the “bad” route and he doesn't seem as happy as unascended #who feels “truly free” #and if you're durge I'm pretty sure its even worse to consider having kids?? lol #but i digress

[tatsumi-rin]

Moral Orel doesn't seem 100% like a show I'd feel seen in if you don't know me but then I remember the episode with the special ed kids and underneath the usual satire on extremist bible belt religion it reminds me WAY too much of how actual special ed departments treated me and other kids growing up.

Like the writers must HAVE BEEN THERE IN LIFE, man. I'd kill to sit down with Dino Stamatopoulos and find out what the fuck inspired him and the other writing staff that day.

#husbandothings #moral orel #bonus fun tag rant? bonus fun tag rant...apparently #in those departments you are immediately written off as a tragic forever toddler by at least 50% of the staff regardless of your disability #there's good ones but the bad ones bring the fun spicy trauma #it doesn't matter how smart you actually are you gotta draw the sad face on that boy on the comic sans worksheet at the age of 15 #in your free lesson spaces that you got because of reasons #if someone tells me they're a teaching assistant or have “qualifications” in autism and special needs development i immediately distrust #because I have never met a neurotypical person with those qualifications who knows how to treat kids like humans especially autistic kids #funniest part? I was mostly in the special ed department because of my hearing and not totally my undiagnosed autism #and a little because of wonky emotional development from get this...a freaking religious school #like i see adults in the show and i see the headteacher who tried to tell my parents i should forgive the bullies because jesus would #even though the truth is way more nuanced but he just wanted to wash his hands of it #it's funnier than it should be because that teacher would fit right in to this show for that and additional reasons I won't state here #my family were atheists but thought the school would be good #the weird thing is at that time as a little kid I liked the idea of believing in god but nothing that happened proved Him to me #and moral orel hits because it resonates with the fact i genuinely believe religion can do good and it's all about the people #the ones who want to use that faith for good in the world and surviving rough crap and not to do things that would make jesus flip tables #that has stuck with me for over a decade as has the people who felt the show reinforced their christianity #but anyway

[orcelito]

Ok. Real question. How many people Actually have believed in Santa? Bc I never did, mostly bc my dad never bothered with the entire pretense, so the whole concept is just. Really fucking strange to me

Putting an actual poll bc I feel like I'm losing my mind a bit thinking about how apparently widespread it is. Like. It's just so... weird? Why is this the thing people have popularized? It makes no sense.

#speculation nation #polls #like ok my dad's an atheist raised by jewish parents so xmas has never really been a religious sort of holiday to me #we celebrate it bc it's fun to give gifts and spend time with family #but that's... it. #all the lore and mythos of xmas is just so weird to me #like baby jesus etc etc but now here comes saint nicholas with the steel chair! (breaking into your house to eat your cookies #and leave presents Only for the rich kids! why only the rich ones? uhmmm Dont worry about it!) #genuinely speaking my dad's worked at ups my whole life so growing up he'd say he (and the rest of his coworkers) were the real santas #said as a joke mostly bc theyre the ones Actually delivering the packages #but i took it to heart. told people at school that my dad was the Real santa. #no one believed me lol which i found quite frustrating. #but yeah i have never once in my entire life believed in Santa #and im content with that. it seems like such a stupid thing i will be honest. #'what about the magic of christmas' what about the poor kids who dont get gifts & feel abandoned by this all-powerful man? #in fact why do we Want kids to not think it's their parents giving gifts? they cant thank the right people if we trick them. #it's a convoluted setup that makes absolutely 0 sense to me #trust me christmas had more than enough 'magic' for me as a kid just bc of all the cool lights and all the free gifts #dont need some mythological man who can travel the globe in one night and is a professional in B&E #makes no sense for Real. #there was a time with my ex step siblings where me n my sister were told not to spoil the fun for them #so i had to pretend like santa existed as they opened presents marked from him #and even back then i was just thinking 'this is So Dumb' #this is an anti santa zone i guess. me and myself hate the popularized version of this strange strange belief system.

[animalcrossingshowdown]

ngl i'm so biased against zipper because ac/nintendo is forcing all players to participate in an explicitly (if not by name) christian event. Gonna vote against him and the christmas guy every time.

No offense to anyone who likes them / the events, i'm a petty jew and will stay that way ❤️

okay fun story about me I genuinely had no idea easter was a major christian holiday until I started working at a grocery store and I was like ??? why is it so fucking busy who gives a shit about easter. my family would go out to my nan's for easter dinner but I thought that was just because we went out to my nan's every long weekend for a big dinner. I'd never heard anybody else say the phrase "easter dinner" before

#I also didn't know my parents thought I was christian until I said off hand one day that I was atheist #and I was like ??? you guys aren't atheist too??

[yellowocaballero]

I love how your Bruce is traditional but it is also like a mix of different types of traditional. Like he comes across as both "Rich white old money type" traditional AND "member of a marginalized minority group who take great pride in their identity to cope with years of ostracization and going "the world wanted me dead for my culture and religion so i might as well die loud and proud instead of conforming to their unachievable ideals" " traditional

Thank you for this ask, I really love it! I have a shitton to say on this topic, including a lot of worldbuilding decisions on Gotham cultures, immigrant spaces, segregation, how it ended up like 1920s-1930s NYC/Chicago mixed with my own city, Jason "Foil" Todd's Inferiority Complex, but that would make this depressingly long. Long time readers would know that I have, like, really complex and discrete religion headcanons for everybody I write. It's important.

Any decent Batman Story (TM) is about Gotham. It has to be a huge presence. It's like writing Dick Tracy without Chicago, or Cheers without Boston. When he's written well, Batman is a reflection of Gotham, and they metaphorically represent each other.

Most Batman writers get this, so there's always a lot of historical worldbuilding and everything. But I'm a community health person, and I grew up in the inner area of my own very large city, and creating a Gotham that feels real and rich is more complicated than the Court of Owls stuff. For me, cities are the intersection of culture, community, history, oppression/SES/war etc, and the modern day to day lives of people. When I want to make a rich city that was relevant and important to the story, I wanted to focus on immigrants and cultural minorities. You know - the people who create the cities lol. I decided on a history that involved the idea that Jewish families were the oldest in Gotham, and that they were one of the people to help create it and influence its culture.

I read a Daniel Handler quote just now that said "there is something naturally Jewish about unending misery". What is more Batman, Bruce, and Gotham than that, lol. The Jewish diaspora experience - the traditional history just as you outlined it in your ask - is baked into Gotham, it's the foundation. Gotham is a city of unending misery, but it's a city that stands tall. It takes a thousand hits and always gets back up again. People within it experience unending poverty and suffering, but they stand together. Just fucking refuse to die, as a whole. What's more Jewish than that! What is more Batman than that! Gotham should always be allegorical for Batman and Bruce, and through Gotham existing in that traditional Jewish experience, I think that's where you got the impression of Bruce as very traditional too.

Tim and the Drakes are the modern reflection of this. I was extremely explicit that Tim is alone in the world because of the Holocaust. I talk a lot in the story about how war and violence destroy children's lives, and that stretches back to the 1940s. About how war and violence creates violent children, which is what Tim became. His acting out was from the trauma of seeing his family slaughtered in front of him, and like a lot of people he used his religion to justify it.

There's a reason why the very first moment when Tim and Bruce actually connect as a family is when they find kinship and understanding through their shared backgrounds and values. They both saw their families slaughtered, they're both alone in the world - but they found each other, and they'll keep living.

OK BELIEVE IT OR NOT THAT'S THE SHORT VERSION. Seriously, though, I'm not. Uh. Actually fucking Jewish. This is like the fourth time I've talked out of my ass about this. I'm actually really interested in reading about the actual Jewish themes in Batman, because from what little I know they HAVE to be there. Any smart people out there who know about it, or who can link something written about it?

#tw holocaust #my asks #my writing #fwiw I think of Bruce as an atheist and Tim as pretty religious #I always write Bruce as really alienated from his Jewish heritage/culture #and his relationship with Tim (or jason in rr) reconnecting him with that #in nw that generational trauma is also why tim's parents weren't great parents. #heartbreaking! 25 years ago your mom was a survivor! #sucks. #i think i accidentally started thinking of tim as religious #because of that one time i wrote him as having come back from the dead after killing himself #and like anybody would get into god after that. and it stuck a bit for me #new story covid puppy Tim makes like an extremely smug point to call judaism dumb #kid has stuff going on. #hm I think I may have very persistent themes of returning to religion and religious heritage as a method of healing #not gonna psychoanalyze that! bye! #i feel like a fucking fanfic writer conservative for all i talk about masculinity and jesus

[sequoiareachesforthesky]

"This is what God wanted. My faith shall not waver. Sinners must die."

Traditional art again, this time with colour pencils.

You know every now and then I remember that Amane is twelve. Like she's not that young. She's right for asking us to not treat her differently just because of her age, I would've done the same at her age. She's nearing her teenage years, a time where you tend to feel very strongly about your beliefs, but also a time where you want to question authority. I think she would be very torn internally between questioning the cult and thinking she's a sinner for just considering that something might be wrong with her upbringing. Being mad at herself for doubting that what she did was the right thing. Being mad at the world for not following God's teachings. Praying endlessly to make the sinful thoughts disappear.

I really respect her strength and unwavering will. I just wish she would meet people who could show her that there's other ways of living. Maybe MILGRAM could help her open up to new perspectives. Well not if she's voted guilty and gets restrained I guess.

#milgram #milgram project #amane momose #milgram amane #man I'm projecting again. when i was 12 i moved school and became friends with a girl from a very religious family #and well. meeting people from other trains of life (like me who was raised by two atheist parents) made her question some of her beliefs #so i really do think amane could grow into a great person. as of now i might really dislike some of her beliefs #but it seems like she doesn't wabt to hurt people. she wants to do good. she just doesn't know any other way #milgram fanart #my art

[archduke-enver-gortash]

took a quiz for zeke (first image) and gort (second image) and. hm.

#highlights of answering these questions: picking chess as a sport for both of them #and the ‘how’s ur relationship with your parents’ question not even coming close to what is going on with both of them lmao #gort of course is not atheist but he is the worst and best at being religious at the same time so y’know. #also. could see him being an atheist before finding a god that represented exactly who he is #anyways. #enver gortash #bg3 #baldur’s gate 3 #gortash & zeke

[persephonaae]

Some days I’m like fuck it do I finally put my name on my blog, but I always return to not caring enough and just letting people here call me whatever they feel like calling me

#I think the funny thing is though I have one of those names that sounds like a ‘not your legal name’ anyway #and I don’t think people would really think anything of it if I listed it lol #alternately it’s a very nonbinary chosen name but I had the fortune of obtaining it since birth #my parents: let’s give our child a gender neutral name! me: sure hope this doesn’t awaken anything in me! #riddle me this Batman if my parents didn’t want me to be none gender left beef why did they give me such a neutral name check mate atheists

[anqaspond]

its shocking how my stance that culture isnt an excuse for harm or oppression is so rare. like forgive me if i think racial grouping suited only to help me decide on whether or not a person can be reasonably abused is fucking stupid. forgive me if i think abuse isnt culture and you can still be connected to your culture without excusing abuse.

#culture is literally just the format in which you live your life #you cant escape it #theres no such thing as being “westernized” people usually just mean that a poc has become racist #or globalization #calling poc “westernized” for doing shit like being queer or being into fandom is fucking batshit #because youre exposing you dont think were human enough to like those things too #i promise you scottish people before the internet would have found emos as ridiculous as my brown parents do now #it isnt a white people exclusive thing to be alt #or even political actually #apparently an atheist arab is so shocking to westerners that the mere idea of us existing is racist #but nevertheless #racism is everywhere

[girlwithfish]

i was telling him the quilt he has on his bed is really cute and he said his grandma would probably make me one too . like ok u dont say that to someone ur just hooking up w or only see as a casual no strings attached relationship type person right 🙄

#also he said his parents would like me on the 2nd date 🙂‍↔️😮🤨 #his upbringing is interesting hes lived in the same town his whole life until he moved here #he said the mom from bobs burgers reminds him a lot of his own mom #and he went to the same christian school his whole life #he said his mom is super religious and his dad is an atheist and he doesnt know how they made that work lolol i thought thats kind of cute #like religious incompatability is a big factor so thats kinda cute ngl.. #also hes an only child.

[bugskid]

my favorite thing about my current part time job is that i am in a convent. full of nuns. while looking at pictures of the little gay people in my phone (one of which is a literal demon from hell)

#i only work at the convent because my parents are both super catholic #and the nuns needed someone to sit at the front desk and answer phone calls #they dont even know im gay or an atheist #good omens #gomens #good omens s2 #crowley #aziraphale #ineffable husbands

[septimus-heap]

My parents r atheists with christian parents which means that me and my sibling r atheists with atheist parents. One side effect of this is that christmas is a Big Deal to my parents but I'm atheist enough that christmas has basically no meaning to me outside of "the time of year I get free stuff"

#sep talks #like it's nice to get presents and see family or whatever but there's nothing fundamentally special abt christmas day #as opposed to every other day #we could do christmas early or late and I probably wouldn't notice #idk. It just came up the other day when I was talking to my parents #bc my aunt is hosting and she doesn't have much room so I said oh well I could stay home #and my parents were like oh but it feels wrong for u to be all alone on christmas #and it's like well. To u maybe. To me it is just another day #it feels so weird. U atheist-ed too close to the sun and now ur kids don't believe in christmas as a special time #I have the same kind of feelings abt halloween like it's whatever. Doesn't rlly mean anything to me #but it feels weirder abt christmas. Bc I WAS brought up celebrating it. But its like none of it stuck ahdunfidndj

[heystephen]

my dad just handed this shirt to me and said it’s my early birthday present 😐

#atheist kids of Christian parents let’s make some noise #this has been a post*