Curious and not sure why. How many our our struggling adult kids are atheists?

[Lil]

I find that to be very sad. I know that I have to look within myself for strength and happiness. There is no "magic" solution from outside that will give me those things.

I have been in therapy for many years in search of those inner strengths and found it to be very helpful. The difference is that if forgiveness is in order, I have to forgive myself.

Another difference is that I studied comparative religions before making the decision not to believe. It was, on my part, an informed decision. It was not born of rebellion against societal norms

My thinking is...these kids may be atheists, but they don't have that understanding of self. Atheists, to my knowledge, do believe in something. Maybe not something supernatural, but in themselves, in mankind, in the ability of man to overcome and make the world a better place, in being a moral and decent person and making the most of your time on earth.

Our difficult atheist kids, seem to believe in nothing. That's sad to me.

 

[TerryJ2]

Nomad, I think that pattern matches the patterns I've seen where out-there kids come from families that don't offer direction and structure.
Same thing with-religion. There is something to be said for ritual, not to mention the "why" we do things.
It is sad, and nauseating, in fact, to see so much ignorance out there with-our kids. I've seen so-called funny videos where college kids are asked simple questions, such as why is Easter celebrated, or who is our vice president, and the answers are all over the place. NOT funny!!!! (Covering my ears and eyes and yelling alalalaalalalala!)
I used to subscribe to a magazine called ROOTS AND WINGS, for adoptive families. The title said it all. You are given roots by birth and adoption, and then are (or should) be given wings to create your own life. Problem is, so many parents haven't given their kids roots, so how would they know what wings are?
Waxing a bit philosophical here ...

 

[TerryJ2]

Lil, I agree. They have no core philosophy. You hit the nail on the head.

 

[AppleCori]

Speaking for myself only, on my observation of my step-sons and their 'atheism', it seems to be more a chance to ridicule and dismiss others' beliefs, rather than a belief system of their own.

And, possibly, a reluctance to look at themselves and their own behaviors from the outside, rather than just concentrating on their own wants.

If you don't examine yourself, look at things from another's point of view with an open mind, it is much harder to grown and mature that perspective.

So, no, I don't believe my step-sons have a core belief system. That requires thinking.

 

[BusynMember]

I find that to be very sad. I know that I have to look within myself for strength and happiness. There is no "magic" solution from outside that will give me those things.

I have been in therapy for many years in search of those inner strengths and found it to be very helpful. The difference is that if forgiveness is in order, I have to forgive myself.

Another difference is that I studied comparative religions before making the decision not to believe. It was, on my part, an informed decision. I t was not born of rebellion against societal norms

GN, you are only speaking of Christianity. There are many belief systems. The only person who forgives in mine is me. If I can't forgive myself, nobody else will, not even my higher power.

I have no idea why when people hear "religion" they forget that there are so many. This was a very long, slow path for me and a growing experience. I started out Jewish, rejected that early because it did not give me enough to hang onto, Christianity at many churches was next but it did not totally do the trick for me (I believe we were all meant to find out own way). Finally, I got very into doing research on near death experiences and that changed my life and my way of thinking, and it took off from there. So there is this spirituality too that has no name. There is Wicca. There is Islam. There is Hinduism. There is Buddhism (I have a strong love of Buddhist's sayings). There are some whose path bring them to believe there is nothing after.

I think we are all meant to believe what we believe and I would never disrespect anyone based on that. However, our difficult kids tend to discount anything with rules and morals and don't have any intrinsically within themselves. They want no rules, no moral norms, internal anarchy and they want everyone to be ok with it. Under those circumstances I figured that most of our challenged little sweethearts would have no moral compass, be it from a religion or from within (we all know that they don't have it from within). Therefore, I wanted to see if my feelings were valid.

I love anything spiritual...am often drawn to Native American culture for that reason. And I feel all religions are good and that good people are just as good. I don't believe we should bash somebody if we believe in something and they do not. But I've been on the receiving end of that too and don't appreciate being told that "science" doesn't show that there is anything more than life and death and I have been told that many times in a nasty way. I don't like when non-believers ridicule especially Christians about "a little man in the sky." That makes me feel bad for the person who said it, not the person it was said about. It shows such a lack of tolerance. So it goes both ways.

In the end, we should respect one another if we are good people. And that's all that matters to me. Somebody else's private beliefs or lack of them is not my business.

 

[SuZir]

I think we shouldn't assume that we and our thoughts of them are the primary motivator in our kids' lives. Despite how it feels at times they actually are likely not living their lives just to spite us.

There is no actual, hard core, unquestionable evidence of anything supernatural. On the other hand it is logically impossible to prove that something doesn't exist. That means we do not know if there is something supernatural or not, it is solely the question of believing. Most people who believe in something supernatural do it for one of two reasons; either because of personal experience (which can be anything from earth shattering to some vague, whimsical voice/thought/hope/feeling nagging that maybe despite of everything, there is something else) or because that is how they were raised to believe and they have never questioned that belief. It can not be attributed to some kind of moral failing from their part if our kids have both questioned and thought about the matter and have not have any kind of personal experience that would have made them believe.

They may talk down our beliefs to spite us, but I do doubt they base their own existential understanding just for a hope to annoy us, at least not if we have not browbeaten them to share our own beliefs against their will when they were still young. Going to other way because of spite is likely for kids who have been brought up in religiously abusive environments (either at home or at church), but if that has not been the case, it is unlikely kids would harbour so much spite against the religion in which they were brought up, that they would deny it in spite. It is much more likely, that they simply do notice that they do not believe that way.

It is not always about us!

EDIT: I personally was brought up as an atheist, but some time during my late teens/early adulthood I started to question the belief system I was raised to believe and started to have that nagging thought that maybe after all... I ended up joining the church. I did not do that to spite my parents (though they were upset), nor were they in any way reason or motivation for that nagging thought. It was simply about me, my existential views and my faith, not about my parents. I ended up a believing agnostic (as in, I do have some faith or at least hope for existence of a deity, but I know absolutely nothing) which my parents do consider moral failing and something I did to spite them, but that is simply not true.

 

[BusynMember]

Suz, I agree with you that it is not to spite us. I believe it is more that most of them (and your son seems a lot nicer than many of our little darlings) just do not participate in ANYTHING that requires any sort of belief or moral value. That includes even societal rules. All of my kids know how I believe. None of them share my exact beliefs and that's ok with me. Although your son has definite issues that require help at times, he basically tries to work (he is lucky he loves his job), be respectful toward you and not spit at authority. Therefore, that makes me think your son can regulate his morals within himself. Many of our kids don't even try.

Being the first person in my family to ever marry outside of my religion (Judaism) was a major big deal in my famly of origin, although it has happened over and over again since me. I also did not do it to spite my parents, even though they weren't very good to me. Of course, in their minds, I did it JUST to spite them, which was so not true. I just felt it was silly to force yourself to only marry somebody of a certain type of religious belief.

 

[SuZir]

Although your son has definite issues that require help at times, he basically tries to work (he is lucky he loves his job), be respectful toward you and not spit at authority.

True and not so true. He does have issues, he tries his darnest to do his job (and he mostly loves it), he is very labile in his respectfulness to me or his dad (but again it is more about him than about me or my husband) and he is definitely spitting on authority (and backstabbing, being other ways passive-aggressive, being spiteful and so mindbogglingly disrespectful that you wouldn't believe your eyes.) Lucky thing is, that I'm not an authority to him. I'm just a mom, those are other people who have to fight the wars about respecting authority with him.

But that wasn't my point. My point is, that we should be very careful, when we assume our kids' belief systems are what they are because they are troubled or that their belief systems are indicators of some lack of thought or lack of morals from their part. Even if their belief system is different from what we raised them into we should not take that as personal insult, because it is unlikely their belief system is what it is because they would want to anger us with it.