Question for atheist parents or prospective parents.

There have been a few posts from atheists of late regarding humanity suffering from acts of man and conditions of nature.

These posts have set me to thinking about the nature of the world and the fact that any children we create will, inevitably, suffer.

While we usually have the choice/control over wether or not we create another being we often have little or no control over what that being will encounter and experience.

In many respects, I would suggest, the life experience and the degrees of health/ happiness/ pain/ suffering/ joy/ despair….are a crap shoot.
Environment, recourses, parenting, community can all be contributors to positive experience…but there are no certainties or guarantees.
The children we create may experience all manner of natural or man made debilitating or crushing events- disease, disfigurement, mental illness, assault, war, hunger and heart break.
They will suffer, they will experience pain, the ballance between joy/sorrow pleasure/pain cannot be known...they will die.

For the theist bringing a child into the world there are a number of psychological/ spiritual ‘buffer’ beliefs- The child will be guided and protected by a supernatural agency- angels/god. The child can be aided through the intercession of prayer. Whatever happens to the child, be it a lifetime of suffering or early death, there is the afterlife/reincarnation. Whatever the nature or duration of suffering the child the experience is placed in the context of a potential eternity in heaven/paradise.

PLEASE…I’m not putting >any< of the above theist beliefs forward as actualities/realities …they may well all be false.
I’m not interested in arguments from theists or atheists that support or refute these beliefs.

I am content that the beliefs themselves exist and be considered only as psychological buffers in life and in the creation of life.

What I am inviting atheist parents or prospective parents to speak to is the creation of a being in the absence of these psychological buffers/spiritual beliefs.

Does the absence of these buffering beliefs create any intellectual/ethical dilemma, restraint or restriction when considering bringing a child into the world?

Does the certainty of suffering, to one degree or another, for that being disincline you in any way towards considering creating a child?

raising children in a non religious home... I believe in god, i guess... i still am not so sure what i believe frankly, but i do not teach my kids about god beyond maybe using jesus as a story like any other story to teach us about how we treat others. i do not read the bible though... i tend to stick with the basics of treating each other the way we want to be treated and being kind to others and sharing. i think the toughest thing is that it seems any group things you could get involved with are religious based... like MOPS and such. The only thing i have tended to struggle with is when my daughter asks me how come her classmates go to church and why don't we. To that I tend to respond that she should consider herself lucky that she doesn't have to go... i didn't have a choice... i had to go. And my fear is always that if I let her go she will be brainwashed. I don't want them teaching her that women are less then men or any of that bullshit.

they could be taught responsibility and look inward. They would grow without the delusion that life is happening TO them, but that they are in control of their decisions and their happiness.

and I chose not to have children for a number of reasons, the first being that the world is overpopulated already.

No life has been perfect up until now; I don't see that expecting a future life to be non-perfect as well is a valid point when considering whether to play your part in starting another life.

There are many things to consider about having children (ayeshahaqqiqa brings up an important one, just above), but it's never crossed my mind that having no religious beliefs was one of them.

“No life has been perfect up until now”

True…but it’s not any change in life itself I’m considering or asking atheists to consider. Throughout human history there have been a range of evolving ‘buffering beliefs’ that served as psychological/spiritual shields against suffering and death. From the primal belief in guiding/protecting ancestor and animal spirits through to contemporary religious beliefs these psychological buffers are the context in which the decision to create life has been made.
Put bluntly…bringing a child into a world of very real potential pain and suffering could be rationalized/excused by these beliefs.

“I don't see that expecting a future life to be non-perfect as well is a valid point when considering whether to play your part in starting another life.”

What has changed is not the imperfect world or the odds of suffering but the context of belief in which the choice to start a new life is made. Bluntly…to remove the prior buffering beliefs is to change the moral, ethical and intellectual context in which the decision to create life is made. Conceptually the atheist is confronted with the potential of creating a life that is not only going to suffer and die but will do so without any heavenly reward. That in itself creates a different set of moral and ethical considerations and a different calculation of ‘the odds’ of life being a worthwhile experience.

Very bluntly-
The theist can psychologically mitigate/excuse/rationalise any misfortune or suffering the offspring may experience, even death, with their buffering beliefs.

The atheist psychologically faces the dilemma of potentially having a child for whom life is mainly shit’n’suffering then they die…and there are no mitigating/excusing/rationalising buffer beliefs to influence the calculation of the odds.
That looks to me to be a psychologicaly much harder task and ethical decision to make.

" life is mainly shit’n’suffering" ? Not from my point of view. Your OP was just pointing out that some amount of suffering was inevitable. I accept that - everyone undergoes some form of pain at some point in their life, and anyone who lives long enough to be aware of what other humans are is potentially going to have someone they love die at some point. But that doesn't mean life is mainly suffering. It's just not perfect. I don't expect my own life will be perfect from this point on. But that doesn't mean I need to look for a painless way to finish it as soon as possible. I expect my life to be worth living, on balance, in the future.

The original-
“...the dilemma of potentially having a child for whom life is mainly shit’n’suffering...”

Your cut and paste rip from context reconstruction of meaning-

" life is mainly shit’n’suffering" ? Not from my point of view”

And your accusing >me< of “shifting the goal posts”!?

Blatant forgery of a clearly stated pov….it’s called cheating Muriel…it’s cheap and nasty and I have no time or tolerance for it

and the pursuit of ‘evidence’.

Even when clear and incontrovertible evidence of what was actually said is presented the atheist ethic does not even extend to the basic common courtesy of recognising it.

If such a small matter as what was actually written cannot be ascertained and recognised then by what standards of evidence and truth seeking do they peruse a matter as large as the god proposition?

And no.

I had no qualms about bringing children into the
world.

They are as brave as I am.

At one point in my life I was dead set against having kids for some of the reasons you list. Now I believe that suffering derives purely from want. Given that we are not bound to want, suffering can be overcome. To me it's also comforting that cosmic indifference and stochasticity (shit happening randomly), but not organized evil or Deistic manipulation, drives suffering.

My belief that a system of thought, the Scientific method, can provide a mechanism to achieve a deeper understanding of the universe and to gain an ability to embrace that randomness, is certainly a buffer as well. A different flavor of buffer, but a buffer nonetheless.

I'm getting to the point where my theist wife will allow me to move our son away from the biblical allegory and metaphor to a place where he can knowledgeably decide what he believes. I plan to tell him what I belive regarding suffering and atheism. That is, whether there is a God or not is unknowable and, though I have little faith in anything I am no nihilist.

I'll tell him that I believe instead that the process of seeking an understanding of Nature will help me to relive the suffering of those who NEED to believe there is an outside force, those who NEED a buffer. That is a demonstrable fact in my life work, and my father's and my grandfather's... I'll explain to him that this is enough reason for me to to have stayed on the evolutionary treadmill, and that the next link in our genetic destiny is in his hands.

I will do all that I can to make sure he makes an informed decision, with contemplation, like your OP. Thanks for this, it was a helpful exercise in gathering my thoughts.

is it similar to the Buddhist- “All suffering stems from desire”…or something else?

“I believe that suffering derives purely from want”

Perhaps you could tease it out for me in the context of-
“I’m only six I, don’t want cancer mum” or “Gentlemen, I don’t really want those bamboo skewers under my finger nails”…..?

“Given that we are not bound to want, suffering can be overcome.”

Agreed on both counts…and yet (here comes the jaded jaundiced naysayer ;-)…I have met and worked with a number of people (predominantly adolescents) who, try as they might, could not overcome- mental illness/drug addiction/intellectual disability/all combined. There seems to me to be suffering that is overcome and suffering that overwhelms and suffering that others bring to the fingernails that no internal adjustment will alleviate.

“To me it's also comforting that cosmic indifference and stochasticity (shit happening randomly), but not organized evil or Deistic manipulation, drives suffering”.

As long as the “organized evil” of human beings acting horridly is included in that mix I concur.

“My belief that a system of thought, the Scientific method, can provide a mechanism to achieve a deeper understanding of the universe and to gain an ability to embrace that randomness, is certainly a buffer as well. A different flavor of buffer, but a buffer nonetheless.”

I try to avoid personal anecdote, but…I know a young woman hit at birth by the shit happening randomly…she is 20, short, obese, stooped, hunchbacked, cleft palate, drools, makes strange gestures and has a diagnosed psych disability….she is also as sharp and witty as any three of us put together. While she has done remarkably well to overcome suffering she ‘wants’ to belong and society does not embrace her randomness. The only peer group with which she found some acceptance was the church youth group…and even there things became problematic when she would stand up mid Sunday sermon and shout “Bullshit” ;-)
There are a lot like her and to the best of my knowledge the ‘scientific method’ has not as yet provided the acceptance of randomness that she desperately ‘wants’/ needs/ deserves?

To link back to the OP…Hers is the kind of suffering that any potential parent could be confronted with in the shit happening randomly universe. Question is…does the absence of the old buffer beliefs change the moral/ethical/intellectual considerations of having children or the calculation of the odds of wether or not suffering 'life' is worth risking if there is no compensating 'afterlife'?

Taking a risk with my own life-
Many of the atheists on the board object to the notion of a god that permits suffering when he could eliminate it.

Is there any paralell to the atheist parent who could avoid suffering by not creating a life?

(I hope this doesn’t lead to- ‘Ironbark advocates atheist eugenics’ ;-)

I've got some things to do today...

>is it similar to the Buddhist- “All suffering stems from desire”…?

exactly.

>suffering that others bring to the fingernails that no internal adjustment will alleviate.

Perhaps not alleviate, but I believe even the realization that something is out of one's control reduces suffering, and that compassion for the inflictor of that suffering is in itself a way to minimize one's own suffering. Mentally incompetent people can indeed suffer uncontrollably, and I believe we are compelled to take every step possible to help them minimize their suffering (see compassion above).

Ultimately, the extent to which one extends any line of reasoning is determined from within. There are people who will not walk outside for fear of stepping on insects and taking life, and are known to starve themselves to death for the same reason. We biologists call them evolutionary dead ends.

Bottom line: I am willing to admit that my spin on this could just be retrospective rationalization.

We've visited a lot of different churches; Jewish synagogues, Jehovah Witness meeting halls, Mormon chapels, Episcopal churches. I've let him explore the possibility that god exists, using a variety of sources, including those that argue against the existence of a god. As a weak atheist, I expected him to come to a conclusion that there might be something out to believe in, but he's ended up as a strong atheist. I've tried to explain to him why I think that a strong atheist position is nearly as logically unsound as those who believe in god.

He's only 12, though, so who knows what he'll end up being in the long run. My wife is a deist, so he gets that perspective a lot, but rejected it even though she was far more outspoken with him regarding her deism. I've always stressed that he should keep an open mind to the possibilities, but that he needs to require at least some minimal evidence before blindly believing something.

This quest for knowledge is something that not only teaches him acceptance of others who may be different, but also has given him the ability to think about true moral dilemmas from a human rather than a mystical point of view.

Parenting Beyond Belief

http://www.parentingbeyondbelief.com/forum/

Telling the truth is always better than selling make-believe as truth.

As far as the role of one's future anxiety and it's role in the desire to procreate, it's a natural thing to delay or forego procreation at times of high stress. It makes sense when you think about it in purely biological terms: caring for an offspring is extremely calorie-intensive, and should ideally timed for periods with the greatest expected survival rates, at least in K selected species.

The funny thing is, if you read crazy fundamentalist whackaloon boards, they have almost the same anxieties, seen through their particular religious lens. So instead of talking about impending ecological crises, they talk about the tribulation or some nonsense, but it's really the same idea, that things are bad and only going to get worse, and that bringing a kid into all of that is irresponsible. I'm sure people have said the same throughout history. Then again, people also have sex for comfort in times of stress, so it all balances out and... voila! cue babies.

My advice as a parent would be that anybody considering whether or not to start a family should look at their own familial situation, their future economic prospects, their personal health (mental too) and decide whether that's conducive to raising a child. If overpopulation concerns are an issue, there is an ongoing and desperate need for good, dedicated people to take in foster children or to adopt less "desirable" (aka any who aren't perfectly healthy infants of a desirable hue) children.

Sure, I have to water it down so she can understand, but science trumps religion in my household. I was asked why I don't believe in god and I answered that there was no proof. I explained that many people believe in a story that was made up a long time ago because their parents told them to. She asked if she could go to church, and I said yes, and we discussed what she heard when she got home.