EDITOR: Dale McGowan, Ph.D

ISBN: 10:0814474268(pbk)

            13:9780814474266(pbk)

            Parenting Beyond Belief from Amacom Publishing is a quality paperback book that consists of 40 essays on the subject of “Raising Ethical, Caring Kids Without Religion,” the subtitle of the book. How that task can be accomplished has become important for the millions of atheists and agnostics who, despite their growing number, constitute the minority in a society which is dominated by believers in the tenets of organized religions – predominantly, in the Americas and Europe, one division or another of Christianity.

            Parents who are atheists or agnostics face numerous problems. At school their children are asked to pledge allegiance to the flag “under God.” When their children want to know who or what “God” is, and why they are not to take the pledge “under God” with the rest of the members of their class, how are their parents to cope with such questions? When the children of non-believers ask what is meant by terms such as “heaven” and “hell” that they are hearing in and out of school, how are such concepts to be explained to them? When the children want to know why other families believe in a deity and participate in communal services, but their own family does not, what is the effective way to deal with that difference? How can religion-based holidays such as Christmas and Yom Kippur, and figures such as “Jesus” and “Santa Claus,” be explained to the children of parents who reject all of that and who raise their sons and daughters in an attitude of disbelief in what the majority accepts as good and proper?

            Overriding all such questions is the problem of teaching children of non-religious parents moral and ethical concepts, and explaining death, without the guidance offered by organized religions and their clerics.

            Atheists Dale McGowan and his wife have faced such critical problems in raising three children without much advice on how to go about it. So, McGowan, a teacher and editor for the Family Issues section of the Atheist Alliance Web Center, decided to put together this book of essays on the key problems involved.

            Unfortunately, most of the essays provide only philosophy. There is not a great deal of practical advice. The most effective may be that offered by Oxford ethologist Richard Dawkins, author of the widely discussed book The God Delusion. He emphasizes teaching children to make decisions on the basis of evidence and to avoid acceptance of what they are told by anyone in a position of authority without being shown why whatever it is should be considered as true.

            Margaret Downey, founder of the Freethought Society of Greater Philadelphia, urges atheist and agnostic parents to teach their children the importance of sticking to principles they have come to recognize as true even at the cost of being unpopular with their classmates and schoolteachers.

            Ed Buckner, formerly a school administrator and executive director of the Council for Secular Humanism, wants non-religious parents to show their children that there is dignity and pride in becoming independent thinkers.

            Tom Flynn, editor of the humanist magazine Free Inquiry, points out that no matter how hard it is to raise children in a religion-dominated society, it is worth it because children subjected to lies about the supernatural and mythical figures such as Santa Claus will become more cynical and unethical than will children told right from an early age to distinguish between reality and fairy tales.

            Children of non-believers inevitably will be told by playmates and certain types of adults that they are “going to hell” for not believing in “Jesus” or “God.”  Attorney David Koepsell, executive director of the Council for Secular Humanism, writes that children so attacked should be warned of it early in life and instructed to respond by stating that they do not believe in “hell.”

            Editor McGowan, turning to what may be considered the toughest prospect of all, telling worried children what death means, believes that the explanation must be as honest as it is blunt, however painful.  Tell them, he writes, that every human being lives a short life and then is “dead forever,” which means that everyone’s “consciousness will vanish into nothingness.”

            On the brighter side, McGowan provides a list of organizations that offer companionship, protection, and even summer camps for atheists and agnostics and their children. That list, from a practical standpoint at least, may be the most useful part of the book for parents raising children in a manner disapproved by the religious majority.

The above review was contributed by: Burton H. Wolfe: Burton is an award winning journalist and the author of hundreds of published articles and of books such The Hippies (New American Library), Hitler and the Nazis (Putnam), and Pileup on Death Row (Doubleday).  Wolfe publishes an occasional newsletter called "Burton Wolfe's Internet Rag" and maintains a web site.