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From birth I would reinforce with my child he or she should make the world a better place. At work, I once had an acquaintance who was an atheist and I was a Wayfer. Of course, I felt he was a complete counterfeit using the devil to mimic God’s good works. He was doing goodworks but not for the glory of God. Especially, why should I be concerned about helping anyone other than active believers in the household of God? He explained that everyday he walked about the earth looking to do good. That might include helping a person, working with a group that he felt was important, reading a book, doing a good job at work, or visiting with friends. A person’s religious belief did not enter into his reason for doing anything. I doubt if he was concerned about acquiring rewards, or losing rewards, by impressing or disappointing a god.

I'm not saying I'm raising him to be an atheist or a Christian or a Buddhist or an adherent to any ideology. He knows if he wants to talk about any of it, I'm here to talk about it. I hope I'm raising him to be curious, inquisitive, thoughtful, kind, compassionate, generous, respectful, diligent, honest, accountable. I hope. I tell him if he wants to find out about God, gods or no gods, he can find out for himself. I tell him if he wants to find out if there is that which is eternal and unnameable, he can find out about that, too.

Maybe they WOULD be free to inquire, free to find out. ------ This topic hit hard for me recently. It's an issue that I've been concerned about for years. My son, 14, has been forced to go to Wierwillian fellowship his entire life. I've tried to imagine how the deprogramming will go when the time comes. Would it be hard? Would he M&A me? We have never talked about God, religion, belief. I've never brought it up, nor has he. Until two weeks ago. He told me his mother says an administrator at his school is or has or a devil spirit. I immediately yelled, "BULLS HIT!" Since he brought it up, I seized the opportunity correct his indoctrination, but he stopped me mid speech with a raised hand and said, "Dad! I know! Don't worry. I know it's bulls hit." He then let out a long, hard belly laugh at the absurdity of it all. I wept tears of relief and gratitude. He asked me why I was crying. "Joy, Son," I said. "Tears of joy." Last week we were going over some vocabulary and spelling. The word was pneumonia, I think. I casually remarked this should be easy to remember, "Because Greek...pneuma hagion... same stem...means breath...you hear that phrase every Sunday, right?" He replied, "Oh, I don't know... I've never heard that... but I don't pay attention at fellowship. I'm usually sleeping with my eyes open." Again, I wept. He then asked me when he can stop going to fellowship. I told him whenever he wants. Everyone has a devil spirit. Even rap music is devil spirit, so says his mom. We laugh about how everyone and everything is devil spirit every day now. It's our inside joke. I'm laughing and weeping tears of joyous relief even as I type this.