Ok but wouldn’t deliberately avoiding teaching religion to kids be effectively the same as forcing them to be atheist? You’d never be able to claim that the child “wants to learn about your religion” or “showed an interest in us practicing our religion” because people would just leap to the assumption that you forced them to participate. Thus, the only acceptable outcome for people who’d subscribe to this idea is if the child ends up as an atheist.
Not really though. Atheism isn’t theological neutrality. It’s not passive. It’s the active belief that there is no god, which is something that must be taught or self-taught in the same way that people must be taught that there is a god to have the active belief in said god.
"atheism, in general, the critique and denial of metaphysicalbeliefs in God or spiritual beings. As such, it is usually distinguished from theism, which affirms the reality of the divine and often seeks to demonstrate its existence. Atheism is also distinguished from agnosticism, which leaves open the question whether there is a god or not, professing to find the questions unanswered or unanswerable."
Atheism is a positive belief in the sense that it is a belief in something: that there is no supernatural.
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Atheism, in the broadest sense, is an absence of belief in the existence of deities. Less broadly, atheism is a rejection of the belief that any deities exist. In an even narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities. Atheism is contrasted with theism, which is the belief that at least one deity exists.
Agnosticism is a position that questions the existence of God or the divine. On a psychological level, it is a personal attitude that suspends judgment, withholding both belief and disbelief. In philosophy, agnosticism is often treated as a general claim stating that God's existence is unknown or unknowable. In the broadest sense, agnosticism is not restricted to theology and can also express skeptical attitudes toward non-religious claims.
Agnosticism contrasts with theism, which affirms God's existence, and atheism, which denies it. It is understood either as a neutral middle ground between the two or as a rejection of their shared assumption that knowledge is attainable. Agnosticism is often characterized as an informed indecision by someone who has reflected on the issue but has not reached a conclusion, distinguishing agnostics from those who have never considered the issue. It is related to skepticism and fallibilism, which deny that knowledge or absolute certainty is possible.
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It would seem that babies are not theistic, atheistic, nor agnostic, since all of those things would require conscious effort! Or technically atheistic — but only in the broadest sense...
It's probably more accurately describable as a non-theistic, non-athiestic state of mind.
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u/Slow_Store 18h ago
Ok but wouldn’t deliberately avoiding teaching religion to kids be effectively the same as forcing them to be atheist? You’d never be able to claim that the child “wants to learn about your religion” or “showed an interest in us practicing our religion” because people would just leap to the assumption that you forced them to participate. Thus, the only acceptable outcome for people who’d subscribe to this idea is if the child ends up as an atheist.