Posted by Siamang on: 04.11.2006 /
Hi everyone. Well, it’s my birthday and I’m guest blogging here today. I should start with a bit about me, since I haven’t introduced myself in the forum formally.
I’m 39 years old, been married almost 10 years now and we have a 2-year-old daughter. I live in the Los Angeles area and I’m an animator at a company that produces family entertainment.
My wife currently stays home, but she may return to the workforce at least part time in a few years.
My attention is focused between my family and my work, and luckily the company I work for is very family-centered. I of course wish I had more time for extended family and friends, but a two-year-old can be an attention tyrant. We pour our daily stamina into caring for her. Hopefully soon it’ll get easier!
I think that sometimes new readers are coming in mid-story here. Sometimes this bears some repeating. My belief as an atheist is this: I do not claim there is no God. I do not claim there is. My position is that I do not find the evidence for any one religion to be sufficiently compelling to bring me to believe.
My wife and I are both atheists in the sense that neither of us worships a deity. I have an agnostic approach. My wife has I think a belief closer to deism. We have not discussed the ideas of religion with our daughter yet. We expect to raise her with a cultural awareness of religion. She will be exposed to religion, and we will not attempt to hide it from her, that’s simply not possible.
My feeling is, her soul is her own, her journey will be her own. I cannot make any decisions for her. We will raise her in our home, with all the love we can muster. We will share with her our opinions, feelings and experiences regarding religion, but her decisions are her own.
I am much more concerned with raising a moral child than I am with raising an atheist. If she grows up to be a moral, good, kind, loving Christian, I will be the proudest atheist you ever met!
I hope to do a good job coming up with ideas to discuss here. Before we get started I want to remind folks that this diablog is about listening and sharing, not debating. I hope to write posts that contribute to that side of the conversation. Posts debating ideas should be taken to the appropriate areas of the OTM Discussion Board on the upper right of this screen.
Anyway, hope everyone enjoys my birthday.
Siamang
Leave a Reply
Comment by: NCxian
1 04/11/06 3:04 AM | Comment Link |Happy birthday, Siamang!
Comment by: Ir
2 04/11/06 4:53 AM | Comment Link |Happy Birthday, Siamang :) I’m enjoying your birthday so far! Thanks for being willing to share a little about your life and your family goals with us.
Have you worked on anything we might have heard of? (If you’d rather not say so you can preserve your anonymity I understand)
It would be a little pointless at this age, I think. It’s going to be a while before she develops the mental capability for separating fact from fiction.
I think if you tried to hide it, you’d increase its appeal unnecessarily by making it a ’secret/forbidden’ thing and possibly an attractive way to achieve the separation children need to achieve from their parents as they move from childhood into young adulthood.
Practically speaking, do you think you will take her to services? What would her a ‘fair’, ‘unbiased’ exposure to religion?
There are so many parents whose approval of their child is conditioned on the child being receptive to becoming a ‘mini-clone’ of the parents. I’m so glad you’re not going to push for that.
That makes sense to me. Maybe I shouldn’t ask you to imagine this on your birthday because it may be a nasty thought - so forgive me - but, what if your daughter, when she grows up, finds herself attracted to the kind of Christianity which teaches that all non-believers in it will go to hell? What if she becomes that kind of Christian and then worries about you and your wife going to hell, and times together become always subject to her worrying about your eternal future and trying to convert you?
I expect you’d still love her; but it would be hard, wouldn’t it? As well as being sad about the tension it introduced into your relationship with her, wouldn’t you also be sad because you’d feel she’d been somewhat ‘deceived’?
Was that too many questions? Have I made you regret being guest blogger already? ;)
Comment by: big d
3 04/11/06 5:28 AM | Comment Link |Siamang,
Thank you for a window for us to see a little more of you. You have helped me define my faith of what I believe and you have also challanged me to change the way I approach people regardless of who’s “right or wrong” with how or what they believe.
Have a great birthday
Comment by: calm one
4 04/11/06 7:26 AM | Comment Link |Happy Birthday Siamang!
Comment by: Rick
5 04/11/06 8:11 AM | Comment Link |Happy birthday Siamang. Hope you have a great day.
Comment by: Marty
6 04/11/06 8:34 AM | Comment Link |What a loving and profound statement. You have a lucky child.
Also what a wonderful bridging statment. I think a lot of the Christian reaction to Atheists (which in most cases meaning people that they don’t really know) is the fear that Atheists want to convert all of the Christians and their children to be Atheists. It seems similar to the fear by many (manly Conservative Christians) that if gays and lesbians adopt children that they will want to raise them to be gay and lesbian - which my sense/understanding is untrue.
Happy Birthday Siamang - but on this day - you are the gift to us!
Comment by: Ir
7 04/11/06 9:33 AM | Comment Link |Wonderful thought, Marty! I agree :)
Comment by: Siamang
8 04/11/06 9:48 AM | Comment Link |Thanks for the kind thoughts, folks.
Ir asked:
Well, right now it looks good that my mother and stepfather will be moving out to be closer to us. If that’s the case, she’ll get that exposure to Christianity, as they have a very church-centered life.
She has already been to church service, though as an infant!
Well, hopefully any feelings of internal turmoil she’d feel by that would clue her into the idea that she wasn’t holding a loving theology.
But that’s her journey, not mine!
Comment by: Texan
9 04/11/06 9:59 AM | Comment Link |Happy Birthday Siamang! You are a wonderful gift to this site. It’s always a pleasure to read your comments.
Comment by: Siamang
10 04/11/06 10:08 AM | Comment Link |Ir wrote:
Yes.
;-)
The reason I don’t answer has more to do with not wanting to bring the company I work for into the discussion.
Comment by: Stephan
11 04/11/06 11:23 AM | Comment Link |I know what he has worked on. You would be impressed.
Comment by: Meagan
12 04/11/06 1:55 PM | Comment Link |Siamang,
I think the idea of having a guest blogger is a great one and I’m so glad that we are getting to hear about you and your family! Sounds like you really have a grasp on the parent thing; loving unconditionaly. I admire that! Happy Birthday!
Meagan
Comment by: Eliza
13 04/11/06 2:11 PM | Comment Link |Happy 39th, Siamang! Your birthday is turning out to be a great day up here in Seattle - hope the same is true for you in/near LA!
You also seem to find some time to keep up on science, with good understanding of what relevance it has for understanding our place in the scheme of things - and a very nice handle on how to relate that information. I sure appreciate your “sideline” work in that area!
As others have commented, you sound like a great dad. It does get easier, as your child becomes more independent and develops some interests and activities beyond her nuclear family. That “ease” is most notable when your kid starts grade school but even before then she’ll be playing on her own & with other kids, pouring her own juice & trying to butter her own toast, and developing some equanimity at 3, 4, and 5 that a 2-yr-old just can’t manage. And then you’ll even miss some of the intenseness of the toddler years (maybe!)…
Comment by: Tom in Sacramento
14 04/11/06 3:11 PM | Comment Link |Siamang,
You are a very wise man, and your wife, too, I’m sure. You wrote, “I am much more concerned with raising a moral child than I am with raising an atheist. If she grows up to be a moral, good, kind, loving Christian, I will be the proudest atheist you ever met!”
I know what you are speaking of. None of my kids has followed in my spiritual footsteps. But each has made or is learning to make, their way in the world. (Some are slower learners than others. ) And I am proud of each. Perhaps proudest of all that the two who live near by invite my wife and I to party with them and their friends. And so I can promise you that that loving relationship with your child will be immensely rewarding.
HBDTY!
Comment by: LeslieAnn
15 04/11/06 3:47 PM | Comment Link |4-11-06
Happy Birthday Siamang,
I hope you are having a wonderful time today, and that your family is celebrating your life. This is my first day to read the diablog. I am excited to be involved, I’ve never read or written on blogs before yesterday. My birthday is in July, but my favorite personal day of celebration is what I call my “re-birthday”. My Mom told me once that she used three forms of birth-control to prevent my birth; she had her labor induced before a local ordinance forbidding tubal-ligation went into effect, so I was her last child. I’m sure you get the drift; no one celbrated my existence. When I was 18 I came close to commiting suicide for many reasons. On October 21, 1971, around 8:30 pm, on a Thursday night, in San Antonio, TX - I met Jesus Christ and discovered that God loved me and was extremely excited to know me. The bible calls my experience rebirth, thus my re-birthday! I’ve celebrated 34 re-birthdays so far and look forward to more.
I am going to read the blogs; I want to virtually meet you and others this way. I look forward to the coming exchanges between us all.
LeslieAnn
PS Two year olds a terrific and they suck the last drop of energy out of you most days. Yes, it gets better and more fascinating each year. People always said to me, “LeslieAnn, slow down and enjoy these days, they go so fast.” I wish I had done what they said more. Time moved excruciatingly slowly somedays back then, now it seems to move at light-speed. My youngest will get married this summer, one day after she turns 19 - Wow!
Comment by: Julie Marie
16 04/11/06 4:34 PM | Comment Link |Welcome to the blog, Lesie Ann.
It may take you awhile, we’re a chatty group! :)