worldview

My twelve-year-old doesn't see why any one should believe in anything at all. He is a militant atheistic. He believes it's okay to make fun of religious people because that will help them see reality.

My first and the obvious issue with this is the hypocrisy. I disagree with you so I will hurt your feelings... hmm... what other religion acts on that? Oh, all of them, right! We're working on convincing him that he doesn't want to become the evil he deplores.

I'm also working on making sure my younger three don't go this way. That my children can connect their beliefs to their hearts and their hearts to the world is way, way more important than math. And math, as you can see from my past fifteen entries or so, is important.

In order to prevent the children floating about in meaninglessness doing what the TV tells them and justifying it illogically, I need to teach:

- logic (that reason exists, and by extension, some search for truth)
- worldview (if they know it exists they can see it's effect)
- a chronological humanities course including history, literature and art (so they can get a strong sense of where meanings have had an impact on the world)
- and apologetics for our religion (so they can dialogue with me about it and maybe take me off to other worlds I wouldn't have visited without their help)

In order to do all this, before I do all this, I need to teach the kids to use their native language easily, and think hard. You know what that means? Books and games. Books and games. My homeschool program for my younger two children goes like this: share books, talk a bunch, play logic games.

Meanwhile I'm doing damage control with the Gamer. First, I'm giving him Mere Christianity by CS Lewis. We're not Christians, but that one is an easy read and hard to argue against when you don't have a good logic course under your belt (which he doesn't quite yet). It should knock him off his arrogant ass and make him willing to learn.

From there I'll carry on with the Pop Culture and Philosophy series, James Sire's The Universe Next Door, and of course the rest of the logic materials I have always planned for him to use.

At some point I may touch the atheism directly with my own personal arsenal of arguments against it, but maybe not. I don't mind if my kid is an atheist. I only very much do mind if he thinks that it doesn't matter that he's an atheist.