In Response To: “Why I Raise My Children Without God”

Why I Raise My Children To Have Faith In God’s Will?

Observation: God is a bad parent and role model. Response: How God Is Not A Bad Role

Model?

Observation: God is not logical. Response: How God Is Logical? Observation: God is not fair. Response: How God Is Fair?

Observation: God does not protect the innocent. Response: How God Protects The

Innocent?

Observation: God is not present. Response: How God Is Present?

Observation: God Does Not Teach Children to Be Good. Response: How Does God Teach

Children To Be Good?

Observation: God Teaches Narcissism. Response: How God Does Not Teach Narcissism?

―Schools and governments will make decision based on what is logical, just

and fair‖ and God will judge how logical, just and fair were those who run

the schools and the system of governance.

2013

Zahid Hussain Khalid

Written for Wordpress, Slideshare, Facebook and Twitter

3/1/2013

In Response To: “Why I Raise My Children Without God”

By: Zahid Hussain Khalid

http://ireport.cnn.com/docs/DOC-910282

Why I Raise My Children To Have Faith In God’s Will?

In response to:

Why I Raise My Children Without God?

When my son was around 3 years old, he used to ask me

a lot of questions about heaven. Where is it? How do

people walk without a body? How will I find you? You

know the questions that kids ask.

For over a year, I lied to him and made up stories that I

didn’t believe about heaven. Like most parents, I love

my child so much that I didn’t want him to be scared. I

wanted him to feel safe and loved and full of hope. But

the trade-off was that I I didn’t believe either.

One day he would know this, and he would not trust my

judgment. He would know that I built an elaborate

tale—not unlike the one we tell children about Santa—

to explain the inconsistent and illogical legend of God.

And so I thought it was only right to be honest with my children. I am a non-believer, and for years I’ve been on the fringe

in my community. As a blogger, though, I’ve found that there are many other parents out there like me. We are creating

the next generation of kids, and there is a wave of young agnostics, atheists, free thinkers and humanists rising up through

the ranks who will, hopefully, lower our nation’s religious fever.

Here are a few of the reasons why I am raising my children without God. And reasons (in blue) for raising children by

knowing God.

Why I Raise My Children To Have Faith In God’s Will?

My children are grown up. I encourage them to keenly observe, carefully analyze and make a choice after looking into

every available option. Once they make up their mind they need to follow their head and heart not only for their own good

but common good. This is where they have to ―TRUST in GOD but KEEP their POWDER DRY!‖ And that is what God

also wants us to.

He claims that he has created the life and the universe and everything therein. Do I have a reason to believe otherwise? I

am looking for someone other than God to make a similar claim and prove that too. Why do I expect that? There is

nothing in this world that has been created by someone and does not carry the name of its creator with it. Why does

anyone not come forward as a creator of life and universe? I like God as an ANONYMOUS creator of something that

remains unclaimed by any other creator than God throughout the human history.

The ongoing process of evolution is nothing but a divine

four-word key to unlock the mysteries of life and

universe: Observation, Analysis, Conclusion and

Action. This is what I have learnt from my father and I

have passed onto my children. That is the key to

knowing God and being a good human being.

Why Did I Do That?

Observation: God is a bad parent and role model.

If God is our father, then he is not a good parent. Good parents don’t allow their children to inflict harm on others. Good

people don’t stand by and watch horrible acts committed against innocent men, women and children. They don’t condone

violence and abuse. ―He has given us free will,‖ you say? Our children have free will, but we still step in and guide them.

Response: How God Is Not A Bad Role Model?

He created us in a universe full of everything that we

need and live there in any way as we please. He not only

did that He categorically gave us a code of conduct too

consisting of a cross-road: One Right and the other

Wrong, one may call it Good and Evil also, listing the

benefits and the cost of opting any one of the two

respectively equipping us with brain to make wise

choices without interfering in our choices to

differentiate between right and wrong. Isn’t it freedom

of choice? I want my children to exercise that choice!

God asks questions and triggers mind. Mind is unveiling

the mysteries of life and universe. One day human

beings, on their way, ultimately find and see the God

too. The questions children ask are asked by the God

too. You can see God in your Children’s questions.

Observation: God is not logical.

How many times have you heard, ―Why did God allow

this to happen?‖ And this: ―It’s not for us to

understand.‖ Translate: We don’t understand, so we will

not think about it or deal with the issue. Take for

example the senseless tragedy in Newtown. Rather than

address the problem of guns in America, we defer

responsibility to God. He had a reason. He wanted more

angels. Only he knows why. We write poems saying that

we told God to leave our schools. Now he’s making us

pay the price. If there is a good, all-knowing, all-

powerful God who loves his children, does it make

sense that he would allow murders, child abuse, wars,

brutal beatings, torture and millions of heinous acts to

be committed throughout the history of mankind?

Doesn’t this go against everything Christ taught us in

the New Testament?

The question we should be asking is this: ―Why did we allow this to happen?‖ How can we fix this? No imaginary person

is going to give us the answers or tell us why. Only we have the ability to be logical and to problem solve, and we should

not abdicate these responsibilities to ―God‖ just because a topic is tough or uncomfortable to address.

Response: How God Is Logical?

We send our children to school for learning the art of

living through acquiring necessary knowledge and skills

for doing that. We call it education. Education is a step

by step process of acquiring knowledge. A person

acquires knowledge for its application to make his life

worth living. He either passes in doing that or fails. we

humans are students of a larger school called universe.

We are free to explore, learn and apply. For that we

cooperate, coordinate and act individually and

collectively making wise and unwise choices, friends

and foes in this process of acquiring knowledge and then

applying it in practical life. We have developed our own

codes of social conduct to follow. We reward those who

do well and punish those who do not follow the rules.

We have our choices of social conduct and good or evil

consequences of the same too.

When we demand freedom of choice in whatever we do then how can we blame God for its consequences? God has given

us a choice to be and to do what we want to! Isn’t it very Logical Choice? The Choice you are in favor of!

Observation: God is not fair.

If God is fair, then why does he answer the silly prayers

of some while allowing other, serious requests, to go

unanswered? I have known people who pray that they

can find money to buy new furniture. (Answered.) I

have known people who pray to God to help them win a

soccer match. (Answered.) Why are the prayers of

parents with dying children not answered?

If God is fair, then why are some babies born with heart

defects, autism, missing limbs or conjoined to another

baby? Clearly, all men are not created equally. Why is a

good man beaten senseless on the street while an evil

man finds great wealth taking advantage of others? This

is not fair. A game maker who allows luck to rule

mankind’s existence has not created a fair game.

Response: How God Is Fair?

Prayers are answered when the intentions and the

actions are aligned at a right moment in an appropriate

way. Parents’ prayers with dying children are not

answered indicating that there is something lacking in

human knowledge that needs to be probed and acquired.

This again is a part of nature’s well designed automated

system of evolution of different disciplines of social and

natural sciences. This is neither GAME nor LUCK.

Observation: God does not protect the innocent.

He does not keep our children safe. As a society, we stand up and speak for those who cannot. We protect our little ones as

much as possible. When a child is kidnapped, we work together to find the child. We do not tolerate abuse and neglect.

Why can’t God, with all his powers of omnipotence, protect the innocent?

Response: How God Protects The Innocent?

God has blessed human being with wisdom and means

to evolve a system of governance that is based on equal

access to different platforms of social and economic

justice. If the code of social conduct is violated by

human being and access to justice is denied then human

beings are to be blamed for that not God.

Observation: God is not present.

He is not here. Telling our children to love a person they

cannot see, smell, touch or hear does not make sense. It

means that we teach children to love an image, an image

that lives only in their imaginations. What we teach

them, in effect, is to love an idea that we have created,

one that is based in our fears and our hopes.

Response: How God Is Present?

God is everywhere and in everything. Only the eyes

cannot see Him but hearts and souls do feel His

presence when a person truly believes in God, has true

faith in Him and looks for Him with open eyes, mind

and heart. He makes His presence felt in many ways.

Observation: God Does Not Teach Children to Be Good

A child should make moral choices for the right reasons.

Telling him that he must behave because God is

watching means that his morality will be externally

focused rather than internally structured. It’s like telling

a child to behave or Santa won’t bring presents. When

we take God out of the picture, we place responsibility

of doing the right thing onto the shoulders of our

children. No, they won’t go to heaven or rule their own

planets when they die, but they can sleep better at night.

They will make their family proud. They will feel better

about who they are. They will be decent people.

Response: How God Teaches Children To Be Good?

There is no need to tell the children that God is watching enabling them to make moral choices for the right reasons. The

society they live in requires them to do that even if they don’t believe in God. God has given the choice to the people to be

either responsible or irresponsible as every society has a unanimous code of responsible social conduct giving the same

choice to its members as God has given. Being good is being a good human being and that is what God wants. God has

kept His rights between himself and an individual but when a human being violates another human being’s right He has

declared that the violation of an individual’s right will not go unpunished unless the person whose rights have been

violated forgives the person guilty of violating his rights. The purpose is to inculcate a sense of respect for each other in

human beings. Can there be a better teaching than this one.

Observation: God Teaches Narcissism

―God has a plan for you.‖ Telling kids there is a big guy in the sky who has a special path for them makes children

narcissistic; it makes them think the world is at their disposal and that, no matter what happens, it doesn’t really matter

because God is in control. That gives kids a sense of false security and creates selfishness. ―No matter what I do, God

loves me and forgives me. He knows my purpose. I am special.‖ The irony is that, while we tell this story to our kids,

other children are abused and murdered, starved and neglected. All part of God’s plan, right?

When we raise kids without God, we tell them the

truth—we are no more special than the next creature.

We are just a very, very small part of a big, big

machine–whether that machine is nature or society–the

influence we have is minuscule. The realization of our

insignificance gives us a true sense of humbleness.

I understand why people need God. I understand why

people need heaven. It is terrifying to think that we are

all alone in this universe, that one day we—along with

the children we love so much—will cease to exist. The

idea of God and an afterlife gives many of us structure,

community and hope.

I do not want religion to go away. I only want religion to be kept at home or in church where it belongs. It’s a personal

effect, like a toothbrush or a pair of shoes. It’s not something to be used or worn by strangers. I want my children to be

free not to believe and to know that our schools and our government will make decisions based on what is logical, just and

fair—not on what they believe an imaginary God wants.

Response: How God Does Not Teach Narcissism?

Nothing in the universe from an ant to an elephant and

from a human being to an ape is insignificant. What

makes anyone of any significance is the way he

behaves. Having said that, God has empowered every

living soul to live the life in any manner he pleases to.

The society is supreme in world we live in and God will

judge us not by our acts but our deeds in the Day of

Judgment. A good human being in the world we live in

is promised to be treated as a good human being in the

world after too. The realization of our significance and

not our insignificance gives us a true sense of

humbleness.

―Schools and governments will make decision based on what is logical, just and fair‖ and God will judge how logical, just

and fair were those who run the schools and the system of governance.

Zahid Hussain Khalid has worked for national and international media groups not as a journalist but a marketing practitioner, researcher and analyst. He successfully initiated and completed the assigned managerial and country tasks for such publications as Arab News, Financial Times, Jang Group, Euromoney magazine, Petroleum Economist, South China Morning Post, Asiamoney magazine, Innovation Management and Hong Kong Standard except Forbes Inc, Forbes Global, Forbes Europe, Forbes Asia. I will always remain thankful to Mr. William Adamapolous and Mr. Steve Forbes of Forbes Inc and Mr. Tony Shale CEO, Euroomoney Institutional Investor Group (Jersey) Limited for their personal encouragement and support in initiating and marketing Pakistan-specific innovative integrated media packages for investment promotion. He also worked as Associate Producer, Current Affairs, Pakistan Television Corp.

His articles have appeared in the Daily Jang, Daily Mashriq, the Nawa-e-Waqt, daily The Muslim and weekly Akhbar-e-Jehan on social, economic, political, diplomatic and military subjects which are available here http://zahidhkhalid.wordpress.com/ and here http://www.slideshare.net/19540201

He had co-produced more than hundred episodes of the most popular weekly program “Hafta-e-Rafta” and was nominated for Best Producer’s award for documentaries on Afghan Refugees and Year of the Aged.

His work reflects a visible difference because he strongly believes in innovative approach in everything that he does. He was co-owner of International Media Sales from 1991 to 2012 and is owner of SUN&FZ Associates since 1994.