This is just lame. Atheist parents in Palo Alto have set up an atheist Sunday school:
The Palo Alto Sunday family program uses music, art and discussion to encourage personal expression, intellectual curiosity and collaboration. One Sunday this fall found a dozen children up to age 6 and several parents playing percussion instruments and singing empowering anthems like I'm Unique and Unrepeatable, set to the tune of Ten Little Indians, instead of traditional Sunday-school songs like Jesus Loves Me. Rather than listen to a Bible story, the class read Stone Soup, a secular parable of a traveler who feeds a village by making a stew using one ingredient from each home.
Down the hall in the kitchen, older kids engaged in a Socratic conversation with class leader Bishop about the role persuasion plays in decision-making. He tried to get them to see that people who are coerced into renouncing their beliefs might not actually change their minds but could be acting out of self-preservation--an important lesson for young atheists who may feel pressure to say they believe in God.
Come on, guys. I left the Church because I believe in evidence and not in God, elves, Santa Claus and all that nonense, but I also left so that I wouldn't have to spend my Sundays doing lame crap. If I wanted to sing Kumbaya over and over again, I would have stayed Catholic. Just because it is atheist Sunday school does not change the fact that Sunday school is lame.
Further, if you want your kids to be ethical, all you need to do is have them participate in the collective American Sunday ritual that is the NFL. They will learn that there are only two virtues in this world: hard work and third down conversions.
That or *gasp* playing outside and socializing with other children in a non-structured environment.
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This is an interesting one and I'm intrigued by your comments.
I'm not a huge fan of structure of any kind and this wouldn't be the first place I'd think of taking my family but I don't see anything wrong with it either. In fact, I'd prefer to send my kid here rather than engage in the "Sunday ritual that is NFL", as per your suggestion (I'm crap at sport and I'm a displaced Limey!). That said, I regularly take my toddler to the local science center at weekends and like to think that's his Sunday school equivalent. (And I'm with you -- religious Sunday schools are lame... bit like religion all round really.)
Anyway, this strikes me as horses for courses but I'm curious as to why you take issue with it. From your comments above you're equating it to a religious-based Sunday school which it clearly isn't. So is it just that it echoes the way delusions were rammed down your throat as a kid which leads to your knee-jerk reaction or just the idea of kids attending a school of any form on a Sunday?
If they were ramming delusion down kids throats I'd agree with you but since they're not I can't see anything objectionable here.
In fact, I'd go as far as to say this is a good idea for atheism. I've had conversations with other atheists in the past that have moved to a new area and joined a church (!!??) simply because it's the easiest way to form a new social circle. I'd *NEVER* do that but for folks that might consider it, having an atheist alternative is no bad thing. And Sunday seems as good as day as any to host it.
If you want it to be educational and fun, you've got to gear it for kids, not for adults.
For little kids, what is more fun than a crazy song sung verse after verse, en masse, at the top of their lungs? You know the kind: they're designed to drive grownup stark staring mad.
Ten or twelve verses ought to cover the major religions, making fun of them with clever insults. Think South Park.
Also, have the Sunday morning activities outside (making it easier on the ears for adults). Have the kids pick the sports. You want the kids played out by lunch time, tired and hungry. And anxious to come back next Sunday.
The ulterior motive, of course, is to make the children going to church schools envious.
Personally I think this is a great idea. I don't have kids, but if I did I'd probably want to send them somewhere like that.
The *beliefs* that come along with religion are obviously wrong, but the trappings - the rituals, the myths, the special holiday foods - were invented for a reason. Sunday school is one of those ritual fixtures that gives people stability and a sense of continuity and community.
The nice thing about dispensing with the *beliefs* associated with religious rituals is that we can meaningfully discuss improving them, because we can openly discuss what purpose they serve, rather than blindly adhering to tradition. Thanksgiving, for example, doesn't have to be about giving thanks to god or betraying aboriginal peoples - it can be about giving thanks to the people who have done you a good turn over the past year.
Coming up with these traditions and (for lack of a better word) "spiritual" institutions in a humanist context is also important to combat one of the arguments against humanism and atheism that theists frequently level at them: they lack the necessary social glue and common experiences that religions provide. It's difficult to motivate oneself to do it (after all, it is *easier* just to wake up late, sit at home and watch a football game than to get your children a decent moral education, especially if you've got no deity sitting on your shoulder telling you that It Must Be Done) so I think it's important that we applaud those who do.
It's a humanist Sunday School not an atheist Sunday School.
http://www.humanists.org
A humanist can be an atheist but not all atheists are humanists.
'Course 'yall all goin' ta hell. Have the little peckerheads sit around and read the Sunday Times like the rest of us do. There are intelligent folk raising little intelligent folk by reading to them and giving good examples of how to be enlightened humanists without having to adopt arbitrary superstitions.
I'm with you, Glyph. I don't have kids either, but I'd be looking for a place like this if I did. I remember growing up agnostic and continually lying about my beliefs, which I might not have had to do if I had known:
1) that there were others who believed as I did and still do, and
2) how to explain my lack of beliefs in a way that didn't invite (as much) criticism and dismay.
This program looks like it would offer both.
Add to that the benefits that come from having a larger social group and some common experiences. I watch my extended family go to church/Sunday school/youth group each week and while I don't agree with the indoctrination, I'm positive that they benefit from the social aspect.
Yeah, I woulda enjoyed that when I was a kid. Different strokes and all that.
In regard to the first comment, about atheists joining a church to meet people, relates to some recent thoughts of mine.
First datum: an NYT article a few years ago had a passing line about a girl from Tennessee moving to New York, and looking for a church to join, and her NYC acquaintances reacted with "Church!?!?!", to which she said, puzzled "Well, where do you all go to meet people?"
Second datum: a recent New Yorker article about megachurches in New England, talking about how they provide much more than church services: they offer depression counselling and other counselling, etc. and many other particular things I don't recall. Much of the "extra services" were really not essentially religious in nature, they were more in the line of "community support network". It seemed to me that there was no reason an organization could not provide all these things without having any metaphysical or theological baggage. (At least in principle, as to how one could create such an organization and make it work is another issue. Because people are used to going to church and being part of a church and it's something you join and it's a big part of your life (for some people), whereas who would have the same attachment to their "local secular community organization"? It sounds really...lame.)
Just go to a Unitarian Universalist church, some say it is church for Atheists with kids. We have religious education for kids that is not lame, with lessons where the windows are blacked out, we have a strobe lights and strange music to 'time travel' then have an actor come playing the part of a historical figure. We give them the shindig on what other religions believe, their wisdom and hypocrisies--how they evolved and how they effect our society now--this is in order to build tolerance. I personally joined with my three young children 5 years ago (now they are 11, 8 and 6) after reading that Unitarian Universalist kids have the highest SAT scores from all the religions in the self reporting section of the SAT. My 8 year old gets in fights at school saying he is an atheist, he thinks people who believe in a god are 'silly' and it is like believing in Santa Clause, he has a long way to go with developing his beliefs--but he is getting a great background at our 'church'.