Friday, October 6, 2006

Agnostic Mom on Parenting

A friend from my local Humanist group, Jim Knierien, alerted us to an article by Humanist mom Noell Hyman at the Institute for Humanist Studies website. It's called "Coping with Parental Difficulties" and can be read by clicking HERE.

One minor point she mentioned (among many others worth reading in the article) reminded me of my own thoughts on nontheistic 'coping'. When a believer breaks a leg, they're often consumed with questions like "why did this happen to me?", "what is God trying to teach me?", and so on. Judging as an outside observer in many of these cases, it seems to me to cause them a great deal of stress. When nonbelievers break a leg, they experience pain, anger, etc. but they simply realize they were unlucky and move on. There isn't a parallel existential crisis going on along side the physical crisis. At least, this seems to be one observation that applies in a certain subset of people and incidents I've noticed.

The article by Noell Hyman also made me aware of her wonderful blog Agnostic Mom: Raising A Healthy Family Without Religion. I recommend folks check it out.

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