Raising Catholic Kids When I Don't Believe

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Hi,

I’m hoping for some insight and direction. I joined this site because I’m not sure where else to look for help with this problem…

I was raised Catholic and went to Catholic schools. I loved my upbringing and my education. I think raising kids in the Catholic faith is an excellent way to hedge your bets on producing kind, responsible, healthy adults. I appreciate the values of the Catholic church, and the sense of faith that I had as a child.

Having said that, now, as an adult, I have pretty much lost my faith. It’s not that I went looking to not believe, but as hard as I’ve tried to remain a faithful Catholic and live the faith, experience the sacraments, etc. I just can’t. I am a skeptical, scientific person by nature and as much as I WISH I could believe, I can’t make myself. I’ve done prayer groups, Bible studies, private counseling with a deacon, loads of reading, adoration - but ultimately I just cannot say that I necessarily believe there is a God. Believe me - I WANT there to be a God, but I have not seen any verifiable proof that there is one and there are too many inconsistencies in the Catholic Church for be to buy into it.

Having said that, I do LOVE the tradition of the faith. I love the art, the ceremony, the values, the music… My husband and I have three children, and we do wish to raise them Catholic. I hope that they can have the faith that I don’t have. I want them to feel secure that there is a loving God watching over them, and that our departed friends and relatives are safe in the arms of Jesus. Even if this is all just a nice fairy tale to make people feel better about the hardships and sadnesses of life, I want that security and peace for my kids. I know I enjoyed it as a child, and I want my children to feel the same.

Is it wrong of me to raise Catholic kids, even if I don’t believe? Is it wrong of me to want them to have (even a false) sense of security and to experience the idea that there is a God who loves them unconditionally? If they decide, as adults, that it’s hocus pocus - then fine. I just want my kids to go to bed at night feeling safe and loved by not only me, but by God.

I’m conflicted because I don’t feel right about LYING to my kids, but I was raised well and it seems like I should provide my kids with the opportunity to have faith. Plus, I do love the Catholic CULTURE, and I think there is a lot of value in it. I enjoy Mass for the experience and I enjoy all the saint stories and lore and tradition and am fine with participating in it. My kids go to Catholic school and it’s great. I’m just looking for some honest advice here. Thank you.
 
I was raised Mormon. My husband is Catholic. We put our children in our parish school and it eventually led me to Faith. Being involved with all the wonderful things at our Parish has been great for our whole family. I say go for it!
Steph
 
Have you ever read about the miracles of Fatima or Guadeloupe?
 
A parent that does not believe is not able to raise children in the faith. Expecting that to happen does not make because the young ones adopt the beliefs of the parents. It is possible to raise them as cultural Catholics, but it would not do them any good in the long term because as soon as they become teenagers and their BS detectors go up they will see the contradiction. if you lie to them now, they will figure it out later, if not then they will just learn the habit of hiding the head in the sand because it feels good. This last attitude is a very dangerous one especially for Catholics, because we are persecuted in most parts of the world.
I work with high school students that have been raised in the faith and my job is to make sure that, now that they are teenagers, they are going to follow in the faith because it is their choice and not simply because they are mimicking their parents.
I am a skeptical person by nature and that is why I am a scientist, I was raised as a cultural Catholic by parents that have your attitude. I was away from the Church for an extremely long time and now, exactly because my intellectual attitude, I studied, I understood God and I came to believe. If you are an intellectual you are not going to have faith unless you truly act like an intellectual. The Church expects Catholics to be intellectual, the feeling good about things is not part of our set of beliefs but being ready to suffer is.
 
Education in their faith is the best gift you can leave your children. It will give them a set of principles to guide their lives, even when you are not around, but most importantly will give them meaning and will save their souls.
Regarding your skepticism, and your comment on science. I want to say that science is a building of hypotheses on top of hypotheses, there is no certainty but just regularities. Let me give you two examples. Let us talk about light. There are two known theories about the nature of light, one says that light are particles, yes, particles that travel in space, the second says that the nature of light is of waves, like electro-magnetic waves. Scientist use either theory according to their convenience to explain phenomena. So how can a thing be two things at the same time? Bottom line is, scientists do not know what light is, they can only study its regularities so they can make predictions.
What about the bing bang theory for explaining the nature of the universe. Can that theory answer, why a big bang? what happened before that?
In summary, I think that a good scientist will tell you that know very little and that the more they know the more they are in awe with the creation.
I will pray the Lord can re-ignite your faith, he will fill you with his light 🙂
 
Whether you put your trust in God or not is a choice. You do not have to feel it, and many of the saints have gone through periods when they didn’t “see it”, either. It is absolutely not wrong to continue to live the life of faith when faith is all you have! To the contrary!! Faith is the realization of what is hoped for and evidence of things not seen. Heb. 11:1 If you look at the parallel between loving God and loving the person you chose to marry, you can easily see the parallel. Your life comes from what you choose to believe and how you choose to act on it, rather than being a mere mechanical destiny that falls out of a rational processing of your sensory perceptions. The truth is that those who believe out of sensible perceptions often fall away, because sensible perceptions and consolations do not last. Some seem to always experience spiritual dryness and some only have it sometimes, but almost no one goes through life without losing the consolation of an easy sense of trust.

You do not have to lie to your kids, but I think I would teach them the faith as what you live, what your parents taught you, and what the Church teaches and not share with them that you are having a crisis of faith. I say this for the same reason that I would urge you not to share with them if you were having a marital crisis: it is too much to lay on them. If they ask you if you find this hard to believe, you could say, “Sure, I do. But I choose to keep trusting because, you see, even though as a scientist I sometimes have trouble with religion, I can also look at human nature and know it is built into our DNA to trust in a higher power. Putting your trust in human wisdom or in yourself alone doesn’t work…the evidence is all over. It leads to very unhappy results. Since science can only tell me what is the most likely to be true, and not absolutely what is true, I’m choosing to trust that what works is also that which is true. This is the best I can do, and I believe that God can hardly ask for more.”

IOW, I’m not telling you to lie to them, but rather not to lay your burdens on them. If they also have troubles, then that is a different matter. Your willingness to share your own difficulties might be very helpful to them in that case.

In my next post, I’d like to share Letter 8 from The Screwtape Letters, by C.S. Lewis. If you have not read it, look it up. It is a wonderful little book.
 
From Letter 8, The Screwtape Letters, by C.S. Lewis (boldface mine, obviously).

[As a background, Wormwood is a novice tempter and Screwtape is a senior tempter who has been promoted to undersecretary of a department in Hell. The premise of the book is that the older tempter is giving advice to the younger about how to catch and secure the soul he has been assigned.]

*My dear Wormwood,

So you ‘have great hopes that the patient’s religious phase is dying away’, have you? I always thought the Training College had gone to pieces since they put old Subgob at the head of it, and now I am sure. Has no one every told you about the law of Undulation?

Humans are amphibians-- half spirit and half animal. (The Enemy’s determination to produce such a revolting hybrid was one of the things that determined Our Father to withdraw his support from Him.) As spirits they belong to the eternal world, but as animals they inhabit time. This means that while their spirit can be directed to an eternal object, their bodies, passions, and imaginations are in continual change, for as to be in time means to change. Their nearest approach to constancy, therefore, is undulation-- the repeated return to a level from which they repeatedly fall back, a series of troughs and peaks. If you had watched your patient carefully you would have seen this undulation in every department of his life-- his interest in his work, his affection for his friends, his physical appetites, all go up and down. As long as he lives on earth periods of emotional and bodily richness and liveliness will alternate with periods of numbness and poverty. The dryness and dullness through which your patient is now going are not, as you fondly suppose, your workmanship; they are merely a natural phenomenon which will do us no good unless you make a good use of it.

To decide what the best use of it is, you must ask what use the Enemy wants to make of it, and then do the opposite. Now it may surprise you to learn that in His efforts to get permanent possession of a soul, He relies on the troughs even more than on the peaks; some of His special favourites have gone through longer and deeper troughs than anyone else. The reason is this. To us a human is primarily food; our aim is the absorption of its will into ours, the increase of our own area of selfhood at its expense. But the obedience which the Enemy demands of men is quite a different thing. One must face the fact that all the talk about His love for men, and His service being perfect freedom, is not (as one would gladly believe) mere propaganda, but an appalling truth. He really does want to fill the universe with a lot of loathsome little replicas of Himself-- creatures whose life, on its miniature scale, will be qualitatively like His own, not because he has absorbed them but because their wills freely conform to His. We want cattle who can finally become food; He wants servants who can finally become sons. We want to suck in, He wants to give out. We are empty and would be filled; He is full and flows over. Our war aim is a world in which Our Father Below has drawn all other beings into himself: the Enemy wants a world full of beings united to Him but still distinct.

And that is where the troughs come in. You must have often wondered why the Enemy does not make more use of His power to be sensibly present to human souls in any degree He chooses and at any moment. But you now see that the Irresistible and the Indisputable are the two weapons which the very nature of His scheme forbids Him to use. Merely to override a human will (as His felt presence in any but the faintest and most mitigated degree would certainly do) would be for Him useless. He cannot ravish. He can only woo. For His ignoble idea is to eat the cake and have it; the creatures are to be one with Him, but yet themselves; merely to cancel them, or assimilate them, will not serve. He is prepared to do a little overriding at the beginning. He will set them off with communications of His presence which, though faint, seem great to them, with emotional sweetness, and easy conquest over temptation. Sooner or later He withdraws, if not in fact, at least from their conscious experience, all those supports and incentives. He leaves the creature to stand up on its own legs-- to carry out from the will alone duties which have lost all relish. It is during such trough periods, much more than during the peak periods, that it is growing into the sort of creature He wants it to be. Hence the prayers offered in the state of dryness are those which please Him best. We can drag our patients along by continual tempting, because we design them only for the table, and the more their will is interfered with the better. He cannot ‘tempt’ to virtual as we do to vice. He wants them to learn to walk and must therefore take away His hand; and if only the will to walk is really there He is pleased even with their stumbles. Do not be deceived, Wormwood. Our cause is never more in danger than when a human, no longer desiring, but still intending, to do our Enemy’s will, looks round upon a universe from which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys.

But of course the troughs afford opportunities to our side also. Next week I will give you some hints on how to exploit them,

You affectionate uncle
Screwtape*
 
I would propose that you think about this question…(not quite a question maybe more a question/statement? lol ) 1) Somewhere down in your soul and subconcious is it possible you believe? If not, why then be questioning it and wanting to raise your children with the faith you wished you had? Sometimes the still quiet voice is telling us more then we think. and number 2) So what if u don’t.

I speak from experience. I was very angry with God for a while and then slowoly began to think about it and pray and realized a teensy weensy teeny tiny bit of me questioned but what if He does? One day a friend (also an athiest) said to me…what if u die and at that moment as u take ur last breath there is no singing choir or bright light and u realized u had lived ur life trying to live by elusive rules and dreams conjured up by man?? :confused: After thinking about it I realized…so what. If I died and there was no life there after, my epitath would still read : here lies a mother, daughter, wife, sister, and friend. During her life she was loyal, caring, kind, honest, and genuine. I told him my rational is that whether Jesus lived or not-- existed or not would mean for me, that I lived the best I coukd with high moral and beliefs and in the end would have made me all the better for it. therefore the Q of whether He was or wasn’t was moot. 😉 A hell for me would be to die and stand before God and hear him tell me all the things I could ahve been, if only I had tried. An even greater hell for me would be not to die and realize He wasn’t. Rather to die and realize He was and for me to hear him say “Who are you my child, ur name I know not”. For me, I realized then that I have nothing to lose by believing, but EVERYTHING to loose by NOT believing. :sad_yes:

As an aside…I myself and DH struggle with being Catholic. We love God and don’t deny His existance but have a very hard time swallowing the Catholic church and it’s legalism. We Q why the need to go through channels to speak to God and receive pardon when He speaks about asking and receiving from His Father directlyetc. After praying about it, DH and I also came to the Q of this: sin is sin. Does one sin offend God more then others? If u can’t enter heaven with any blemishes then the ‘smallest’ of sins would tarnish ur soul as much as the ‘largest’. Which begs the Q: Did Jesus die for all our sins or only some? It is impossible to lead a spotless life that is why He was sacraficed as the lamb of God. …:newidea:

so as u can see we struggle as well…but to compound things we home school our children using a catholic curric and belong to a catholic home school co-op when we are selves have a hard time believeing all the dogma etc. imagine our perdiciment! lol :doh2:So I can totally relate to you! We ‘cope’ by making a concious effort to teach the children about saints and catholic tradiitons but to also have regular bible study where the bible is to be the word of God. we also teach not to judge others and that faith in Jesus and to live as He would live minding the number one rule He taught which was **LOVE **thy neighbor as most important. Faith in a church isn’t as important as much as faith in Jesus is.
Might I suggest reading the book “Joshua” a modern parable for life. It is an excellent book and truly opened mine and my husband’s eyes. and before anyone jumps ontop of me and asks if it is Protestant or catholic…it was purchased at a Catholic book store that is attatched to a catholic church. lol :yup:
Sorry so long but I could so relate to this!
God Bless
 
Disclaimer : The following is my opinion and many folks on this site consider me to be a hellbound heretic. I know for a fact that my opinion has been wrong in the past and I feel certain it will be wrong in the future. That said :

I’m not sure the age of your children, so this may not be appropriate, but…

I remember when i was young teen, my Dad talked to me about his struggle with the faith. He had many of the issues you say you have. He told me that he hoped I would give the faith a fighting chance in my life, but that he wasn’t going to Mass…

I came to respect him for that. he treated me like a person and not a “kid”… My struggle with the faith came much later (around 17 or so)… My father found his way to peace with God (although perhaps not the Church) and I have made (and found) my peace with both. I tell my children of the struggles I’ve had and I have faith that God will guide them to where He wants them.

I’d advise this… “Be honest” with your kids. Tell them what you told us. God will guide them (and hopefully you someday) to where they need to be.

God bless and please know that you and your faimly will be in my prayers.
 
Your children aren’t going to “catch” the faith from you, and please don’t tear down their little sprouts of faith if your husband is at least a believer.

Is he Catholic? Is he a faithful Catholic? It’s all done in the home - not at school.
 
Myqyl said:
Disclaimer : The following is my opinion and many folks on this site consider me to be a hellbound heretic…
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This statement together with the fact that this is your 666 post makes things look scary. 😛

Sorry for highjacking the thread with a comic interlude.🙂
 
Myqyl said:
…I remember when i was young teen, my Dad talked to me about his struggle with the faith. He had many of the issues you say you have. He told me that he hoped I would give the faith a fighting chance in my life, but that he wasn’t going to Mass…

I came to respect him for that. he treated me like a person and not a “kid”… My struggle with the faith came much later (around 17 or so)… My father found his way to peace with God (although perhaps not the Church) and I have made (and found) my peace with both. I tell my children of the struggles I’ve had and I have faith that God will guide them to where He wants them.

I’d advise this…** “Be honest” with your kids.** Tell them what you told us. God will guide them (and hopefully you someday) to where they need to be…
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👍
 
Myqyl said:
Disclaimer : The following is my opinion and many folks on this site consider me to be a hellbound heretic. I know for a fact that my opinion has been wrong in the past and I feel certain it will be wrong in the future. That said :

I’m not sure the age of your children, so this may not be appropriate, but…

I remember when i was young teen, my Dad talked to me about his struggle with the faith. He had many of the issues you say you have. He told me that he hoped I would give the faith a fighting chance in my life, but that he wasn’t going to Mass…

I came to respect him for that. he treated me like a person and not a “kid”… My struggle with the faith came much later (around 17 or so)… My father found his way to peace with God (although perhaps not the Church) and I have made (and found) my peace with both. I tell my children of the struggles I’ve had and I have faith that God will guide them to where He wants them.

I’d advise this… “Be honest” with your kids. Tell them what you told us. God will guide them (and hopefully you someday) to where they need to be.

God bless and please know that you and your faimly will be in my prayers.
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I think that is age-dependent. If you were mature as a young teen, around confirmation age, then it can be appropriate for a parent to share this kind of thing, yes. It is important to teach the whole story, though. If you were suicidal, you wouldn’t just “share that” with your teen. You’d get help, too, right? You’d want them to know that getting help was the adult thing to do in such a situation. Many people don’t appreciate that the same is true when they have a crisis of faith or conscience, but is is, and then some. I learned that the hard way.

It is good to teach our kids that if you are going through this kind of struggle or any serious struggle, the wise person gets some competent outside help. You don’t just assume that you’re going to find the best way by navigating by your own lights. Lighthouses were invented for a reason, the Church has shepherds for a reason. Even priests and bishops have spiritual directors. One sheep alone is very vulnerable to attack. We’re not meant to go it alone, emotionally, mentally, or spiritually. The difficult times are the times we are tempted to retreat into ourselves, but they are actually the times we most need to reach out for help.
 
JackieMom said:
Is it wrong of me to raise Catholic kids, even if I don’t believe? Is it wrong of me to want them to have (even a false) sense of security and to experience the idea that there is a God who loves them unconditionally? If they decide, as adults, that it’s hocus pocus - then fine. I just want my kids to go to bed at night feeling safe and loved by not only me, but by God.
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I think there’s a couple of ways of looking at this.

One is that, as parents, we have a responsibility to instill in our children some sort of ethical guidance. It’s no different from teaching them to not stick a fork in a light socket. There are plenty of examples of turning kids loose on the world without proper formation. At best, they don’t do anything productive and generally waste their lives. At worst, they commit some heinous crimes. Christianity is an excellent ethical system, if nothing else – love others, work hard, don’t fall into sinful (self-destructive pursuits).

Second, I think that on a gut level, by raising your kids as Catholics, you’re trying to stay close to Catholicism and still look for some meaning in it, just that you can’t see it right now. I went through a long dry spell in my faith, to the point where I felt I had no relationship with God and was basically a CINO. I would go to Mass now and then, but didn’t feel like there was any point on it. Then, I had an overwhelming spiritual experience and was able to understand and feel God’s presence in my life. I think you’re searching for that and how you feel about the faith right now is a passive absence, rather than an active one.

I’ll pray for you and your situation and will say that it sounds like you are a good mother, regardless of where you are in your spiritual journey.
 
JackieMom said:
Hi,

I’m hoping for some insight and direction. I joined this site because I’m not sure where else to look for help with this problem…

I was raised Catholic and went to Catholic schools. I loved my upbringing and my education. I think raising kids in the Catholic faith is an excellent way to hedge your bets on producing kind, responsible, healthy adults. I appreciate the values of the Catholic church, and the sense of faith that I had as a child.

Having said that, now, as an adult, I have pretty much lost my faith. It’s not that I went looking to not believe, but as hard as I’ve tried to remain a faithful Catholic and live the faith, experience the sacraments, etc. I just can’t. I am a skeptical, scientific person by nature and as much as I WISH I could believe, I can’t make myself. I’ve done prayer groups, Bible studies, private counseling with a deacon, loads of reading, adoration - but ultimately I just cannot say that I necessarily believe there is a God. Believe me - I WANT there to be a God, but I have not seen any verifiable proof that there is one and there are too many inconsistencies in the Catholic Church for be to buy into it.

Having said that, I do LOVE the tradition of the faith. I love the art, the ceremony, the values, the music… My husband and I have three children, and we do wish to raise them Catholic. I hope that they can have the faith that I don’t have. I want them to feel secure that there is a loving God watching over them, and that our departed friends and relatives are safe in the arms of Jesus. Even if this is all just a nice fairy tale to make people feel better about the hardships and sadnesses of life, I want that security and peace for my kids. I know I enjoyed it as a child, and I want my children to feel the same.

Is it wrong of me to raise Catholic kids, even if I don’t believe? Is it wrong of me to want them to have (even a false) sense of security and to experience the idea that there is a God who loves them unconditionally? If they decide, as adults, that it’s hocus pocus - then fine. I just want my kids to go to bed at night feeling safe and loved by not only me, but by God.

I’m conflicted because I don’t feel right about LYING to my kids, but I was raised well and it seems like I should provide my kids with the opportunity to have faith. Plus, I do love the Catholic CULTURE, and I think there is a lot of value in it. I enjoy Mass for the experience and I enjoy all the saint stories and lore and tradition and am fine with participating in it. My kids go to Catholic school and it’s great. I’m just looking for some honest advice here. Thank you.
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thank-you for your honesty. Having children in Catholic Schools, I would wager that this is more common than not. While faith is more caught than taught, I think it might be helpful to yourself if you could explore why you believe or feel the way you do. Is the father of the children involved? My sister-in-law for a number of years was like you. Didn’t really believe in God but baptized her daughter and went through catechism for her. Later on, she seemed to return to the faith. Maybe you could find a priest or spiritual advisor to discuss your feelings about God.
 
JackieMom said:
Hi,

I’m hoping for some insight and direction. I joined this site because I’m not sure where else to look for help with this problem…

I was raised Catholic and went to Catholic schools. I loved my upbringing and my education. I think raising kids in the Catholic faith is an excellent way to hedge your bets on producing kind, responsible, healthy adults. I appreciate the values of the Catholic church, and the sense of faith that I had as a child.

Having said that, now, as an adult, I have pretty much lost my faith. It’s not that I went looking to not believe, but as hard as I’ve tried to remain a faithful Catholic and live the faith, experience the sacraments, etc. I just can’t. I am a skeptical, scientific person by nature and as much as I WISH I could believe, I can’t make myself. I’ve done prayer groups, Bible studies, private counseling with a deacon, loads of reading, adoration - but ultimately I just cannot say that I necessarily believe there is a God. Believe me - I WANT there to be a God, but I have not seen any verifiable proof that there is one and there are too many inconsistencies in the Catholic Church for be to buy into it.

Having said that, I do LOVE the tradition of the faith. I love the art, the ceremony, the values, the music… My husband and I have three children, and we do wish to raise them Catholic. I hope that they can have the faith that I don’t have. I want them to feel secure that there is a loving God watching over them, and that our departed friends and relatives are safe in the arms of Jesus. Even if this is all just a nice fairy tale to make people feel better about the hardships and sadnesses of life, I want that security and peace for my kids. I know I enjoyed it as a child, and I want my children to feel the same.

Is it wrong of me to raise Catholic kids, even if I don’t believe? Is it wrong of me to want them to have (even a false) sense of security and to experience the idea that there is a God who loves them unconditionally? If they decide, as adults, that it’s hocus pocus - then fine. I just want my kids to go to bed at night feeling safe and loved by not only me, but by God.

I’m conflicted because I don’t feel right about LYING to my kids, but I was raised well and it seems like I should provide my kids with the opportunity to have faith. Plus, I do love the Catholic CULTURE, and I think there is a lot of value in it. I enjoy Mass for the experience and I enjoy all the saint stories and lore and tradition and am fine with participating in it. My kids go to Catholic school and it’s great. I’m just looking for some honest advice here. Thank you.
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Hi JackieMom, I have to commend you for your honesty and integrity. I’m sure in time God will honour the fact that you’re an honest seeker. You truly put your kid’s wellbeing and interests first and I find thta admirable.
Cristiano said:
A parent that does not believe is not able to raise children in the faith. Expecting that to happen does not make because the young ones adopt the beliefs of the parents. It is possible to raise them as cultural Catholics, but it would not do them any good in the long term because as soon as they become teenagers and their BS detectors go up they will see the contradiction. if you lie to them now, they will figure it out later, if not then they will just learn the habit of hiding the head in the sand because it feels good. This last attitude is a very dangerous one especially for Catholics, because we are persecuted in most parts of the world.
I work with high school students that have been raised in the faith and my job is to make sure that, now that they are teenagers, they are going to follow in the faith because it is their choice and not simply because they are mimicking their parents.
I am a skeptical person by nature and that is why I am a scientist, I was raised as a cultural Catholic by parents that have your attitude. I was away from the Church for an extremely long time and now, exactly because my intellectual attitude, I studied, I understood God and I came to believe. If you are an intellectual you are not going to have faith unless you truly act like an intellectual. The Church expects Catholics to be intellectual, the feeling good about things is not part of our set of beliefs but being ready to suffer is.
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Then you’ll have to explain why my parents, who have always practiced their faith and made sure we did until we were 17-18 years old, have raised 4 kids and that out of these 4, 50% are atheists. I understand the best-case scenario is to teach and model to your kids what you truly adhere to, but I don’t see why OP’s endeavour would be bound to fail. It’s all in the way you approach things. This is the best she can do for the time being, She appears sincere in her desire to believe, it’s not like she doesn’t want to believe, is a hardened atheist and fake being a God-fearing Christian in front of her kids, THEN your comment would aply IMO.
 
Jackie,
It seems that you want to believe in God but have a blockage you have not been able to clear up or find counsel for. I think you should keep working on that, even praying about it altho right now it looks to you like you don’t believe. To me, what you said indicates that deep down, you do believe, you just cannot explain your belief in terms which make sense to what you describe as your skeptical, scientific nature.

It could be that your nature and upbringing have developed the scientific side of your thinking, and that is good insofar as it goes. But God is not a part of the material world, He cannot be proven scientifically because He is not a part of what science can study. Just as science says that theism must be kept out of science, so must science be kept out of theology. We cannot perceive God with our physical senses because He is not a material Being. This is why we must experience Him in non-scientific ways and why I suggested prayer. Tell Him you do not believe, explore the situation with Him. Ask Him to let you know and understand that He exists. Keep plugging away at this, and turn your innate skepticism towards those who propose that He does not exist. Turn their arguments around, look for the flaws and inconsistencies and gaps, imagine what would happen to their argument if there God existed.

In the meantime, raise your children in the Faith as much as you possibly can. Teach them their prayers, pray the Rosary with them as appropriate for their age (all those old enough to pray the Rosary [including you!] pray the entire Rosary and the others pray as much as they can and the rest of the time are very quiet, maybe reading a religious picture book or the like). There have been plenty of times when the only reason I prayed the Rosary was to ensure the children would get into this habit!

I was not raised Catholic, and am not happy about that. I did not know or was unable to manage many things esp with my older ones that I now regret. I think that you are much more likely to be happy that you raised them fully in the Faith as much as you can than if you allow your hopefully current doubts to reduce that element of their lives.

Any doubts you have now or continue to have when they are older can be addressed then if you believe it to be necessary and not inimical to their faith. I would not bring them up when the children are little.

Annie, Catholic homeschooling mother of 4
 
Cristiano said:
This statement together with the fact that this is your 666 post makes things look scary. 😛

Sorry for highjacking the thread with a comic interlude.🙂
Click to expand...
As soon as I saw that I posted to another thread to get to 667 🙂
 
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