Raising Kids Without God: Atheist Parents in Indonesia

A growing number of people are turning to atheism in Indonesia

Jakarta Globe, Marcel Thee, July 15, 2013

(JG illustration)

The members of Indonesian Atheist Parents come together to answer a simple question: How do you survive as an atheist parent in a country where such a stance is considered blasphemous?

In a place where a hint of holding an unpopular opinion — about God, no less — can land a person in jail, or at the very least make someone a social outcast, it can often feel like raising a child to think differently is impossible for both child and parent.

For too many, the social and administrative challenges will be too much. Seemingly trivial tasks such as filling out forms, visiting family and chitchat around the table become a burden wrought with personal ramifications.

Simply put, is the effort worth the trouble?

The Indonesian Atheist Parents Facebook community was established in April. As an outgrowth of Indonesia’s increasingly vocal atheist movement — showcased most visibly by Karl Karnadi’s Indonesian Atheist group — the group’s specific focus has garnered it followers with a dedicated interest toward what its founders tags as “parenting beyond belief.”

The group’s 70-plus members discuss topics ranging from specifically atheist issues (“What schools are secular?”; “What do you do when a relative asks the children about their religious studies?”; “How do you survive religious holiday gatherings?”) to more general ones about sex education, home-schooling and holiday destinations.

A.F. Simanjuntak, who agreed to speak only under his initials and clan name, founded the Indonesian Atheist Parents group. His clan name indicates that A.F. is Batak, a North Sumatran ethnicity that in general, holds strong Protestant values. He also comes from a military family, prompting him to joke that elements of his background are “not exactly a good combination” for him to be able to express progressive beliefs.

Along with his wife, A.F. hides his non-religiosity from their families, an understandable survival mechanism for the majority of Indonesian atheists.

The familial pressures of endless religious rituals — as well as the general outlook of a strongly religious family — became even more of a challenge when A.F. and his wife had children.

The Protestant religious rite Peneguhan Sidi (Sidi Confirmation), practiced as children enter their early teens, is of particular concern for the couple.

“We don’t particularly want our two children (boys in grades four and six) to partake in those rituals, but at the same time, it is a social process [in Indonesia] that is part of the child’s life,” A.F. said.

Announcing that their children will not undergo such rituals is likely to provoke family and friends, and has the potential to lead to alienation.

It could also deny their children a sense of shared experience with their peers.

“The biggest challenge is in encouraging the children’s character-building away from religious dogmas that surround them,” A.F. said. “Don’t get me wrong, we are not molding our kids into atheists — they are free to choose their own path, even as persons who believe in God — but they should be critical, free, and responsible.”

A.F.’s wife — who would only speak anonymously — said the children’s challenge as freethinkers is in making peace with themselves if they choose to continue living in the country.

“With the advantages they have [of not being subscribed into any religious dogma], our children could slip into being persons filled with hatred,” she said.

“Our task now as parents is to show them that people who believe in God can live next to someone who doesn’t; someone who is ‘smart’ can live along with someone who may not particularly be so, and so on. It is important for them to know that being able to survive in a society is much more important than basing their lives on a sense of narrow idealism.”

Group member Cherrie Petrissa, who lives in the Netherlands with her German husband, said being an atheist parent does have its drawbacks in terms of relationships, which she has come to terms with.

“I was raised in a mixed-faith family myself, with a Muslim father and a Catholic mother,” she said.

“My father is not a practicing Muslim, but my mother deals with me being an atheist raising an atheist child by being in denial. She keeps thinking that deep in my heart we’re all still believers. I let her have her peace that way.”

Another group member, a political journalist who only wishes to be identified as T.R., says he and his wife (who is not an atheist but a “very, very liberal Muslim”) have made peace with how much of their child’s life will be surrounded by religious beliefs. T.R. still commits to Muslim praying practices sometimes for the sake of familial “togetherness.”

“[My wife and I] think that shielding our daughter from religion will actually make her susceptible toward it, and vice versa,” he said.

T.R.’s only daughter, who is now in elementary school, goes to a “dangerously” religious school because of a lack of alternatives. But T.R. considers what matters most is the example that he and his wife set at home.

“If her home is filled with rational thinking, [her school and home life] creates a good balance,” T.R. said.

T.R. has little trepidation about how his daughter will cope in what he calls an “increasingly Muslim Indonesia.”

“The substance of [my daughter’s] generation of irreligious, rational thinkers will be the ones battling against [fundamentalists], and they will be prepared,” he said.

Both A.F. and T.R. accept that their children will have to live their lives — at least on paper — as religious believers. Their citizen ID card notes their religion (“Hers states Muslim, but does that really mean anything?” T.R. said of his daughter) and they both go to schools where religious studies are compulsory.

For A.F., religion benefits his children at least in familiarizing them with their ethnic roots. He said it was important for his family to be able to live a normal life despite their beliefs, or lack thereof.

His wife said it was important to prepare their children to be flexible in their idealism in order to survive.

She explained that although there “might be some great, achievable things without the presence of religion, [we’ve] gotten used to just see, take, and process the best out of all the bad things that exist in this life.”

For T.R., being a parent without the baggage of religion results in “a child who is stronger and not a crybaby, because she would not have to be dependent on something outside herself that is abstract and never concretely debated.”

He added: “There is nothing sadder than seeing an 8- or 9-year-old explain everything using ‘by the grace of god,’ showcasing a formed weakness of a mind that should be thinking about things without any limits.”

Facebook group (closed membership) Indonesian Atheist Parents.

Related Article:

"The Recalibration of Awareness – Apr 20/21, 2012 (Kryon channeled by Lee Carroll) (Subjects: Old Energy, Recalibration Lectures, God / Creator, Religions/Spiritual systems  (Catholic Church, Priests/Nun’s, Worship, John Paul Pope, Women in the Church otherwise church will go, Current Pope won’t do it),  Middle East, Jews, Governments will change (Internet, Media, Democracies, Dictators, North Korea, Nations voted at once), Integrity (Businesses, Tobacco Companies, Bankers/ Financial Institutes, Pharmaceutical company to collapse),  Illuminati (Started in Greece, with Shipping, Financial markets, Stock markets, Pharmaceutical money (fund to build Africa, to develop)), Shift of Human Consciousness, (Old) Souls, Women, Masters to/already come back, Global Unity.... etc.) - (Text version) 

“… Hearing the Whole Song

I wish to give you a metaphor. Consider there's a broadcast station that you wish to tune into on your radio to hear a song that is playing. However, your antennas are very short. The signal comes and goes, and you don't really get to hear the full tune. Instead, you get snippets, just enough to know there is something there, and it's a song. Because of this incomplete message, you feel the need to trust others to tell you what the snippets mean and interpret the song. Now, in this metaphor, the antennas are the sensors picking up awareness of spiritual truth, a higher consciousness and the way things work.

Suddenly, you are aware that in this new energy, your antennas are getting longer, and you are beginning to hear much more of the entire signal. You no longer have snippets, but instead you are hearing the whole song! You now hear the entire thing, including the lyrics. But it's difficult to then turn to a Human Being who has interpreted the snippets in the past and tell them the song is different from the one they have been reporting on for ages.

This new awareness is starting to change the entire planet, and some of the changes are not all spiritual. Even though the antennas are about awareness, it becomes awareness of many principles, not just the ones about the attributes of God. This awareness shift will even change an atheist who would never believe in God. So let me itemize for you some of the changes that are potentially in store for you. For, as spiritual awareness starts to shift on the planet, systems awareness will also shift. More than systems, but the actual ways of creating systems and the reasons you used to create them will shift. Awareness changes everything.

If you can hear the song and you know what it tells you through the lyrics, then you are complete. It explains why today there are those in the chairs [seminar attendees] who don't need a building and don't need a leader or an organization. Although this is a metaphor, I'll tell you, dear ones, that all over the world you're singing the same tune and you don't need anybody to tell you what it sounds like or what the lyrics are. The song is beautiful and it is sung about the love of God, respect for humanity and the potential for peace on Earth. ..”

“.   New Tolerance

Look for a softening of finger pointing and an awakening of new tolerance. There will remain many systems for different cultures, as traditions and history are important to sustaining the integrity of culture. So there are many in the Middle East who would follow the prophet and they will continue, but with an increase of awareness. It will be the increase of awareness of what the prophet really wanted all along - unity and tolerance. The angel in the cave instructed him to "unify the tribes and give them the God of Israel." You're going to start seeing a softening of intolerance and the beginning of a new way of being.

Eventually, this will create an acknowledgement that says, "You may not believe the way we believe, but we honor you and your God. We honor our prophet and we will love you according to his teachings. We don't have to agree in order to love." How would you like that? The earth is not going to turn into one belief system. It never will, for Humans don't do that. There must be variety, and there must be the beauty of cultural differences. But the systems will slowly update themselves with increased awareness of the truth of a new kind of balance. So that's the first thing. Watch for these changes, dear ones. ...."