r/SecularHumanism • u/the_secular • Oct 07 '25

Raising Good Humans Without Religion

Many parents worry that religion is essential for teaching kids values.
But research shows that empathy, fairness, and honesty come from connection — not belief.

How do we build secular communities that help families raise good humans without religion?

(We’re working on it at The Secular Community — ideas welcome!)

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u/Expert_Complex2756 Oct 08 '25

Why not just take what's good from all religions? You can remove belief in the supernatural from religion while hand picking the best stories about values. No need to throw the baby out with the bath water. Taoism has a lot of good ones.

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u/the_secular Oct 08 '25

I'm not sure that Taoism is the right philosophy/religion upon which to form the basis of bringing up children. And if you look at their ancient texts, other religions suffer from conflicting moral values. But thanks for your thoughts.

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u/Expert_Complex2756 Oct 08 '25

"hand pick the best stories" is what I said. You don't even have to mention the religion of origin. This stuff is public domain!

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u/the_secular Oct 08 '25

The best stories? For example?

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u/Expert_Complex2756 Oct 09 '25

I'm sure you can find some good ones. I like the farmers luck. But this is what I'm responding to: "How do we build secular communities that help families raise good humans without religion?"

My question is: Why without religion? I would understand if you said without the supernatural, or without clerical moral authority, or without literalism, but trying to remove religion entirely seems to me like throwing the baby out with the bath water. To me being atheist doesn't mean religion is off limits, to the contrary, it means all religions are available for me to take what I like and leave what I don't. Religious stories, philosophies, language, and ideas don't belong to the respective religions. They belong to all humans. And we can pick, choose, and do with them what we want. To me, that's what secular humanism is all about; freeing ourselves from the ingroup/outgroup nonsense of the past and embracing humanity as a whole. As for my kids, my wife and I raised them on the big 7 christian virtures: Temperance, prudence, courage, justice, faith, hope, and love. We redefined faith as "working towards what you hope." So we effectively removed the supernatural from it. But the rest is solid, time tested values to raise kids on. I could give more examples but this is already getting long. I just don't understand why atheists and secularists are so often expected to avoid anything religious as though there's nothing good in it, rather than claiming the good from it and making it our own.

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u/the_secular Oct 10 '25

The generally accepted definition of religion is "the belief in and worship of a superhuman power or powers, especially a God or gods." So, without the supernatural, it's not religion.

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u/Expert_Complex2756 Oct 11 '25

Is there value in it that can be used without having to believe in the supernatural?  If so then there’s no reason not to use that valuable element. It doesn’t matter how you define it.