Atheist Statement #6

     "You should not feel obligated to attend church service just to appease your family. 

     Technically I agree with this, but this can go for so much more than church and a lot depends on the age of the person we are talking about. For example, you shouldn't attend school just to appease your family members, especially parents, you shouldn't clean your room just to appease your parents or family, you shouldn't compete in sports just to appease your family nor should you strive to become an artist or actor or singer and so on, just to appease your family. In reality, anything we do, we should do because it is something WE WANT to do and not just to appease the family.

     However, there is another side to this as well. As young children we do not start out knowing what we truly want. That takes time and experience and thinking things through. Parents are responsible to help their children learn about all of the different aspects of life and how to deal with them. It is a parents' responsibility to make sure their kids go to school and hopefully help them learn to love learning. It is on the parents to teach children how to clean their rooms and be responsible for their own things. It is parents, up to a point, that introduce their children to art, sports, drama, dancing and so on. And in that same vein it is on the parents to take the children to church with them. So all of these start with training and learning at home from responsible parents who realize that their 5 year old and even their 10 year old and sometimes even the 16 year old is not exactly sure of what they want in this life. And so it is up to responsible parents to patiently introduce their children to all of these different aspects of life so that when they are old enough to make such decisions they will do so responsibly. AND that goes for all decisions in this life.  But sadly there are parents nowadays that are allowing even very young children to make life decisions with extreme consequences without enough experience to understand what that decision requires and many times the parents do not even understand!

     And so in reality, responsible parents, family members and other responsible adults help teach and guide children through the years until they, on their own, can and do make the decisions that they will be responsible for. And when that is done they do not make the decision in order to appease parents or family or anyone else. They make that decision because they know in their hearts and minds that it is the right thing for them to do.