6! I saw it!

DG1

Thanks for reposting! I have been reminding myself to go back and check.

And I guess by "atheism scale," I meant the grid V posted but also a "how much do you wear it on your sleeve" kind of thing. You can be 100% certain there's no god but also generally keep that to yourself or you can be Ricky Gervais, who tweets about it daily. (Not unlike religious people, some of whom pray quietly to themselves, others go to church, others are very vocal about it, and others are Jerry Falwell.)

As for paying, I did learn that the local Ethical Society charges for the (equivalent of) sunday school. I think it was $150 for the full year, too, and it does make some sense, because there are a lot of materials involved. Interestingly, preschool kids are free and grade school kids have to pay. They do have hardship scales and things, too, I believe, so the $150 some people pay would help cover those who can't.

I'm sure we'll have to do something about this eventually. I went to the Ethical Society one Sunday to check it out. It was OK, but I don't know that we would quickly be part of the community or anything, if only because of how far away we live from it. Another friend who joined said he finally felt like it after a year or more (then he moved to another state). I'm sure it will come up eventually when kids at school start talking about church and my kids are all "what's church?" I'd like to start taking them to secular things before that happens to try to preempt it a bit, but we're such homebodies that going somewhere on a sunday morning just seems unnecessary at this point.

6fsn

Ha!  I worked hard on that reply so it had to be seen.  DH doesn't wear anything on his sleeve so that's not a real question for him.  I don't know how much kid talk about church.  They don't even talk about it in preschool held in a church. 

My mom's ministry is free and the parish even provides babysitting, coffee cake, and starbucks.  The kids get church there.

baconsmom

Do kids talk about church, though? Bacon hasn't ever asked any questions, and she's come to church with me like, twice in the last 5 years or so. She just doesn't seem to have any interest in it, or really in God in general. 

Maybe we're just way too practical. 

DG1

My friend's kids were actually getting harassed at school - other kids taunting them that they and everyone they loved would be going to hell, that kind of thing. I want to say his oldest was maybe in third grade at the time. I expect it'll come up when their peer group starts asking each other what they did over the weekend. So, not anytime soon.

Part of me would still really like to take them sooner rather than later, though. I know it's my job to teach them the golden rule and all that, and I try hard to do so and to take advantage of every teachable moment. But I also feel like if there's a free (or cheap) resource to help me do that, wouldn't I be dumb not to take advantage of it? I mean, I'm sure religious people feel like it's their responsibility to teach their kids about god, but that doesn't stop them from using sunday school to help them along, kwim? 

VarunaTT

If I really think about it, and coming from someone who has some seriously shitty biological parents with probably little to no moroals, I learned most of my morals from books and TV.  Raise them up on Star Trek and those Golden Spine books and they should be alright.