 I have two kids, nine and six, a girl and a boy, and I love them more than anyone or anything in the world. They make my life interesting, and they keep me constantly trying to be a better father. I want them to grow up and be happy and fulfilled, so no joy and friendship and acceptance. I want them to share my love of scientific discovery, nature and living things, the beauty and wonder of the world around them, and I want them to be capable of critical thinking. How should I approach the topic of religion with them? There are a few possible strategies or ways to go. I could shelter them from all religious influence, making sure mine is the only voice they hear. I could simply take them to the group of my choice and turn over their religious education to that group. I could ignore the issue altogether, and let whatever happens happen naturally. I could expose them to a variety of religious experiences, and allow them to ultimately decide on their own what they believe. I happen to think that option four is best for my family. My kids sometimes attend church, and I go with them. It gives us a chance to discuss openly the issues about faith and spirituality, and I encourage that discussion. I try to stay as neutral as possible on specific issues, but I always encourage them to be accurate in their logic. Anyone who thinks a six-year-old can't think independently about big issues like the afterlife and evidence of the supernatural has never met my son. We discuss the difference between knowledge and faith, what we know and what we don't know with regards to what they hear or learn. I don't isolate these discussions to a single topic. I want them to learn to apply their critical thinking to all the areas of their life. It's something kids do naturally anyway. It's only the constant repetition of the message that they should believe what we tell them, that turns them from naturally inquisitive and rebellious to quiet acceptance of authority. In doing so, we kill some of that natural skepticism. We teach children to passively accept authority, and in doing so, we rob them of a powerful tool. I could certainly control their religious beliefs at this stage by insulating them. Later in life, though, they're going to be approached by friends about a kind of peer pressure conversion. If they're unfamiliar with the arguments, if they've never thought them through, they could get caught up for all the wrong reasons. I could tell them what to believe. I have that power. Many parents do tell their kids the answers to the big questions, as though they had the perfect answers and not just that they themselves were told by their parents, who were told by their parents, all the way back to the misty origins of the particular faith. No, I reject teaching my children to accept any authority on the big questions. But I also reject insulating them in any way from the beliefs of the people around them. It would leave them very vulnerable. Instead, I want to give them the tools to decide for themselves, as my parents did with me. As my kids grow older, I'll take them to other denominations and other faiths, so they can see the full diversity of people's beliefs. I'll let them decide if they want to go back. That's not to say I would be angry or disappointed if my kids decide they want to be Christians or Buddhists or whatever. I'd support any decision they make that's based on a well-thought-out reason. It's more important to me that they make their own choices and follow their own path. My only goal is to protect them from doing things for reasons of conformity or irrationality, but even then, I'm going to have to let them make some of their own mistakes. Religion is just one topic, though. I want my kids to learn to think critically. And I know that's not a skill they're likely to learn in school. Since they were very little, I've encouraged them to think things through. Instead of just answering their questions, I try to lead them to the answers through inquiry. For example, when asked, why is the sky blue? My response was, is the sky always blue? Why is it sometimes red or orange or purple? What do you think might be different at those times? And this led us to putting a glass of water in a sunbeam to create a prism. It's a lot of fun to use guided exploration to answer questions. Honestly, I think my kids try to think of difficult questions to ask so that we can come up with some fun experiment. The other day, my daughter asked if dogs have more bacteria in their mouths than cats do. 48 hours later, she was counting colonies on a bacterial growth plate and having a great time. The answer is, yes, for our dogs and cats, by the way. More important than the answer was understanding where knowledge comes from, not from authority, but from observation and testing. My daughter has a love of fairies, the tiny women with wings who flutter around gardens. And that's provided a great analogy for a lot of things. She knows they don't really exist, even though she would really like for them to exist. We've discussed that it's not possible to disprove fairies and that in some way they are real in her mind. But that, nevertheless, she shouldn't expect to find them hiding behind leaves and she shouldn't try to explain every rustle in the woods as a fairy. We've talked about how pretending fairies are real is still a lot of fun for her and makes her happy. It doesn't really make it true. We even made a little house for the fairies out of twigs and leaves. I don't tell her what to believe. I just help her to recognize self-delusion when it really matters. I want her to have magic and mystery in her life. I want her to believe in fairies for at least a little while, while also knowing that they're a fun part of her imagination. She had a lucky penny that she found at a theme park. Instead of telling her what to believe about luck, I had her test it by flipping it and marking down the results. Then we compared it to a standard penny. She decided that a lucky penny can give people confidence, but that luck is not something that we can prove in a test. That was her conclusion, not mine. Once you arm your kids with the understanding that they don't need to rely on other people to supply the answers, that they're capable of directly understanding the world through their own faculties. You've prepared them to be explorers and people who can think for themselves. And you've immunized them against the worst aspects of bad logic and conformity thinking. Empower them to think for themselves and you liberate them for life. You will also annoy the heck out of their future teachers. So it's a great way to get revenge. Both kids have announced that they want to be scientists when they grow up. My daughter intends to be a paleontologist. And my son, for some reason, wants to be a meteorologist. Although judging by the mixtures of mouthwash, lotion, and toothpaste he mixes up in the sink, I think he might be a chemist someday. I'll be proud of them no matter what they do or who they become. I just hope someday they're as proud of me as a dad as I am of them as kids. Thanks for watching.