Challenge: God Doesn't Teach Children to Be Good

A CNN iReport titled "Why I Raise My Children Without God" has been making some waves, so I thought I'd choose a portion of it for this week's challenge. We've already covered some of the objections in the article about evil (most of the objections in the article come down to the problem of evil) and prayer, so I went with the one on morality: 


God Does Not Teach Children to Be Good: A child should make moral choices for the right reasons. Telling him
that he must behave because God is watching means that his morality will
be externally focused rather than internally structured. It’s like
telling a child to behave or Santa won’t bring presents. When we take
God out of the picture, we place responsibility of doing the right thing
onto the shoulders of our children. No, they won’t go to heaven or rule
their own planets when they die, but they can sleep better at night.
They will make their family proud. They will feel better about who they
are. They will be decent people.

Does an "internally focused" morality create better people than one that's enforced by God? What do you think? Respond to this objection in the comments below, and then we'll hear Brett's response on Thursday.
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Published on January 29, 2013 03:00
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