Humanist Parents Seek Communion Outside Church

Growing up, she attended church each Sunday, took Communion and was confirmed. She became disenchanted after a sex scandal at her parish was poorly handled, she said. Then in college, she was "exposed to a lot of different beliefs in religions and science. It causes you to question."

Tony grew up fascinated by his neighbors' ability to find community at church, which he sometimes attended with them. "Every Sunday they would go to church and see friends. That was a neat thing," he said.

The Proctors found themselves making decisions about religion when they had a daughter last year. Andrea said her parents asked, "Of course you're going to baptize her, right?" She answered, "Actually, no."

Instead, Andrea did a Google search for someone who might perform a nonreligious ceremony to mark Sienna's entry into the world and found Epstein, the Harvard humanist chaplain.

Epstein officiated at the ceremony, while both sets of grandparents spoke about their hopes and dreams for the child, Andrea said. The Proctors named "guide parents" instead of godparents.

By the time they got to the Harvard seminar more than a year later, they were ready to organize a larger community of families like themselves.

A room full of concertedly nonreligious people has its idiosyncrasies. At the seminar, someone sneezed, and there was a long silence -- no one said "Bless you" or even "Salud" or "Santé."

For sale were T-shirts saying "98% Chimpanzee" or showing a tadpole with the words "Meet Your Ancestor." There were also children's games from Charlie's Playhouse, a Darwinian toy company, illustrating the process of evolution.

A recent study found that many Americans associate atheists with negative traits, including criminal behavior and rampant materialism.

People often ask, "How do you expect to raise your children to be good people without religion?" said Dale McGowan, the seminar leader and author of "Parenting Beyond Belief." He suggested the retort might be something like, "How do you expect to raise your children to be moral people without allowing them to think for themselves?" He advocates exposing children to many religious traditions without imposing any.

At the seminar, Andrea Proctor was thrilled to meet another mother who would like to start a group of parents and children meeting weekly or biweekly.

"We just put a huge pool in our back yard," Tony Proctor said. "We might have to start humanist barbecue pool parties."