I struggle with this question. When I finally began breaking free from the manacles of residual guilt….those who have traveled this path know what I’m talking about…. when I was finally able to look in the mirror and acknowledge that I was an agnostic atheist..and then later when I realized I had the confidence in my new set of (non-beliefs) to know with conviction that I was not going to teach my kids that they needed to give the Bible or any aspect of Christian dogma any special consideration whatsoever. If you were not raised as a Christian, you don’t know what a big step this is! I went through a phase where I felt like I was trying to satisfy some sort of religious “Hippocratic Oath”, where I would try to at least “do no harm”. I could choose non-belief myself, but was it fair to push it on my kids? I began to realize that what I would do is what any parent “should” do….teach my children the very best and most hard-won aspects of my own philosophy. The most important things I want my kids to learn are critical thinking skills! Carl Sagan had a great reference to critical thinking in his book, “The Demon-Haunted World” His euphemism for critical thinking is a “baloney detection kit”. I want my kids to always scrutinize ideas that come their way, knowing that the best ideas are the ones that can bear said scrutiny. 
It’s so easy to compartmentalize religious beliefs, even for those who are normally perfectly rational in other aspects of their lives. While top scientists tend not to be religious, those that are fit into this category; somehow they are able to set aside all the irrationality and dogmatic beliefs required of them into a section of their brain which is off-limits to rational thought. With their critical thinking switched off, they can then embrace their supernatural beliefs. My favorite term for this is “cognitive dissonance” The logical brain is kept away from a set of protected, unsupported ideas that are never subjected to the rational scrutiny they normally demand in all other pursuits. Recently in the news, evidence continues to mount for the decline of mainstream Christianity in places like England. As a short aside, check out this video I stumbled upon on YouTube of an atheist describing what the transition from belief can be like. It’s very candid and I was impressed with what this man had to say:
It’s difficult for someone who was not brought up with religious beliefs to fully understand what the transition feels like. You *do* experience a certain amount of sadness at the realization that the comforting presence you thought was with you as you lived your life was just an illusion. The comforts you once were able to derive from your faith will now have to come from within you. In a way, these realizations become positive pretty quickly. One realizes that all the successes we had shared “credit” with God for, we had in fact achieved completely on our own. I can’t stress enough what a transition this is for a former believer. I you were raised by parents who were not religious, and who always encouraged you to focus the whole of your intellect on rational scrutiny of the world around you….you have no idea how lucky you are!
