Who's Judging Whom?

I tend to read and listen to a lot of blogs and pod-casts by Atheists and Christians alike. One of the things that blows me away are the statements that are made by Atheists against religious believers. Often times these statements are shrouded in a thinly veiled call for "tolerance." This "tolerance", however, only pertains to the beliefs of the non-believer.
   Some of them are seemingly innocuous; for example, "It's fine with me if people are religious, they just need to keep it private." Another common statement goes like this, "You have no right to make moral claims regarding others." Others, like a blog post a friend of mine wrote several months ago, are much more antagonistic: "Raising children with religion is child abuse."
   Let's start with the first, the statement that religious belief is okay, as long as you keep it at home. I am surprised to find myself explaining the inherent contradiction of this statement, especially as it is made by otherwise intellectually sound minds. The thing about religion or faith, of any kind, is that it changes the way you see the world and the way you live your life. To put it another way, Faith is a platform for the way one lives his or her life. It is not something that any devout follower, of any religious path, can possibly just leave at the door. To do so would be to live an inconsistent and incoherent life. To expect such a thing from anyone, whether in politics or business, or just every day life, is to deny them their freedom of conscience. To do so, in fact, is to have an anti-religious point of view; ironically the only socially acceptable form of proselytism.
  Now to the second common assertion: It is wrong to push your morality onto others. Another way to phrase this may be more familiar, "true for you, but not for me." It seems that in today's culture one of the only things that is seen as being immoral is to have a solid, unwavering view on what morality is. It is as though our society has been deliberately trying to forget that all moral codes and legal systems are based on what people en masse saw as appropriate according to their views on right and wrong. Interestingly, there is an appeal to a higher morality without the ability to really ground it according to the Atheist's own standards. To one who does not believe in anything that cannot be measured, and tested in the lab, the only possible grounds for morality is the persuasion of the individual. The fact that we consider anything to be immoral is rendered completely arbitrary, an illusion foisted at us by "selfish genes" and the ultimate mission of DNA to reproduce. So, where then can any statement of right and wrong be made? How can one say that it is wrong to say what is wrong? It can be a very dangerous step to take, saying that everyone's morality is equally valid. In doing so, you render everyone's morality equally invalid,by abolishing morality as being in any way real. It is a slippery slope from this step to one where the people with the best education, the highest standing in Academia, and the most money begin to decide what we should see as right and wrong.

This brings me to the third statement, which I have an inherent problem with: "Raising children with religion is child abuse." From the common blogger to Dawkins and Harris, this has been repeated much throughout the last decade. First, it is an incredibly broad view of religion to insist upon this assertion. I don't believe it is ethical to keep your child from getting medicine, or to sell your young daughter as a bride. I also don't believe that you should refrain from teaching your children what you believe to be true, especially when it comes to their eternal well-being. The parent who believes that Christianity is true is not a good parent if they do not teach their children its basic tenets.
    Cultural and ethical codes are preserved and improved because parents pass them, whatever they are, down through generations. Their children, in adulthood, decide whether these frameworks are valid. They may make the adjustments they deem necessary or leave them as they are, and continue the process. I want my children to know about God. I want them to know the reasons that belief in God is not, despite the growing opinions to the contrary, "logically fallible" or ignorant.  I want them to understand the enormity and importance of the question of faith, and the answers available for the questions which are raised either by others, or themselves.
  The only two ways to determine morality, from a Naturalist's point of view, is as a species or as individuals, as science still cannot bring us to it. The insistence that religion is bad, however, is a direct contradiction of this point of view. The majority of people in the world believe in some kind of God. Therefore, if morality is to be democratically determined by "The Human Race", it is actually immoral not to at least seek after the nature of God. If it is determined by the individual, a la Nietzsche, then it cannot be deemed immoral to teach your children whatever you feel is right. To claim otherwise one needs to have a firm philosophical foundation, a "meta-ethic" if you will, in order to justify this claim.
 
Hopefully, I've at least given you something to mull over. As always, feel free to comment below, and thanks for reading!