I should say right at the outset that I am not speaking as a specialist in ethics. I am a parent. My husband is also a philosopher. Our considered view is that, basically, one should not tell children things that one believes to be untrue. Perhaps there are exceptions -- I'm not about to criticize the parents of a dying child who encourage the child to have hope. But if you're going to encourage a child to believe something you think is false, you need a really good reason. For one thing, it's imprudent: you risk your own credibility if the kid finds you out. So I wonder, in your case, what your reason fis or "inculcating" in your child a set of beliefs you think are false?

Neither my husband nor I believes in Santa Claus, and therefore did not tell our children that there was a Santa Claus. We didn't go out of our way to tell them that there wasn't, but neither of our kids seemed inclined to believe that there was. They talked about Santa Claus pretty much the same way they talked about Big Bird -- they could enter into the pretense when it was fun to do so, but they weren't confused about the difference between reality and make-believe.

We also don't believe in God. We followed the same policy. Despite the urgent advice of many people whose business this wasn't, we did not feign religion "for the sake of our children." Whatever benefits there may be to belonging to a religous community -- and my husband and I are prepared to admit that there are many -- we just could not possibly have tried to persuade our children of something we believed to be false. There are always social benefits involved in believing what most people believe, or at least in acting as if one does. But if we want our children to resist peer pressure when it comes to drugs and sex, why not also belief?

The first sort of reasoning (not that I need to tell Jyl) goes by the name "Pascal's Wager". It has been the subject of much controversy. The best recent paper I know is by Alan Hájek. See his "Waging War on Pascal's Wager", Philosophical Review 112 (2003), 27-56. Alan also wrote the Stanford Encyclopedia article on Pascal's Wager, which is presumably a better place to start for those who are interested.

Let me offer a slightly different perspective on the question originally asked. I don't think I'd want to say that it is permissible to "inculcate" one's children in a religion one doesn't accept. But that is strong and fairly loaded language. I actually know two people who are in the something like the following situation. (I could be wrong about some of the details, so if anyone guesses who I've got in mind, don't assume I'm right. The situation is officially hypothetical.) Alex and Tony are white academics and have adopted two black children. They believe very strongly that, as the church is and long has been the center of the black community, it is important for their children to grow up in a black church. So they attend one and take their children, even though they themselves are not believers. I don't myself see anything impermissible about their doing so. In fact, it strikes me as admirable. Note that it isn't obviously consistent with their broader goals to convey their lack of belief to their children, since doing so could undermine their children's involvement in the church.

So let's ask a more general question: Is it permissible to expose one's children in a serious way to religious life even if one is not oneself a person of faith? Here again, I don't see why it shouldn't be, and I can well imagine good reasons for wanting to do so. It doesn't have to be a fear of damnation.

That isn't, of course, to say there is some obligation to expose one's children to religious life. That would be a much stronger claim.