My understanding was that this was basically what you were advocating.
The answer depends upon what you mean by "force their beliefs upon others." Violating other adults, by physical force, is not behavior that is permissible, since it is inconsistent with a condition of civilization. Advocating one's ideas, is permissible.
No; I don't equate them. However, I do recognize that religion may be a source of morality, so that religious education may be an example of moral education.
And religious parents can teach their children morals, with invoking a deity.
The law provides guidelines for people's behavior, based upon its suppositions about the requirements of the society, which suppositions may or may not be based on any supreme being and, in any case, are likely to be based upon axiomatic beliefs.
What is not nice about the law, is that it is sometimes arrogant, having been intended to act to satisfy people's desires, rather than merely to act as their agency of self-defense (and in either case, acting violently, since that is intrinsically characteristic of law and government).
As I tried to explain, children are a special case; they have no ability to choose their beliefs, until they have some beliefs to inform the choice. Also, there is of course a difference between asking religious people to do something, and forcibly compelling them to do it.
I tend to expect that you teach your children to understand the world, as you understand it, just as other parents - religious or otherwise - generally do. I am pleased that your understanding of the world, includes an understanding that people eventually must make up their own minds; I think that parents generally tend, eventually, to recognize this - some, sooner than others. How they behave in the meanwhile, or after, is best subject to evaluation, with regard to their specific behaviors. I don't suppose that there is any ideal parenting technique that would be justifiably enforcible.
