Or
Mom, is there a God ?
Did your kid ever ask this question ? How did you answer ?
Just happened yesterday.
“I don’t know. Some people think so and some don’t. It’s up to you to make up your mind about it. Not me.”
I don’t see any reason to overcomplicate things.
Even less complicated- “No.”
That’s what I plan to do.
I know you are going to be annoyed with this question, and I apologize in advance, but I never get the chance to ask these kinds of questions in real life, so forgive me for my assholey questions on this message board.
What if she said, “Dad, is there a bigfoot?” or “Dad, is evolution real” or “Dad, are there ghosts”?
How old is the child? With a 3 year old, you could probably get away with “Hey, who wants ice cream?”. A little older, and you can change that to “Go get Daddy a beer.” As they age, it can become “Bring Daddy a beer and a sammich”. “Clean your room.” “Mow the lawn.” Eventually, child will learn not to ask Daddy shit he doesn’t wanna answer.
Why no, I don’t have kids. That’s prolly a good thing.
Cruel answer: “No, because if there was a God, you wouldn’t be here.”
Here is how my family answered it:
Grandmother and Dad: Of course.
Grandfather (above mentioned grandmother’s husband): No, because of the holocaust.
Grandmother: Your grandfather was joking.
Grandfather: No I wasn’t.
Mom: Read some books and figure it out for yourself. Start with this one. Hands me a book by Deepak Chopra.
“There used to be, but this guy named Nietzsche killed him.”
I thought that was John Lennon?
That would be no fair fight. He was bigger than Jesus.
Yeah, Lennon used to beat up Jesus and take his lunch money at the orphanage that Jesus ended up at after Nietzsche killed his Dad.
I’m picturing Calvin of Calvin and Hobbes getting told this by his father. Like his explanation of color versus black and white.
I’ve followed this path with my boy. If he wants to know more about the church we go to, I google up their doctrine and tell him about it, within the limits of his question. If he wants to know where people go when they die, I give him “some people think this, but others think something else” etc. If he asks what I think, I say I don’t know but I hope that <my beliefs> are true, but nobody really knows.
I like Lazarus Long’s answer: Why worry about life after death? Eventually you’ll know, so why worry about it? Pass the salt.
I don’t remember my kids ever asking the question explicitly, and when they were old enough we went through Genesis as I taught them about internal contradictions, absurdities, and how it badly misstated the way the universe, earth, and creatures came to be. I think they had it figured out at an early age, though. The older one figured out Santa Claus by age 6, and the younger one never believed, saying her grandfather brought the presents - absolutely keerect. Being unashamedly non-religious probably helped also, plus their genes. My grandfather never believed, and my father-in-law doesn’t either.
Happened to me a few months ago (5-year-old):
“Daddy, does God exist?”
My answer was a lot like several mentioned above:
“Some people believe he does, some people believe he doesn’t.”
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
“Does Mommy?”
“No.”
Pause.
“OK.”
My daughter starting asking this question when she was 5. I gave her the “Some people think so and some don’t” answer. A couple of years later she stated, “Daddy doesn’t believe in God”, which is true. I never explicitly told her that, but she figured it out from my always deferring questions about religion to her mother. “Do I have to go to Sunday school?” “Your mother wants you to go.” “Did Jesus really come back from dying?” “I have no idea what I’m supposed to tell you. Ask your mother.” She eventually figured out that I never said “yes” because the answer is really “no”.
“I don’t know. The universe is a big place and I haven’t experienced everything in it, yet.”
That’s the answer I give to any rugrat who asks me that question.
I always laughed at his dads ‘explanations’.
Oddly enough I don’t think god was ever mentioned in my homes, both when I was growing up and when I was raising my own kids. I had heard of god but it always seemed to me to be fiction, something like Santa Claus or the tooth fairy. I suppose it was the same with my kids. But had they asked, I would have denied it.
This is what I told my kids, except for the I don’t know part, but it really wasn’t enough. They are bombarded with God references every day and pushed and pulled by the religious, both gently and aggressively. We needed more talks and a couple of visits to an actual church before my kids felt comfortable that I wasn’t endangering their eternal souls. Who knows, maybe they still feel like I’ve failed them and just don’t ask anymore. Just as the religious folks would like them to think.