Oh, the way I’ve answered the OP’s question with my kids:
“I don’t believe there’s a God because I’ve never seen any evidence of Him. Lot of people think otherwise though.”
Nope.
mmm
^^^Winner of this week’s Let’s-Put-Words-Into-Someone-Else’s-Mouth award.
mmm
Thanks for the response. I hesitated to ask these questions because I knew they would be annoying. I appreciate your answer and find your answer interesting.
Another problem is that believing in something isn’t enough to make it true. Some people believe the moon is made of green cheese; is it a good parenting decision to tell your kids of that belief without qualification? Isn’t the whole idea of parenting to guide them in the wisest way to learn about the world?
Well… I know how I want to answer the OP question with my son:
“Absolutely! God is every bit as real as the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny”.
But my wife would kick me. 
Yes, it’s happened to me. I tend to be short in my own answer, because my belief is hard to articulate to a small person, but I’m honest. My focus, though, is to get them thinking about their own relationship and belief in divinity.
“I think there is, and God has lots of different faces and names and ways people think of him or her. Like you’re “Baby” to me and “Firstname” at school and “Snugglepuss” to Grandma, but you’re really only one person. But lots of people have lots of different ideas about God. What do you think?”
As for the Tooth Fairy, that one’s never come up. My son just graduated into skepticism on his own without ever asking. If my daughter does ask, I expect I’ll say something like, "Mommy and Daddy are the Tooth Fairy for you. And now you’re a big kid with a big kid secret, so don’t ruin the game for your classmates, okay? Would you like to see your baby teeth? I’ve saved them for you! "
I will just take this opportunity to say that one of my favorite ‘god’ quotes ever comes from you.
My dad responded with, “Good question.”
You put the words there yourself. I just helped you hear how they sounded. Here, let me quote the relevant bits back to you:
I think I would answer the OP with something like:
“There are many good people who say yes, and many good people who say no. And there are also many good people who admit that they don’t know.”
(adapted to be age-specific, of course)
mmm
Did I say that? (Sounds familiar) I’ll have to put it in my “gods” quote list under “me.”
I haven’t heard that question yet. If I heard those particular words, I’d probably be obnoxious and tell her she’s packing a lot of assumptions into the question in the first place. Let’s start with - what does the word “God” mean to her?
I did get the question, “What does it mean, ‘die?’” And I’d thought I’d be all even-handed and “some people believe this and some that,” yada yada yada. But when the moment came, I felt I just had to tell my kid the truth as well as I know it, which is when you die, you just stop - it’s like it was before you were born. It may come as a surprise to religious apologists who assert children need the comfort of supernaturalism that my kid took this completely in stride.
Basically, I agree with this, in the sense that you owe your child honesty. If you believe there is a God, say so (and you and your child have my pity). If you don’t, say no, and start teaching you kill martial arts, because there will be plenty of Jesus thugs out there to take issue with any kid who publicly denies the existence of god.
“Some people think there is, and some don’t.”
Simple and honest, and leaves plenty of leeway for followup if it’s more than just a fleeting thought.
They’ll ask sometime, though - they’ll just ask someone else.
What I feel like answering: “I am your God.”
What I answer: “No. But you should know that lots of people think there is one.”
When the kids were born, we decided that it would be good for them to know something about r religion, so we started going to our local Unitarian Universalist church, where you can be an atheist without going against your church’s teachings. (I’m an atheist, my wife isn’t.)
I have a 6 and an 8 year old. They know our views (I don’t believe in god[s], my wife “believes that God is a manmade creation which serves as the embodiment of goodness that exists in all people”, and my parents who are Catholic through and through). For a while they were pagans? and really liked the Greek and Roman gods and mythology as “yes they are just made up stories but the naiads and nymphs and goddesses are so pretty and the ones that can turn from people into animals are so cool.” But it was announced to me last night that the god they believe in now is Glaux, the god that the owls always curse with in the book series, “Owls of Ga’Hoole”, that we’ve been reading for a couple of weeks now. Nobody prays to Glaux, but for some reason they are all thankful to Glaux unless they are invoking his name in spite.
They still get plenty of religious books and stories from grandparents who are always shocked when my kids recite back biblical stories verbatim (learned from the books and artwork and church decoration that they have been exposed to). I can’t wait for my kids to read “The Life of Pi” or “Childhood’s End” or Twain’s “The Mysterious Stranger” and see how that changes their view on Glaux!
Child I can only tell you that there are two truths to this question . First , for those that say there is no God there is none for them. Second for those that believe at some point in their lives they will know for sure !
“No, but there will be. Soon.”
<stalks away with a swirl of a black cape>