My son spent the night with his grandma (my MIL) Friday night. Saturday morning, for some reason, he was asking about where the universe came from, specifically, how the Big Bang happened. My MIL explained that everything has to have a creator and that God caused the Big Bang. He told me he didn’t think of it then, but he was going to ask grandma next time he saw her, since everything has a Creator, who created God?
I must say that this makes me quite proud.
Let’s stone him!
He’s surely too young for controlled substances.
Good for him for using his mind!
How old is the little heathen?
Good for him. Personally I never had the heart to tell my Grandma’ I am an Atheist because I knew how upsetting that would have been for her.
She died thinking I’m a Christian and I feel good about that. (not her dying but the Christian part)
He’s almost nine. He’s really interested in science at school, and, golly, with that kind of thinking, what other options could he have?
I can’t say I haven’t influenced him, but a couple of years ago my son (then 6) noticed a place of worship when we were back visiting my home town and said “oh, so they believe in things that aren’t real here too?”
Congrats on your bright-sounding kid.
Just a word or 2 on my experiences. My son has long been a staunch evolutionist/atheist. As much as I admired what I considered his rationality, I believe that his (and his parents’) outspokeness on the topic may have hurt him socially when he was young.
I remember one time he went on a cub scout outing. The driver of one car was talking about how the kids were discussing power rangers, pokemon and such. The driver of the car my kid was in said her kids were discussing evolution and the Big Bang. My son and a Jewish kid were going at it pretty hard with a fundamentalist kid.
We perceived that many families in our heavily christian town did not appreciate such strongly held and voiced opinions. A couple of his best friends were Jewish, another minority in our town, as they were also looked down upon by the “good Christian people.”
Just saying, it might not be inapprorpiate to suggest to him that religion is a topic he may not wish to lead with. Just a thought from my experiences/perceptions. It sucks tho, to urge your kid to keep his opinions to himself when “believers” are so free to express theirs.
Awesome. I don’t think I stumbled upon the First Cause/ infinite regress problem until I was 12 or 13. And it took me another 7 or 8 years to put the pieces together.
Dinsdale, I think you’re on to something. I’ll probably encourage KidNito to adopt a “no-first-use” policy. Don’t bring it up, but if someone feels compelled to proselytize, speak your mind.
I think this is a matter of general etiquette; i.e., don’t lead with politics or religion as a topic of conversation. I wish more people followed this guideline in general, actually.
Logician.
But it is frustrating for the young atheist, when christians seem to feel so free to espouse their beliefs, yet rational thinkers are looked down upon if they do likewise.