Discussing religion with kids

Psychedelic Casual said:
If I was explaining religion/mythologies to a child; if they are old enough, or once they are, I’d show them some of the following programmes:

Universe: God Star (The Sun)

Wonders Of The Solar System: Empire Of The Sun

A Perfect Planet: The Sun

Wonders Of The Universe: Messengers

I’d explain religions/mythologies and god as the end of a very long line of story telling that started out with early homosapiens looking up at the sky and the world around them and seeing how the Sun changed, affected and provided for all the animals including us. How the Sun was deified and then how other celestial entities joined the Sun in stories with gods or personifications attached to them. Over time, these stories became widespread, over more time these widespread stories, the deities and personifications, stories of natural events and disasters that happened in the world all became what we see as the stories on the books of religions/mythologies.

Some other good programmes are:

Operation Stonehenge: What Lies Beneath

Stonehenge And Archeoastronomy

They show how, from much further back in time than the times of the Torah/Bible/Quran, humans have been making a big deal about the Sun and the other celestial objects in the sky and the seasons. Holidays/festivals that we still have today (that the Christian church changed all their holidays/festivals to line-up with) are all to do with the different points in the sky at different times of the year of the Sun and the stars/constellations.

Understand that religions/mythologies are not real stories, the people in them are not real, the prophets and angels and demons are not real, heaven is. It real, the deity in them is not real. They are fictions, and the root of it all is scientific.
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The wonders of the universe would be a better mandatory syllabus lesson than R.E in every school on the planet
 
I’ve considered this dilemma myself. Do I encourage my atheist stance, or allow them to make their own decisions.
But then their decision will obviously influenced somewhere.

I’ve picked a school with no visible or obvious religious leanings.

If I encountered the issue you’re facing, i’d be telling them, or opening them up to all mythology and religious teachings.
I’d personally offer them all the info on mythology and religious I could then tell them of my personal beliefs.
 
God created the earth the moon and the stars, if he truly wanted our children to believe in him he would not have chosen some soppy fucker that got bullied at school to read out inspiring psalms, he would turn the school bully into five foot six inches of Sifta salt and give the headmaster a forehead vagina
 
Tell children the truth, the universe is 14 billion years old, the earth 4.5, gravity and accretion, formed stars from hydrogen and helium, when stars lose their equilibrium they collapse producing incredible pressure heavy elements like gold, diamonds, carbon flung out into the universe carbon being one of the building blocks of life on earth, tell them they are quite literally stardust. Only joking, of course trying to explain this to young children is impossible, but there is no excuse for adults.
 
Psychedelic Casual said:
If I was explaining religion/mythologies to a child; if they are old enough, or once they are, I’d show them some of the following programmes:

Universe: God Star (The Sun)

Wonders Of The Solar System: Empire Of The Sun

A Perfect Planet: The Sun

Wonders Of The Universe: Messengers

I’d explain religions/mythologies and god as the end of a very long line of story telling that started out with early homosapiens looking up at the sky and the world around them and seeing how the Sun changed, affected and provided for all the animals including us. How the Sun was deified and then how other celestial entities joined the Sun in stories with gods or personifications attached to them. Over time, these stories became widespread, over more time these widespread stories, the deities and personifications, stories of natural events and disasters that happened in the world all became what we see as the stories on the books of religions/mythologies.

Some other good programmes are:

Operation Stonehenge: What Lies Beneath

Stonehenge And Archeoastronomy

They show how, from much further back in time than the times of the Torah/Bible/Quran, humans have been making a big deal about the Sun and the other celestial objects in the sky and the seasons. Holidays/festivals that we still have today (that the Christian church changed all their holidays/festivals to line-up with) are all to do with the different points in the sky at different times of the year of the Sun and the stars/constellations.

Understand that religions/mythologies are not real stories, the people in them are not real, the prophets and angels and demons are not real, heaven is. It real, the deity in them is not real. They are fictions, and the root of it all is scientific.
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Fuck that, much easier to just trot out the two fairy stories that end in Xmas presents or Easter eggs. Having said that, you could add another sentence to yours

'and that is why you won't be getting any silly chocolate eggs or presents'

Should save you a few quid.
 
Mazzarelli's Swiss Cheese said:
Fuck that, much easier to just trot out the two fairy stories that end in Xmas presents or Easter eggs. Having said that, you could add another sentence to yours

'and that is why you won't be getting any silly chocolate eggs or presents'

Should save you a few quid.
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Could become a Jehovah's Witness and save yourself from giving out birthday presents as well.
 
daveoswald said:
Tell children the truth, the universe is 14 billion years old, the earth 4.5, gravity and accretion, formed stars from hydrogen and helium, when stars lose their equilibrium they collapse producing incredible pressure heavy elements like gold, diamonds, carbon flung out into the universe carbon being one of the building blocks of life on earth, tell them they are quite literally stardust. Only joking, of course trying to explain this to young children is impossible, but there is no excuse for adults.
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I'd say to her, some adults believe in God and some don't.
Of course, I will take you to church, and you can see what goes on and eventually make your own mind up. I don't believe in God, but your auntie ??? does.
 
Bill Walker said:
I'd say to her, some adults believe in God and some don't.
Of course, I will take you to church, and you can see what goes on and eventually make your own mind up. I don't believe in God, but your auntie ??? does.
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because some adults do or don't believe in god is irrelevant. the facts are there is no proof of a higher creator, i'm assuming the auntie believes in a christian god. what about the aunties in India are they right about a hindu, sikh, budhist god , Pakistani's about a muslim god the african aunties about juju, they can't all be right.
 
daveoswald said:
because some adults do or don't believe in god is irrelevant. the facts are there is no proof of a higher creator, i'm assuming the auntie believes in a christian god. what about the aunties in India are they right about a hindu, sikh, budhist god , Pakistani's about a muslim god the african aunties about juju, they can't all be right.
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I'm just saying thats what I'd say to a 5 year old girl. Let her make her own mind up.
 
Its now OK to believe in God because the priests aren't allowed to fiddle with you anymore.
 
What I hope I have taught my children.
The difference between right and wrong (or good and evil, if you like). That good are those things that help to produce a better world and that bad are those things make the world a worse place to live. So love nature and love each other. That both science and religion embrace the concept of things that help the development of a better world and those that make the world worse.

That different people have different ideas about the purpose of life and how and why it came about but no-one knows for certain all the answers. That science seeks to explain how things happen and religion tries to explain why things happen. That both have things that are difficult to understand in terms of our everyday experiences like, in science - imaginary numbers in the mathematics describing creation, entangled particles or that time can stand still at the threshold of a black hole; or in religion the nature, or even the existence of any creative entity behind the creation of the cosmos, whether this entity, if it exists, deals only with the physicality of the universe or whether it can interact with each of us or whether we have a soul or spiritual part of our being. Over time both scientific and religious ideas have changed and developed and in both there are many abandoned ideas and theories but hopefully, one day everything will become clear. That they should try to see science and religion as complementary rather than competitive and that each can learn from the other.

I hope that they would understand that religious organisations quite often do not live up to the fundamental principles of their religious beliefs and that people sometimes use religious organisations as a vehicle for their own gain rather than for the general good, but that this applies to all aspects of life.
 
Mazzarelli's Swiss Cheese said:
Fuck that, much easier to just trot out the two fairy stories that end in Xmas presents or Easter eggs. Having said that, you could add another sentence to yours

'and that is why you won't be getting any silly chocolate eggs or presents'

Should save you a few quid.
Click to expand...
Chocolate eggs are symbols of fertility that relate to the Northern European Ēostre festival linked to the Goddess of the same name.

The word Easter itself is actually related to the Sun or the sunrise or where the sun rises - the East. From our word Easter/East, going back to old English’s word ‘Ēostre’, the old High German word ‘Ostara’, the proto-Germanic word ‘Austrǭ’… and even going back 6,000 years to the proto-Indo-European word ‘Hausōs’ which has the same linguistic lineage.

These words all mean and meant “to shine” or “the dawn” (the Sun rises in the East at dawn), and there were goddesses attached to those names across many ancient religions: Germanic Godesses of the same name above, Roman ‘Aurora’, Greek ‘Eos’, Hindu ‘Ushas’, Babylonian ‘Ishtar’. And these Goddesses are also the Goddesses of fertility.

Festivals with big feasts and gift offerings were held across the world, including on this island, for thousands of years before Christianity was made up. Christmas symbolism we put up each year has almost nothing to do with the Christian church. Whether it’s fertility (again) symbolism of evergreen plants like holly, ivy, mistletoe or spruce/pine/fur trees; lights on a Christmas tree or the Yule log (either the traditional way of burning them or lighting candles on them) symbolising the burning of the trees to celebrate the coming of more daylight every day after the Winter Solstice, to presents under the tree symbolising the magic mushrooms that grow under Scandinavian spruce trees and baubles on trees are the mushrooms (ever wondered why you can get magic mushroom baubles?) the Saami/Siberian shaman (/Father Christmas) hang on trees that are eaten on the Winter Solstice:



All of them are very old traditions that are still worth celebrating, with no link to Christianity, because they’re all linked to science. Whether that be the celestial root of it all: the Sun… or biological importance of fertility and the celebration of children who we’ve passed our genes on to as we create generations and our species continues.

So definitely still give chocolate eggs and Christmas presents.
 
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daveoswald said:
because some adults do or don't believe in god is irrelevant. the facts are there is no proof of a higher creator, i'm assuming the auntie believes in a christian god. what about the aunties in India are they right about a hindu, sikh, budhist god , Pakistani's about a muslim god the african aunties about juju, they can't all be right.
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In a way, they are all right. In that, all they have all done is deified the Sun.

The Sun, or other stars, or all stars - like you said on a previous post (‘when stars lose their equilibrium they collapse producing incredible pressure heavy elements like gold, diamonds, carbon flung out into the universe carbon being one of the building blocks of life on Earth’) - is or are the creators of life. In our settled solar system, the Sun helps the plants to grow which provide food for us to eat and survive. When we survive as a species we can then procreate and our species lives on through generations (fertility).

The fact that they have moved too far beyond the solar meaning behind it all and all believe that the deity is real and is the higher power means they’re all wrong. But their root in what they believe in was originally right for all religions: life, the survival of our species and the continuation of our species, with thanks given to the Sun for allowing those things to happen.

It would be good if all these religions/mythologies started to recognise their stories as just that, stories, and for them to recognise the solar root of all of their religions/mythologies.
 
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