How to explain "God" to 5 year old?!

[godconfusion]

DS has a very religious grandmother who has somewhat confused him at the moment telling him about God/Jesus.

Conversation this morning began with "I can see God at the window mummy"

Lots of chatter lately about how God is a superhero (certain his GM has told him this in attempts to explain the concept of God ) I had been ignoring and waiting for it to die off and don't want to start an almighty row over it with her.

So I replied saying "well you know lots of people believe different things and I don't believe in God like GM but some people do, others believe in different Gods they might call things like Krishna or Allah"

He responded saying "well I believe like GM because she isn't lying is she?"

I tried to say "no she's not lying because she believes it, but she doesn't know for sure"

He replied "because God is invisible, that's why. Is Allah invisible too?"

I said "people believe in God or Gods and that's fine and some people don't, mummy doesn't anymore but nanny does and I think daddy might but you can choose"

He came back with "well I believe in lizards that change colour"

I said that they're not quite the same because chameleons are things we can see with our eyes so we know they're definitely real and true whereas God isn't something we can actually see and know so we have to just believe or not believe

His response: "yes because Jesus is invisible and he made the whole world mummy and a lizard didn't so we can see them"

So basically I'm confusing my kid further... and need a really clear and appropriate way of explaining the concept of God without saying it's all bollocks (as I don't want to say that either)

Science has yet to discover how...

When science had yet to discover what caused thunder, there were gods of thunder. When science had yet to discover what caused rainbows, God sent Noah a sign. None of the answers science has filled in so far has turned out to be "it was God". I don't find "we don't know all the answers yet" to be a credible reason to believe in an omniscient super-being.

1/1010^123 is a rather arbitrary number to quote, what on (or presumably off!) earth has someone calculated there?? The number seems orders of magnitude too small, planets aren't that unlikely to exist, moons are plentiful, what's the problem exactly? But even if the odds are that small, all we know really is that one human race exists in one universe. We have no idea how many universes like ours may exist with no intelligent life in. There could be infinitely many. We only have to exist once to be here to notice that we exist. If we don't exist anywhere else, we're not there to notice we don't exist.

Sorry that your thread has been hijacked or moved on godconfusion

I don't think disproving creationism or scriptures removes a belief in a higher power if you have one. I do wonder where you are coming from though. It sounds like you dont believe in the god of the bible but you believe in a god as described by the bible.

You believe in something! Why and what is it? It sounds like your deconverting but haven't come out the other end yet. That's ok its takes a long time. Baby steps.

@Fresh8008 I don't mind the thread moving tbh. I'm an imsoniac and it's keeping me amused

Yes that's exactly it... I believe in a God of some sort, a higher power anyway. No wish to deconvert further than that so yes a "God" not necessarily the creator of the universe, and definitely not the various Gods who are combined to become one in the bible

I believe humanity has a higher sense I suppose

All humans. Not just those who claim it

"Been googling Bert? , i presumed it was obvious i'd copied and pasted. Doesnt change facts though."

Well, it was to people who have discussed this sort of thing before

Not sure why it would be obvious to anyone else- hence the ' " convention.

I think you're overthinking the Santa issue blue. I don't think kids need easing in to the idea of being given presents, I think that one comes pretty naturally 😜 I don't see how Santa is part of some capitalist conspiracy - he just isn't necessary when kids like presents already!

^also, I would say that Santa is harmless yes, because he doesn't really do anything! Whereas the Bible tries to tell people how they should live and the punishments for not doing so.

The thing is, every adult knows that Santa isn't real.

Saash do you know what the odds are for the moon being in the position it is in relation to the earth, you are believing that it is there purely by chance?

You keep talking about chance.

OK two things here - evolution - is not about chance.

The odds of the moon being there and it being 2 cm to the left or 3000 miles to the right are the same.

Earths position in the universe was impossible to have come about by chance, it's been made with exact precision, perfect for our existence

OK I can see what you meant, but can you see how I read this?

There is no scientific proof that life did (or ever could) evolve into existence from non-living matter.

Do you realise how difficult it is for science to 'prove' anything? This is why science has theories, it is a possible explanation. That's why we have theories of evolution and gravity. We think these are the best explanations but if someone investigates and comes up with a different theory that is better then that becomes the leading theory.

Sometimes theories intertwine eg the germ theory of disease. Scientists discovered bacteria and theorised it was how disease was spread and they did experiments to show this. But the equipment that they used to see bacteria couldn't see viruses so the theory was incomplete.

Yellow fever was a big killer but didn't seem to conform to this new germ theory, then a Cuban Dr came up with a theory of transmission by mosquitoes.

It seemed a flight of fantasy at the time but guess what scientists experimented and showed that it was transmitted by mosquitoes.

Science does not know everything, but new things are being discovered every day and new theories are developed.

At 5, my kids were very black and white and explanations had to be too: back when people didn't understand much about the world they used stories to try to explain things and how you should live. Some people still believe in one or more of the gods. I don't. But there are good stories there and Jesus sounds like a kind man who told people to forgive and be nice to everyone even if someone else has been mean.

By 7-8 you can add more nuance. The Marcia Williams books explain the Bible, The Romans and their gods, the Vikings and their mythology very well.

Hi there everyone

There is a chap called J Warner Wallace and he has been investigating cold case murders in the US for the last thirty years. A cold case murder is one in which there are no surviving eye witnesses and usually no DNA evidence. J knows what evidence looks like and how to build a case. He too was a skeptic until at the age of 35 he decided to apply the same analytical tools he uses to solve and get convictions on cold case murders but this time applying them to the Gospels of the Bible (Christianity). He has also done the same thing directly to the evidence for the existence of God.

The third and fourth short clip videos down on the right hand side of the below link give you a brief 2-4 minute summary of the premise to the books (Cold Case Christianity and God's Crime Scene). Perhaps it is something that would interest you, especially if you believe that there is no evidence for these things:

  <a class="break-all" href="http://coldcasechristianity.com/category/videos/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">coldcasechristianity.com/category/videos/</a>

The books are available on Amazon.

I do hope that you and your kids are doing well. All the best.

Tim

Bringing up a two month old thread to preach and flog a shitty book? Seriously?