Explaining god - advice needed by non-religious parents

[BadHair]

Ds1 has developed a fascination for churches. He knows the names of all the churches for miles around and can tell you if they have spires, clocks, towers etc. Although I find this a bit strange, as we're not a religious family by any stretch of the imagination, I also think its quite sweet.
However, he's started to ask what churches are, and who lives in them. I've told him that no-one lives in them and that they're places where some people like to go to sing hymns and say prayers, and so far he's happy with that. But its only a matter of time before he asks what hymns and prayers are.
So, how on earth do atheist parents give a simple explanation of god etc to a 3 yr old in a balanced, sensible fashion?

Message withdrawn

Oh dear bloss, we come back to the argument you and I have had on more than one occasion. Evangical Christians (and it's not only Christians) do annoy me admittedly. What really ticks me off is the assumption that those with a religious basis to their beliefs have somehow a monopoly on "truth". You can believe what ever you want to in order to get through your day. Just don't expect me to listen them or pity or patronise me when I find them illogical in the extreme.

That is what I teach my child. That some people need to believe in a higher power in order to explain their world to them and some do not.

Ta bloss. Julian of Norwich had some interesting things to say about suffering - about god transmuting it into something marvellous. None of which explains whats going on right now, but at least there might be hope in future.

Hi! havent' read all the thread so no idea what lifeboats and things are about.
The bits i have read made me think about something I was reading on a website last night, about an alternative Christian view of salvation. It was talking about mathematical set or group theory, and the difference between an open and closed set. A closed set is like the Venn Diagrams we used to draw in school - a line encloses a space, everything on one side of the line is in and everything on the other side is out. This is one view of Christian 'salvation'. But this is not the only view!!! An open set doesn't have the line, and the dots don't just have position but also direction. Everything moving (howevr slowly or erratically) towards the centre is 'in', and everything moving away from the centre is 'out'. This is an alternative view, which fits with the common metaphor of faith as a journey. On this view, someone could be right at the heart of the church, saying all the right things and doing all the right things, but actually be slowly drifting away from God and so be 'out', wheres someone with no faith might be slowly moving in and so be 'in' (though in and out arent' that helpful as terms, i'm sure you can see what i mean - the overall direction of your life is either towards or away from God, and that's what counts). Thats why we are told not to judge as we can't tell which way someone is going from where they are now, only God knows. (and this accounts for all those humanists and members of other faiths who honestly hold their beliefs and follow God's rule of love as best they can whether or not they call it. It also takes seriously the fact that some - not many - people are actually actively evil).
Hope this is helpful in cooling things down a little and providign a different perspective from the rather combative saved or not saved stance that thsi seems to have got into it?
M.
Hope

Hmmm, interesting. But what about those of us who activly disbelieve in God, yet try and live a 'good' life? Which way are we moving? And do we really care?

bloss - interesting thought that good can come of pain and suffering- as yes I think autism has brough me a lot of good. I can't see that its brought my son any at all. Why punish a 4 year old child? What sort of God would allow that- if he realy was all powerful.

I think my main problem though is that a not unknown Christian attitude is that its some sort of vengence being wreaked by God. I'm afraid that knowing even some Christians think like that is enough for me to turn my back on it. (or would be - by the time my son was born I didn't believe anyway).

Surely you only "need" a god to explain creation. If you can see another way for that to have occurred can't you bin the creator?

Slug, my previous comments were in reply to Robinw - I wasn't saying that atheists are in denial but that if others believe that we are in denial then let us stay there!

re: the lifeboats and bombs analogies, surely if someone 'knows' that there is a bomb in the room and I don't believe that there is one but choose to leave the room anyway - for other reasons and not because I am a closet bomb believer - then I won't get blown up when the bomb goes off will I? Similarly, if I am a nice(ish) person who does not believe in god - if I am wrong and there is a god, then I should be allowed in heaven for my actions otherwise it would be like being blown up even though I left the room! unless, the objective isn't to have 'good' morals etc but simply to believe. I think I find Miranda2's open set situation more acceptable than the closed set. I'll stop now as I've run out of similies to use.

Point taken sis. I think you hit the nail on the head though. It's this attitude that we (athiests) are in denial and only need to see the error of our ways that I find ever so irritatingly patronising.

I'm sure there are people who continue to love god through horrific suffering - see much of the 3rd world. But isn't that the 'wishful thinking' argument? I can't really have been dealt such a shitty hand as this FOR NO REASON? God sending his son so that he could experience suffering doesn't really help in the argument against god being a 'sick bastard' does it?

Miranda - you do make Christianity sound so cuddly Don't agree with you but...

Robinw's coments before were so staggeringly arrogant and absurd my first reaction was that they must have been just mischeivious. But then I thought they sounded like the comments of someone who feels threatened by someone disagreeing with her. The 'problem' is most of our generation ( I think) are brought up to be aware of god. When you discard that when you think about it for yourself teh figure of god is still there, you view the position as an absence rather than a neutral. I really really wish I'd been brought up without a knowledge of god so that my mind was completely free.

Would it be presumptious to say that I know Thor doesn't exist, or Zeus, or Nerthus (not the Mumsnetter, obviously ) ? And would you feel ncomfortable describing the stories about them (blacksmiths and Mount Olympus etc) to your children as ancient myths which aren't true, why is it presumptious of me to say the same about the Christian God, which I regard as exactly the same?

BTW was thinking about the bomb allegory early while pushing ds down the road to Tiny Gym and realised that while to Christians they are very sincerely warning us about our mortal (or immortal) danger, we (and this isn't meant to be offensive and is not a literal comparison) regard their warnings as similar to a crazy person pointing at our Walkman, the one we've had for years, and saying, "Run! It's a bomb! We're all doomed." ie well intentioned and sincere, but utterly deluded.

I don't want to deflect us from the lifeboat stuff, which is still pending, but another thing I've never got to the bottom of, despite researching, is why the crucifixion saved the world. I've wondered whether come physical property was involved, as I can't make sense of it otherwise.

I mean some physical property. Eg, we are told that the crucifixion resulted in salvation, but not the steps in between which must have 'catalysed the reaction'.

Tinker the 'sick bastard' thing is so true - but I was way too scared to post that on here! if god created so much, would it have been that much more effort to make everyone nice so that we didn't do horrid things to eachother and, whilst we are at it, make women have a nice zip-up front so that we didn't have 'labour' - we could just unzip, take out baby and zip-up again?

Yes yes Tinker- religion prospers along with poverty. Always has done. Salvation of the masses, and blessed are the meek ("ooh its the meek, blessed are the meek oo that's nice as they 'ave 'ell of a time" Sorry Life of Brian is about as real as it gets for me.

Rather pertinent to this discussion, there's a programme, What The World Thinks Of God on BBC at 9pm tonight (and on Sun on World Service).

They carried out a survey in which the UK was shown to be one of the most secular nations.

Speaking from a personal experience, I suspect people in Indonesia believe in god because it's the only form of hope they have, in the face of abject poverty. When your wife is dying of cancer because you cannot afford medicines, then believing she will soon be 'going to a better place' is nicer to think about than the fact three tiny children will be left motherless.

Exactly suedonim. I'm wondering why religious belief is high in the US - suspect it's in the middle bits. Suspect the East and West coasts more enlightened. Must be due to insularity - don't only 14% of Americans have a passport?

My view has always been that if there was a God, I want nothing to do with that nasty bit of work, and I certainly don't want to go to his heaven, esp as my friends and family won't be there.

And how could you be 'happy' in 'heaven' if you knew your children, say, were suffering somewhere else? It couldn't be heaven in that case, so what would it be? Hell?

Can I ask something that's now off topic? My mom sent me "Devotions for the Children's Hour" along with a NIV bible for kids (which seems dumbed down language wise, but hey ho). Now, the first "devotion" is titled "There is Only One God" and contains the phrase "That is why He is angry with those who pray to anyone but Himself." I don't mind my son learning about Christianity or whatever else (except maybe Satanism, but maybe that's just ignorance on my part ) but I'd like to start with the tolerance and "love one another" bits. What I'd really like is a book that starts with that -- to appease my mother if nothing else, because there's no way I'm reading through this one with him without some serious editing.

Argh. My mother is also the woman who told me we'd save money if we stopped donating so much to charity. wtf? Argh. And I was raised (reared?) Christian. This is my book from 1974 (I was 3!).

Sorry for the rant.

JJ - There is a book called 'Stories Jesus told' by Brian Butterworth which is lovely for children - it's basically the parables retold for children, but very nicely. The stories themselves are very much about tolerance, and loving neighbours etc. There is very little emphasis on Jesus - each one ends 'Jesus taught us that...' which even if you don't believe he was God, can be true, since these were his teachings. The stories are also printed in very small type in the 'biblical' version. Don't know which version of the bible though. HTH.

Thanks musica. I've just ordered that and the Lion First Bible, which got good reviews, too. I can cancel that if anyone heard it's not good. Doing that really calmed me down. Thanks.

Oh I hope you like it! I feel all worried now in case you don't!

Bloss, I tried to send you an email, but I couldn't. Rachel says you can update your records if you want.

Lion First Bible is lovely, JJ - and there is also a nice recent book called The Jesse Tree by Geraldine McCaughrean, which retells Bible stories in a modern, very touching framework.
Droile, Julian of Norwich got me through losing Tom when I couldn't face church or clergy.