How do I explain death to a 3.5 year old? (I am an atheist)

[TheBlonde]

DS will be attending a cremation
He won't remember the deceased but I need to explain why we are there and what we are doing iyswim

Believer07-I'd love to see your carefully gathered statistics about what most children believe. This thread is not the place to start the debate but I suspect you're talking shite.

BTW-Believer07 - your faith may be real, but that does not make what you believe in real, any more than believing in santa makes him real.

Whoa - your a mite rattled.

Firstly I do not have carefully gathered statistics, nor did claim to have. My own experience has shown me that most children have a belief in something otherwordly like father christmas, the tooth fairy, angles etc. My response was to someone who commented on my post, and I have not started a debate. I grew up in a home that was very athiest, and God was mocked, but both my siblbings and I had a sense of the spiritual despite the best efforts of my father to tell us otherwise. And of course my faith is real, so what I believe in is real if I did not think so it would be a mite silly.

Believer07- I don't think we agree what 'real' means. Your faith and your belief can be real, but the object of your belief doesn't exist in virtue of that (beliefs can be false - right?). To you it's real, but not to the rest of us - so not silly to you, but it might not be believable to others.

FWIW (which is not much by my own lights since this is anecdotal rather than research), DD (who is 2.7) carefully explained to me yesterday that her imaginary friends are not actually 'real', nor is 'santa'. I never believed in stuff like that either, although adults do try to fill children's minds with bollocks. Some people believe in things like that, others don't (it may even be purely biological) (and there is research about that).

Hi Chaotica,

I guess we have reached an impass.

I agree that Fxmas and the like is pants.

Have a good whatever you do at this time of year.

Thanks, Believer07 - Have a nice christmas (if that's what you believe in - nothing in your name which makes you a Christian).

(I realise I'm going to have problems once the DCs hit school age if they're santa non-believers this early )