So my 5 year old has obviously had a video played to him about Christianity at school and...

[ajamore]

He said it was really sad, scary and beautiful! I let him talk about it and his version of Christianity as he saw it is that a man and a woman were in a garden by a tree and a snake made one of them eat something when they had been told not to - this meant that they noticed that they were naked and were really embarassed and that's why we have to wear clothes!!

I felt quite sad. Let's introduce a bit of embarassment about our bodies at this tender age - fantastic He mentioned that Christians think God made everything including the grass and that he named all the animals (he namechecked lions and cheetahs).

I am in Scotland and wondering what on earth they showed him! I will ask at the parent teacher meeting next week. It's a non-faith school and they are going to be learning about Diwali too (and I assume all the other main religions).

I was brought up as a catholic but now consider myself to be an atheist as does my partner. I think it is going to be interesting to hear about the world's religions as interpreted by my 5 year old in a non-faith school. He was quite surprised when I told him that "mummy and daddy don't believe that story but Grandma does" - he looked mightily confused!

Wondered how other agnostic/atheists were dealing with any of their children's comments and interpretations of their school's religious instruction?

"Whoever is not against us, is for us."

Yes Mouette, I really should try and read that book to balance out the Christopher Hitchens book I read last year.

Try this article by John Gray - might be a good antidote to Hitchens.

Mouette, I keep meaning to read Karen Armstrong. I heard her talking about mythos and logos when she was promoting her book and she sounded very interesting. Doesn't half get a hard time from secularists though (unsurprisingly I suppose).

Thanks ZD for the link to that article - need to digest carefully and read when I have some proper head space. One quote that immediately leapt out at me was this:

"It is a funny sort of humanism that condemns an impulse that is peculiarly human. Yet that is what evangelical atheists do when they demonise religion."

For me this is the crux. I fondly recognise humanity's need for religion and I completely understand why religion works for society. It IS peculiarly human. I do not class myself as an evangelical atheist and I don't believe I "demonise" religion. I don't think religion needs a third party to demonise it.

God I love Mumsnet sometimes. From debating the finer points of Sleeping Bunnies to this - marvellous

I am a BIG fan of Karen Armstrong, have read both her books "The bible: the biography" and "The Case for God". She is not a Christian, although she started off a Catholic nun. She became an atheist and is now what you might call a humanist. I was beginning to have problems with my faith because of the conflict between rational thought and accepting "revealed" truths. She has actually reconciled me to it as she clearly shows that it's perfectly OK not to have all the answers and not to be certain of everything, and that there is a big difference between "true" and "scientifically verifiable" or "historically accurate". I bore everybody rigid with her, I think everybody who's even vagualy interested in religion should read her. She is so clear and balanced and I learnt a lot I didn't know about Christianity and Judaism.
Nope, we don't need anyone to demonise us, we can shoot ourselves in the foot perfectly well on our own.

Dd2 goes to a Catholic school, I am C of E and my children are christened C of E. My ex-H is atheist.

'Mummy, at school, God made us but daddy says God didn't make us'

so yes it does begin early - must be pretty confusing for the poor souls!