Next Time, I'll Just Go With "It's a Smile On a Dog"

The Princess spent the last few nights at her grandma and grandpa's house, and not surprisingly came back talking religion. See, her grandma, like many Americans, practices some flavor of Christianity. I tend towards the agnostic myself. So once in a while I'll find myself in these talks, which I don't shy away from if she feels like discussing it.

It started when I grabbed a couple of the Easter eggs she had colored at their house to throw into my lunch, and she asked me if she had remembered to leave the "church egg". I asked what made an egg a church egg, and she explained that one of the eggs had been decorated with a cross and maybe some other stuff. Then she started talking about how her aunt had been explaining about how Jesus was crucified, and how she listened but knew that "we don't believe in that".

The conversation veered wildly from there on out, her asking questions or making observations, and me explaining things the best I could. I explained that I do believe in part of it, as part of it is historical. Jesus was a dude who showed up, inspired some people, irritated some others, and eventually got executed for making the people in power angry. After a long side discussion on how people back then were a lot more brutal, thus the whole crucifixion thing, we got into identifying where the story of Jesus starts moving between history and (for those who are not religious) mythology.

I explained that, since there isn't anything like evidence of the miracles described, and since nothing like that happens now, I personally have to view those parts with scientific skepticism. She countered with the fact that paintings were done in lieu of photos because they didn't have cameras back then, and that there were paintings of those things - a fine point. I explained that those paintings are mostly interpretations, typically based on the stories in the Bible. This was easy, as she told me about the picture she saw of God and Adam ("Not, like, my uncle Adam. This was another guy." Heh.), and I pointed out that the story is that Adam was the first person ever, and the picture depicts God giving him life, which couldn't have been painted at the time because there was no one else around to paint it.



The conversation wandered to art (I correctly attributed the painting being discussed to Michelangelo and being part of the Sistine Chapel, which given my lousy knowledge of both art and history I'm quite proud of), the nature of artistic license, more about skepticism, discussion of the different religions and how they all have their own mythologies, and finally back to finishing her breakfast so we wouldn't be late. A lot to cover before getting out of our pajamas, really, but I love these conversations, not because I get to indoctrinate my kid with my weird ideas, but because I love to hear what questions she has. I continue to encourage her to find out all she can and think about these things for herself, and she seems to be doing a pretty good job for a six year old.

Besides, it gets me warmed up for the coming weekend and having to explain how we celebrate Spring with the story of the Easter bunny rising from the dead after three days, coming out of his cave, seeing his shadow and then hiding eggs and candy to let us know how many more weeks of winter we'll have. Man, religion is really confusing sometimes.