(July 8, 2013 at 9:21 am)BadWriterSparty Wrote: Does anyone have any insight on how to lead a child to deciding on his or her own about how to keep an open mind and use reason in answering these hard questions? I see more articles/writings/blogs out there concerned with keeping children in the faith while maintaining an atmosphere of love, as opposed to keeping children out of faith.
I won't offer insight on that, but I think the only thing you want to make sure to do is have as open a channel of communication with them as possible. A child's mind will be affected by so many things that it's nearly impossible to know if you're pushing them too far in one direction or other. The more you convince them to turn to you when they have questions, the better you'll understand how their minds are forming. I don't think that has anything to do with reason or belief per se, but I think it's a mistake to try to shape (or try not to shape) their views.
Be yourself, be their dad, and do the best job you're capable of. The rest will sort itself out.
"Well, evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts don't go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's in this century, but apples didn't suspend themselves in midair, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from ape- like ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be discovered."
-Stephen Jay Gould
-Stephen Jay Gould
