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5 year old niece
June 28, 2013 at 11:31 am
So, my 5 year old niece asked, "Do you believe in god?" I was caught off-guard and dumbfounded. My sister is a devout Catholic, so it complicated matters in the question.
Honestly, I did not know if I should answer her question with brutal honesty. So, I answered in what I thought to be the most polite manner and said, "The world is full of mysteries."
Admittedly, I could have been brutally honest with her, but I did not want to upset the situation with my sister and brother-in-law.
Is discretion/prudence the best answer here? Let me know your thoughts.
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RE: 5 year old niece
June 28, 2013 at 11:36 am
(June 28, 2013 at 11:31 am)sarcasticgeographer Wrote: So, my 5 year old niece asked, "Do you believe in god?" I was caught off-guard and dumbfounded. My sister is a devout Catholic, so it complicated matters in the question.
Honestly, I did not know if I should answer her question with brutal honesty. So, I answered in what I thought to be the most polite manner and said, "The world is full of mysteries."
Admittedly, I could have been brutally honest with her, but I did not want to upset the situation with my sister and brother-in-law.
Is discretion/prudence the best answer here? Let me know your thoughts.
Dealing with family and children, is a sticky situation. I like your response though. I would have gone with the "Yes, Virginia therr is a Santa" response. It is my default answer whenever someone asks me a question I don't know how they might respond to.
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RE: 5 year old niece
June 28, 2013 at 11:36 am
That depends on your sister.
If someone can remain a "devout catholic" in the wake of all the child-raping scandals by her church I have to assume she is pretty far gone.
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RE: 5 year old niece
June 28, 2013 at 11:41 am
I think your answer was a good and respectful one, however, since the child asked you the question, saying you didn't believe in god would have been fine as long as you were clear that that was just your belief.
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RE: 5 year old niece
June 28, 2013 at 11:44 am
Well, when my kids ask me something like that, I just give them the brutal truth. They can handle it.
And, if they're asking, it's because they suspect something like that is going on... and it's great that they ask! 
Afterwards, they usually reply with something like: I don't believe either...
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RE: 5 year old niece
June 28, 2013 at 11:56 am
(June 28, 2013 at 11:44 am)pocaracas Wrote: Well, when my kids ask me something like that, I just give them the brutal truth. They can handle it.
And, if they're asking, it's because they suspect something like that is going on... and it's great that they ask!
Afterwards, they usually reply with something like: I don't believe either...
Does your wife or significant other agree with your atheism? If not, how do they handle it?
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RE: 5 year old niece
June 28, 2013 at 12:02 pm
obviously you know your family better than we do, I just tell everyone I don't believe in god except my grandparents, who might not give me anything in their will if I tell them that.
Are you ready for the fire? We are firemen. WE ARE FIREMEN! The heat doesn’t bother us. We live in the heat. We train in the heat. It tells us that we’re ready, we’re at home, we’re where we’re supposed to be. Flames don’t intimidate us. What do we do? We control the flame. We control them. We move the flames where we want to. And then we extinguish them.
Impersonation is treason.
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RE: 5 year old niece
June 28, 2013 at 12:18 pm
(June 28, 2013 at 11:56 am)sarcasticgeographer Wrote: (June 28, 2013 at 11:44 am)pocaracas Wrote: Well, when my kids ask me something like that, I just give them the brutal truth. They can handle it.
And, if they're asking, it's because they suspect something like that is going on... and it's great that they ask!
Afterwards, they usually reply with something like: I don't believe either...
Does your wife or significant other agree with your atheism? If not, how do they handle it? My wife is catholic and goes to church every Sunday... and drags the kids, well, the ones that she's made endure sunday school. The youngest is still free from that punishment.
Every once in a while, with no kids around, we discuss religion a bit... she's left with a lot of questions and I don't know where she goes to get them answered, but she seems to be happy with her churchgoing, so what am I to do? Live and let live.
In the end, she sticks with it mostly because of the morality imbued in the catholic catechism... (these catholics don't like when we throw the bible in their face, because that's not exactly what they follow) and it must be comfortable to believe in the big brother afterlife thing.
And she wants the kids to follow those morals...
I tell her they can follow them without the giant skydaddy detail, but... her indoctrination is in the way (her parents are the kind that pray before each meal...sheeesh!)... oh well, I just keep putting the questions in that head every now and then... 
Before we became BF+GF, she was already fully aware of my atheism, so I guess she automatically accepted it as a part of me.
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RE: 5 year old niece
June 28, 2013 at 12:29 pm
(This post was last modified: June 28, 2013 at 12:30 pm by Foxaèr.)
If either of my nieces or nephew asked me if I believed in God, I would be honest. I would at first simply state, "No." If they persisted in questioning me, asking me why I do not believe in God, I would then explain. Granted that my sister, who is a devout religious person, did not stop me from explaining further.
I have only seen my oldest niece when she was a baby, but I have not seen her since. Nor have I seen the others. My sister kind of became weird when she allowed religion to rule over her life, and we only communicate through email once in a while.
"Never trust a fox. Looks like a dog, behaves like a cat."
~ Erin Hunter
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RE: 5 year old niece
June 28, 2013 at 12:47 pm
It's sad that we have to hide our disbelief from children as if it's some shameful secret. Too bad that Christian parents have to rely on brainwashing so much that anyone saying they don't believe might make the child's belief system come crashing down.
Christian apologetics is the art of rolling a dog turd in sugar and selling it as a donut.
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