How will you explain to your children...

[Walking Void]

Maybe You should tell them that "purpose" or "intention" is not part of the way ANYTHING works. Purpose and intention are human inventions used only in planning. Eg: "Hey dad, why do I have to eat?" - "You have to eat if you are to continue living. If you stop eating you will starve." - "What is starving, and why do we starve?" - "Starvation is a state of human health. It occurs from a lack of nutrient energy, which is what you get from not eating. If you stopped eating, your body would slowly consume itself. It would start by consuming your fat, which is stored energy in the body. After your fat mass reaches a certain point, your body would start to consume other body masses, like muscle or plasma. Eventually your organs will dwindle away and you will lack immunity and be hypersensitive to any type of illness or disease... whether it be cholera or total organ failure."

And so on. Use the internet. Information is at your fingertips, You can almost feel it.

Edit: Please read the 2 sentences below my username.

[pineapplebunnybounce]

Do kids actually ask these questions? I never asked and the kids I've babysat (very unwillingly) never asked, and all the little cousins I have never asked. Do they really ask why they have to die? I know kids ask where they come from. And coming from an asian society, I can tell you parents get real creative with this.

The versions that are prevalent in my community:
1. I found you at a rubbish dump. (this one is so popular)
2. You were drowning in a river and daddy and I saved you.

It's funny cos everyone who's been told one of these end up crying. Except for the drowning story, they seem ok with that. It's actually a lot less traumatic than indoctrinating a kid though, because when they tell their friends at school, they figure it out.

My parents bought a comic style book that explains pregnancy so they bypassed the whole conversation.

[Minimalist]

I think they will figure all that shit out on their own, I did. One thing I won't do is lie to my children.

But what if truth is so terrifying that they won't be able to handle it?

So you prefer lies to reality?

Tells me all I need to know about you.

[wolf39us]

I got a vasectomy at 21 w/ no kids!

That's REALLY dodging the bullet :-)

[Cinjin]

In a world where there's no scientific proof of God's existence and of life after death how will you explain to your children why you brought them into the world and why they will have to die?

You do realize that this question contains a massive non-sequitur.
The question of whether or not god exists has nothing to do with why I decided to have a child. You are implying that most people bring children into the world for some higher existential meaning and that we all have some kind of unexplainable duty to burden our children with religious and philosophical babble about our place in the universe.

Your entire argument is utterly ridiculous. It goes something like this: Tell your children the same stuff that I was told as a child because in my mind, it's important for some unknown reason to explain the universe, death and the afterlife in a nice neat tidy little sentence.

When in reality, if you left a child alone to be a child and simply grow up without all your superstitious horse shit being heaped on him, he'd have a much better chance of being a rational, well-adjusted human-being worthy of leading others into a better future.

[pocaracas]

In a world where there's no scientific proof of God's existence and of life after death how will you explain to your children why you brought them into the world and why they will have to die?

I have 3 kids and none of them ever asked anything like that.
At most, the second one asked why did he have to be second.
He wanted to be first :p

[Neo-Scholastic]

I am not having children.

"The future belongs to those that show up." -Mark Steyn. So if you want atheism to prevail, you may want to reconsider and outbreed the Mormans, Catholics and Muslims.

[Minimalist]

Fuck that. Thanks to the internet religion is dying and atheism is growing.

We owe it all to Al Gore.

[Faith No More]

But what if truth is so terrifying that they won't be able to handle it?

Considering I can handle it just fine, I'd be selling my kid short if I didn't believe he could do the same. This whole notion that people can't accept reality and need that comforting lie is just nonsense put forth by the people that are afraid to face reality head on. The human race would a lot better off if we stopped coming up soothing stories to ease our fears and learned to embrace this life and the one chance we get.

Besides, if he can't handle the truth, I guess he'll just become a Christian.

[Silver]

"The future belongs to those that show up." -Mark Steyn. So if you want atheism to prevail, you may want to reconsider and outbreed the Mormans, Catholics and Muslims.

I am gay. The only breeding I do is with other men, and thankfully we cannot become pregnant.