My daughter wants to know....

[Joods]

1. If god doesn't exist, where did life come from? Her answer is evolution isn't the answer because we had to come from somewhere.

If God does exist then where did God come from??? Hehe

To which she'll reply, "From God's mom!"

Aha! God doesn't have a mom! So how can God exist without having a mum and dad???




Owned. Too easy. Hehehe

She's 14, not four. Give her some credit for at least asking.

Also, I'm not looking to play the "owned" card on her. I'm her parent not some school yard bully. She wants answers and I'd like to give them to her. Even if I can't, I don't want her thinking that "goddidit" is even acceptable, by any stretch.

Thanks for the input though.

---

She got on the defensive about it last night and because I wasn't doing something right, decided that she didn't want to talk about it anymore.

I will show her your responses another time, when she's not being so emotional.

Don't worry, you'll start doing things right again in about 10 years. You'll stop being dumb also. It's amazing.

I'm just waiting for the "I hate you" retort from her. I've been told that if my kids say that at least once during their teen years, then I'm doing it right.

[Pat Mustard]

She got on the defensive about it last night and because I wasn't doing something right, decided that she didn't want to talk about it anymore.

I will show her your responses another time, when she's not being so emotional.

Why Korean for the avatar title?

P.S. If you really wanted to, you could go down the calvinist route, and any time she asks for something nice, tell her that god banned it. "Mam, can I have that Cadbury's Creme Egg?" "No, god banned it", "Mam, can I go to the disco with my friends?" "No, god banned it", "Mam, can I buy that lovely dress, look, I've saved up the money for it and all?" "No, god definitely banned clothes that revealed any skin between heel and chin, except the hands".

[Joods]

She got on the defensive about it last night and because I wasn't doing something right, decided that she didn't want to talk about it anymore.

I will show her your responses another time, when she's not being so emotional.

Why Korean for the avatar title?

P.S. If you really wanted to, you could go down the calvinist route, and any time she asks for something nice, tell her that god banned it. "Mam, can I have that Cadbury's Creme Egg?" "No, god banned it", "Mam, can I go to the disco with my friends?" "No, god banned it", "Mam, can I buy that lovely dress, look, I've saved up the money for it and all?" "No, god definitely banned clothes that revealed any skin between heel and chin, except the hands".

I chose Korean for my avatar stuff because my kiddo is into Kpop and is actually teaching herself how to speak, read and write Hangul. All on her own. I'm proud of her for that. And it looks cool.

PS: love those answers. If I want to get a "go to hell" look from her, I'll use one lol!

[Whateverist]

So the kiddo has a question and has been quite argumentative with me about it. Actually, she has several questions.

1. If god doesn't exist, where did life come from? Her answer is evolution isn't the answer because we had to come from somewhere.

She says logic and reason doesn't make sense. The big bang doesn't make sense and can't explain it because an explosion can't create things when explosions destroy things. That can't explain why there's life.


Her words. Have at it because I tried to tell her that you don't just throw in the excuse that "god did it", when there's no definitive answer to these things.

Of course if she says logic and reason doesn't make sense, you have to wonder why she bothers asking the questions.  Why not just ask for a good story?

[Joods]

Yeah, I should have clarified that. She said that's not exactly what she said.

Since she's at school and I won't see her again until the weekend, it'll have to wait, but clearly, I frustrated her when I tried to challenge her thinking.

[I_am_not_mafia]

Ultimately, we don't know where the energy of the big bang came from or if it even had to come from anywhere. But - it wasn't an explosion, it was more like akin to a vessel of hot water expanding and cooling, and in the course of that, the water condenses and complexice crystals and snow flakes form.  The cooling atoms fused together to form more and more complex matter.

I read this to her. Her question is:

How do we have any proof that this happened?

I think the snowflake analogy is an excellent one, because it's something that we can see for ourselves and can even create on demand if we want. Snowflakes can have some really complex structures (google pictures of them) yet no one seriously thinks that they were all designed. They formed merely because of water and a dust nuclei dropping out of the sky at the right temperatures.

But because they're static structures people don't think of snowflakes as anything particularly interesting. But they do change shape as the temperature changes. If you change the temperature slowly over time, the ice will re-crystalise and change shape as long as the temperature does not rise above freezing. A similar process happens within the Earth and gives us metamorphic rock. These things happen at the edge of chaos. Not too much energy so that everything blows apart, melts or becomes chaotic, but not too little so that everything is static.

When someone asks for proof, they also need to be ready to understand the evidence otherwise they're making an impossible demand. Not everything in life is simple. Making a snow flake is a relatively simple process, but something like life is far more complex. But that doesn't mean to say that we can't understand it, it just requires more time and knowledge.

This then leads on to the scientific method, how it works by collecting data, creating falsifiable hypotheses, testing them, seeing whether it is consistent with what else we know and if necessary re-evaluating what we think we know. And over time, we come up with theories that not only have explanatory power but are also useful. The theory of evolution doesn't just explain how we evolved, we can also use it for practical purposes, like using genetic algorithms for producing aerofoils for example, or gene therapy etc. If the theory was wrong, we wouldn't be able to use it.

[The Valkyrie]

So the kiddo has a question and has been quite argumentative with me about it. Actually, she has several questions.

1. If god doesn't exist, where did life come from? Her answer is evolution isn't the answer because we had to come from somewhere.

She says logic and reason doesn't make sense. The big bang doesn't make sense and can't explain it because an explosion can't create things when explosions destroy things. That can't explain why there's life.


Her words. Have at it because I tried to tell her that you don't just throw in the excuse that "god did it", when there's no definitive answer to these things.

She's a lost cause.

Time to sell her for medical experimentation.

[The Grand Nudger]

It's not like you can't make another, anyway.

[Minimalist]

There are plenty of videos all over youtube from reputable scientific organizations she could watch.... or, she can listen to some shithead read a book originally cobbled together by primitive goat herders.

Her choice.

[Joods]

It's not like you can't make another, anyway.

Um......

I can't. And at my age, even if I could, I don't want to.