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Children

Before I begin, I would like to make it clear in the most respectful way possible that I do not want to hear input from anyone that is not experience in this field, because this is a very important topic to me.

With that being said, my wife and I, brought up for the first time with our 7 year old that there is no God. Her retort? "Yes there is." We didn't expect this, but after putting much thought into how she derived this conclusion, we decided that this is the work of my mother-in-law. Olivia (our daughter) spends significant amount of time around her. We didn't realize that she would have begun teaching our daughter religious topics because we presumed she would respect our atheistic viewpoints. We were wrong.

Now I NEED to know how do reverse this teaching. She is too young to comprehend the scientific viewpoint, but at the same time, she is a child and doesn't really wrap her mind around the common sense side of the argument either. She just believes because 'Grammy' does.

I need help.

-Chris Jones

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Permalink Reply by Jennifer Nicole on March 11, 2011 at 12:41am

I would use it as an opportunity for diversity education. Introduce her to other faiths such as Buddhism and Wicca, so she can see there is no clear definition of god. Take her to a museum and explain that most of what religion is for is to explain the unexplainable in the past, and that science has solved a lot of that and continues to solve more. Talk to her about how the most important thing should be developing empathy and morals rather than fearing an angry invisible being.