Quote:
Originally Posted by JMS
i have a friend whose parents are atheists, and as a child, when he asked what happens when you die, his parents told him, nothing, you just die. he told me he started crying when he heard this, so his parents decided to tell him they were just kidding and that people go to heaven when hey die. hes an atheist now.
some kids dont take the realization of their mortality lightly. i know this post doesnt seem very relevant, but when i read the original post i thought of this.
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No, it's relevant.
Psychologically, there are two things at play:
1. Kids at some point -- usually between four and six, I think -- develop enough mentally to grasp the idea that the world may one day not include them. For most, this is a shock.
2. Balancing that is the fact that most kids have no real fear of mortality. 80 years seems like forever when you're five.
With our kids, the "what happens when you die?" question came up separately from religion. We said "Nobody knows. Some people believe there is some sort of afterlife -- that you have a spirit or soul that lives on after your body wears out. Others believe that when you die, you die. There's no proof one way or the other, so you should think about it and believe whatever makes sense to you.
The important thing to remember is that you have a very long life ahead of you before you have to worry about that."
They accepted that without getting upset. Lots of follow-on questions showed up in the next couple of weeks, indicating that they were thinking about it. But the questions were thoughtful, not upset or scared.
My oldest came to the conclusion that when you die, you're probably just dead. She also concluded that she didn't believe in God because there was no evidence for it. But she's the one who has now read her kids Bible cover-to-cover twice. So I can hardly wait for her to announce her latest thoughts on the subject.
We're pretty sure our youngest -- the strong-headed one -- has not yet really considered the idea that there can possibly be a universe without her in it. After all, *she* is the *center* of the universe.