A 29 Year Old Man Discusses Religion With A 7 Year Old Girl

I started reading the second of the Earthsea books to Abbey last night. The books' opening scenes depict a family that is about to have one of their children taken away from them to be consecrated into the priesthood of their gods. The mother tries to show the child as much love as she can while she still has her, as the father looks on with impotent rage.

This raised a lot of questions for Abbey. She couldn't understand why the parents would let her go if they didn't want to, why the priestesses would want to take her from her family, or why they wouldn't be allowed to visit each other. In short, she has no understanding of what religion is.

I want to make clear that what I am going to be talking about here is religion, and not faith. Faith in a higher power is not the same as unfailing faith in a religion. The latter of which is, in my opinion, very dangerous.

I started by reminding her that many people believe that there is a person, an all powerful person who created everything. They believe that their god created the world, and created laws or rules that the people must live by if they wish to be happy. Now, one of the rules of the gods that these people believe in is that certain children must become priests, and serve the gods, and hold themselves apart from other people.

She didn't think that this was fair. I told her that I didn't think so either. She asked why the gods would want people to do something that isn't nice. I had to think about this. It's not that I didn't have an answer. It's just that it's a hard question to answer well, especially when the person asking it has no concept of religion. I told her that in the real world people also do terrible things because they believe it's what their god wants them to do. But the real question isn't why god wants them to do these things, but why do the people want to do these things.

I told her that most people are afraid of dying, and because of that they need to believe that living by a set of rules that their god has given them will allow their spirit to live forever after they die. But it's even more complicated than that. I explained to her that if you sit 100 people down, and have them read the same religious books that tell them to do these horrible things, you will probably get 50 different interpretations, at least. These books are very difficult to understand, and they were written by many different people, people who didn't all agree on what the books should say. Some people will think that their god wants them to be kind to everyone, and other people think that their god wants them to kill people who don't believe in their god. And those who believe that they should kill unbelievers will do just that.

I realized that I must have said the wrong thing because her eyes started tearing up. I told her not to worry, that the people who think that live a long ways away and wouldn't be able to hurt her.

She says, "But, you don't believe in god, daddy".

"No. I don't."

Tears start coming now. "Are they going to kill you, daddy?"

I held her, and told her no. No one is going to hurt me. But even if they wanted to hurt me, that would be no reason for me to pretend to believe the same thing they do. Because if we do that, then they win. And the world can only get better if people don't let those who would stop others from living the way they want to have their way. Whatever it is that you believe in, it's your right to believe it. And don't ever let anyone tell you that you can't.

She nodded. I put her to bed. I left the room kicking myself for not waiting two or three years to have that conversation.