“How does life work? How does evolution work? Why are [living] things successful? How did nature make us? Why are we the smartest animals even though we’re related to them? We think we’re smart, but nature made lots of amazing things. We’re like robots, but we’re better. We can heal ourselves, but robots can’t. It’s so amazing!”
That paraphrased (and greatly summarized) monologue came out of my oldest daughter’s mouth.
“We believe that God made everything,” says her younger sister.
“You can believe in both things. You can make a combination,” says older. Then to me, “I try not to talk about Jesus things when you’re around because you don’t believe in it.”
I told them that it’s OK to talk about Jesus, just that I would have a different perspective about the subject than other people. We also talked about trying to figure out for yourself what you believe.
I am interested to watch my oldest start to ask big questions and really think about her world. Most children are natural-born philosophers, coming out of the womb with a need to make sense of life. It is tragic to see children’s natural curiosity and nascent critical-thinking skills crippled by spoon-feeding them too many answers.
(BTW, Don’t get used to this high frequency of posts. I believe it will prove to be a statistical outlier.)