Blake
A couple of weeks ago I was catching up on the HNN podcasts, listening to cartoonists discuss their take on the controversy behind the Mohammad cartoons. Blake overheard the discussion which prompted this surprising conversation:
Blake: In the Muslim Bible, does it say Jesus is God?
Me: The “Muslim Bible” is called the Quran and they call their god, “Allah.” The Quran doesn’t say Jesus is God. It says “Allah” is God, and Jesus was a good prophet.
Blake: So they’re bad then, aren’t they?
That was one of those questions that makes you wonder if someone is abducting your child at night and feeding them information you know you didn’t pass along. All the while I’d been thinking Blake was on the on-ramp to the Agnostic Highway. I guess somewhere along the way he exited for a pit stop at Christian Town.
Perhaps I haven’t been direct enough about my own beliefs. I like to encourage the kids to come up with answers themselves, so when they ask me questions, I usually say, “What do you think?” Still, I am pretty sure I have given a direct answer in the past that I don’t believe that Jesus is God, nor that there is any actual person who is a god. Of course, I usually turn it back to them with, “But what do you think?”
I could be more direct, but the kids seem to change the channel on their attention-dial when I start talking instead of asking. This time I figured out a way to be direct, impactful, and ask a question at the same time.
When Blake asked me if Muslims were bad because they were voting for the wrong god, I asked him back, “I don’t believe Jesus is God. Does that make me bad?”
First was the look of wide-eyed shock that stunned me as much as my question stunned him. And then, within seconds, a big smile crept upon his face as he laughed at the idea of Mom being bad and he belted, “NO! You’re not bad!”
While the ending was effective, there’s also that nagging question of why he would compartmentalize like that: good people vs. bad people. Why would he decide an entire group of people are bad because their religious beliefs differ? I know that part of it is his awareness of all the recent turmoil in the Middle East and Europe involving Muslims. But I always remind him that not all Muslims are that way; that most Muslims are good people.
Blake is a logical-thinker. While he loves fantasy, he is enthralled with math and science, which contribute to some of his fantasy world. I understand that linear-thinkers like Blake tend to see things more in black and white than artistic thinkers do. I have noticed this pattern again and again.
There is also the lingering affect of the primitive world humans evolved in, where we adapted and survived by aligning ourself with our own tribes against other tribes. Now that we live in a global world where we mix with sll types of races and religions, will we someday evolve away from this natural instinct to pit ourselves against groups of people unlike us?
I guess it will take time for Blake to have more exposure to different people, to various religions, to conversation between us. And that’s okay.
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April 4th, 2006 @ 11:22 am
Maybe you should question where he got the premise that there even is a God. With the world awash in the very word, there may be a bigger challenge here than you thought. Then consider the compartmentalization as a secondary issue. I know one family that is taking an interesting approach to exposing their children to various cultures. Once a month they either go to a different ethnic place to eat or they attend a dinner hosted by an international dinner club. Unfortunately, they are on the East coast so I can’t recommend any equivalent in the southwest. It is not a big deal. Once they decided to have a “Southern United States” ethnic meal and brought home Kentucky Fried chicken and augmented it with other things like grits etc.
April 4th, 2006 @ 12:02 pm
To a varying degree I’m certain it will take a long time to adapt to a non-tribe like mentality. In my mind it couldn’t come soon enough. I live in Pittsburgh, Pa. and ethnic heritage is flaunted daily . It’s nice in one respect you get to sample the foods and cultures of many different nations but diversity always has its downside . Everyone thinks that their heritage is ” The One ” and they quickly crown themselves ” King of all ” Equality is totally dismissed when words like Hunkie and Pollock and Wap and Johnny Bull, jews, etc. are used negatively to express certain dislike for an individual person based on his/her cultural background . If I’m asked I poo poo such talk and people in my circle know I don’t like it, so they rarely express it in my presence . That happened because I said on a number of occasions . ” Look, I don’t think like that so I’d appreciate it if you didn’t express it in my presence . Now I’ve lost some friends because of how I feel but we have to end it somewhere . Liberalism is progression . We need to do away with hurtful verbiage and learn to judge individual character based on merit not ethnicity.
April 4th, 2006 @ 12:12 pm
I can empathize with what you must have felt.
From the outside its easier to say this than it would be to feel it from inside your situation: Kids say the darndest things. (and their thoughts can be darndester – a new word)
It is interesting that he was sort of looking for a way to make Muslims “The Other” or “The Bad Guy” – - goes to show that media and the kid’s version of water-cooler talk (cafeteria talk?) has a major impact. Your idea of tribal thinking is probably dead on.
Sounds like you had an exemplary response, though.
Correcting those ideas when they pop up seems to be key.
Answering your kids in a clear way is so so important.
When I was little, I asked my dad what day-beds were for (we were in a furniture store). Whatever words he chose – what I took away from it was ‘some people will die if they lay down, so they need to sit up on these things at night – it has something to do with their lungs filling up with fluid, and their throat collapsing’.
I dreaded the fate of these pathetic ‘night sitters’ growing up. Dad either was messing with me, or he didn’t know and made some general statement about some people sleeping that way – but I doubt he went all ‘Steven King’ on me, my brain did that. Freak factory that it is.
My mom wouldn’t let me or my brother have any of her diet soda. She said “Its bad for little boys’ – I grew up thinking diet soda caused testicular cancer – and that only boys couldn’t drink it. I believed that women had a drink that was safe for them, but poison to men. Unnecessary gender specification to kids can do some bizarre things in their minds – including the sense of ‘The Other’ and ‘The Bad Guys’ that your son felt about Muslims.
April 4th, 2006 @ 1:40 pm
Gregg100–Blake got the premise of the existence of a god from ME! I was a good Mormon mom and teacher and I cemented it into his mind until he was four and five. Now it continues to get reinforced when we go out of town and he goes to church with the grand parents; when we have dinner with the family and they pray; from his friends at school.
One time he asked me about God and I we talked about all the different types of gods people believe in from around the world. Then I told him that to me God is in our hearts. God is how we love others, how we work to make the world better, how we give and share. Something corny like that, and Blake said, “Nah, I don’t like that.”
My consolation is that he feel free to disagree with me. I do like that.
Last year we revealed to him that Santa is really Mom and Dad. He took it very well. My hope is that the topic will come up again with the Easter Bunny on his way. That would be a good time to tell him who else is imaginary.
April 4th, 2006 @ 4:07 pm
Blake’s response was very logical. Any definition of God, includes his exclusive role and provider of all good things. Real gods don’t have competition only evil pretenders. One day of Mormon church will present that in no uncertain terms. If religion is about anything it is about who is right and whois wrong.
Noell, I think you need to be straight with Blake and tell him in no uncertain terms that what you taught him before was wrong. Now that you aren’t a Mormon, your children need no less input from you in creating an unambiguous symbolic structure of their world and their place in it than they do for you to provide them with a language to structue their language center. There is ample reason to believe that humans are born with a symbol/identity center in their brains which requires that the social environment supply it with content and structure.
If that structure comes with a built in ethnophobic component in humans, it is something we need to leverage, just like , like everyone else does, explaining to our children that they are special: they are among the few who know the truth. What’s different, in our case, is that this doesn’t necessarily make others bad, only misinformed.
If you ask my girls, 5 & 7, about god in any context, such as, “Can God make it rain, if he wants?, or “If there is a God, what color is he? They both immediately go to the bottom line and laugh, “There’s no gods.” The other contentions in the questions are empty to them. Best of all people aren’t bad for believing in their gods, they’re just silly.
April 6th, 2006 @ 4:37 pm
Some interesting reading here: http://www.msnbc.com/id/12186080/from/RS1/
April 6th, 2006 @ 4:38 pm
There may be gods, but there are no absolutes (except that that is an absolute statement) Very confusing!
Maybe the truth is whatever I decide it to be for that moment when I decide it to be true! Truth + Time = False
If we tear down all the gods displayed on the lawn in front of city hall, we’ll end up worshipping the weed.
Drugs take away the innocence of our childhood. Maybe we need to take a Santa drug to keep feeling young.
April 6th, 2006 @ 6:50 pm
Noell, I remember my favorite thing about the night we all went to dinner at Bandera, and Blake sat next to me and ate all my artichoke dip, I had so much fun chatting with him. And something funny happened to me. He was so innocent and sweet, I couldn’t help myself but say quirky, backwards things to him just to watch his expression. I loved the way he would kind of momentarily halt, then his face would screw up in consternation, and then he would laugh. That was the cutest thing ever.
April 7th, 2006 @ 8:02 am
lindy sure loves blake, hey
April 7th, 2006 @ 5:06 pm
Lindy, yeah, that’s the look I was talking about. Or, rather, the transformation of looks. You know what I’m talking about.
Fran–Lindy is my good, good friend; my longest-standing friend, way back from high school. I love Lindy even more than she loves Blake!
April 8th, 2006 @ 9:51 pm
AWWWW!
Well Noell I LOVE YOU TOO!!!!
hee hee remember the time we were sitting in your living room and singing along to Simon and Garfunkel and then we both spontaneously admitted to each other that we were each singing kinda loudly hoping the other would think, “oh, she has such a pretty voice!” that gives me the giggles!
April 8th, 2006 @ 10:59 pm
This is what happens when your high school best friend (Lindy) starts commenting on your blog:
Confession Time: I am exactly the same way when I dance. That is why I prefer a dance floor with fewer people than a crowded one. How is anybody going to see me on a crowded dance floor?!
April 16th, 2006 @ 9:34 pm
Hey I found your blog through ‘Lola’, if that is indeed her real name, and yes I’m the Valerie of the twins.
I liked your comment about your son getting on the agnostic highway and I feel I’m agnostic as well. I’ve felt that it is a big question mark that I’m trying to answer or ‘just make a decision dammit’.
You seem very strongly rooted, in what little I’ve read, in your agnosticism as if it is a place to be, a place you will stay. Do you think/feel/believe you’ll be agnostic the rest of your life? (I almost said forever, but that’s a mighty long time.) Or do you think at some point you’ll ‘pick’ something – Catholicism or Buddhism or a homemade theism or Great Spirit or whatever?
Are you on your path or are you searching for one? I suppose that points to one of my beliefs that we do have paths to find or create.
Thanks!
Val
April 16th, 2006 @ 10:32 pm
Hi, Valerie! Great questions! Yes, I am on my path, not searching for one. Before I got here I did a lot of reading, watched a lot of documentaries (PBS, Discovery and Science Cannels, etc). Most influential to me in the beginning were Joseph Campbell and Carl Sagan. I also did a lot of reading online. “Secular Humanism” is my philosophy/world view (do a search on it if you’re interested, or I can give you links if you want when I have more time).
I am agnostic, not in the sense that of being on the fence about belief. I am agnostic in the sense that while I do not believe in the supernatural/gods/religion, I don’t think it is accurate to say that I KNOW there is no god. I don’t believe there is. I life my life based on a non-existence of any gods.
I like some of the tenets of buddhism, but only as they apply to living, and not the doctrines of some of the sects about reincarnation and other ideas.
I DO believe in morality. I hold myself to strict standards and believe the world is a better place for my doing it. I am also a very postive, happy, upbeat person. I am at peace with myself and my life.
You are in a very exciting place. I hope you find answers and a foundation you are secure in. I hope you keep coming back and I’d love to hear more from you!
April 22nd, 2006 @ 9:44 pm
noell, tell ur kids the truth about muslims…i.e a true muslim is something bad while the majority of them who happen to be passive muslims are OK. i’ve lived a great part of my life in the UK and take it from me, handling a hardcore bibleist is easier than handling a hardcore muslim.
the reason for this is that the quran very clearly states that any muslim shudnt b friends with non-muslims and muslims should eliminate(execute) them when the time is right(or the opportunity arises). the scoundrels who caused september 11 never believed they did anything wrong cos their scripture he quran is very clear in its position that non-muslims are evil and need to be eliminated from the face of the earth for peace to prevail wherein peace means submission to allah.
so my advice to all: you find a bearded muslim with a hatred filled look on his face, either report to the authorities or else run for your life.