Some People Think Different Things About God And Heaven

This is something i picked up on fbook. What do you think?

This is the
Conversation about going to church tomorrow for the first time since my mamaw passed away "

Bubba ; your mamaw died ?
Me ; yeah my mamaws in heaven .
Bubba ; where ?
Me ; she's in the sky .
Terry ; she's with dawn dawn in heaven in the sky looking down on you .
Me ; yep , she's with your other dawn dawn .
Bubba ; why her die ?
Me ; cause she wanted to go home .
Terry ; yep , it was time for her to go home with god .

Made me tear up . It sucks having to explain to a 4 year old why a loved one has to go be in heaven . ☹

 

yes i think very different things about god and heaven. for one, that while they might, they also might not, have to be connected with each other, at all.

nor do either have to be connected with what anyone believes.

 

It does suck having to explain something like that to a kid.
And you have my condolences, it's never easy when someone we love passes on.

Personally, I'm fairly unemotional when people I know die.
I got choked up when I was giving the eulogy at my dad's funeral, but that's not entirely surprising considering what I was talking about along with having all those people looking up at me.
Honestly, I think that's what was more moving than my dad having died... all those sad eyes listening to what I had to say about why they were so sad.

But anyway... generally speaking, I'm colder about it.
And the point I'm trying to make is that maybe I'd approach it less religiously.
For a few reasons.

First, explaining death to a kid by way of "they went to Heaven" has long struck me as an odd thing to tell a child.
Y'know... "Heaven is awesome and it's SO MUCH BETTER than anything you'll have here on Earth and everyone is always happy" type of stuff.
It creeps me out because it reminds me of a movie where the kid is trying to kill people because Heaven is so awesome.
I know it's usually fine and they're fine, but still... it could create some weird moments.

Second, teaching them about life cycles and how it works can truly help them to understand why people die, as well as how.
An understanding of the process goes a long way to being able to deal with what happens.
You might have to tweak it for a young child though.
Like, instead of some clinical description, telling them that everyone kind of has batteries and they last a long time, but eventually batteries lose their charge and they "die".
If someone dies from a car crash or something, it could easily be explained through comparing it to a toy that ends up broken.

Anyway, I'm rambling.
And I'm not saying Heaven is a horrible thing or anything, just trying to give another angle to the whole thing.

(I hope everything went as well as it could.)

 

whatever anyone thinks about god and heaven, the greatest likelihood, is that reality will turn out to be completely unrelated to ALL of them.
equally so, no matter WHERE the may get their ideas about it from. ANY religious belief, no matter how popular nor other wise.

 

Emotional dialogue, pulls on the heartstrings. Although it might be beneficial to tell the 4 year old the physical reason(s) why mamaw died as well.


Heaven seems like a silly concept to me. I don't know about 'God' but I don't view it as an Deity that I'm going to meet and have a dialogue with, or any of the common anthropomorphic depictions of deities.

 

I guess that's something we all agree on.

Agreed, maybe even use a comparison with an animal. Not sure about that though (maybe comparing mums death with a piece of roadkill is a little too raw/unsubtle for a 4 year old ), just thinking off the top of my head.

Me neither. But I don't find the concept of heaven silly necessarily. Especially not for little kids. Not by default/definition (sp?) anyway.

 

I think it's immoral and cowardly to lie to a child about life, death and dying. There is no age at which it is innappropriate to discuss reality, and there is no age at which it is appropriate to a) pretend to know things we don't know and b) inject superstitious myth into a childs head as an accurate model of reality.

I would have immediately moved the conversation away from Facebook, first of all. This is a child who needs some actual communication.

I would have said "I want to talk with you about this when I see you next".

I would have told the child that we do not know what happens when we die. It's a mystery. A Mystery, actually. Children love Mysteries. I would have told her "Do you remember what it was like before you were born? No? Maybe that's what it's like after we die."

There's no need to tiptoe around this. We don't need supernatural stories to make us feel better about dying. Not even children need those. You can be honest with children, completely honest. They will respect you more for it. Don't be surprised if they can pick up on any trace amounts of uncertainty when you're feeding them BS. You can also spare them from having unjustified beliefs about how life works.

Feel free to ask me specific questions about how to talk to children about death and dying without invoking the supernatural. It's actually pretty straightforward, it's the same way you'd explain a divorce or something else that is thought of as "delicate".

 

The reason is---there is no answer concerning the topic. If there was---the subject would NOT have to be discussed. Alas---it is discussed endlessly.

 

I strongly disagree with making supernatural and mythological stories extinct from children. They grow up so fast now and I feel like parents are home schooling now more often, which is good, but they concern themselves too much with what THEY believe is right and I believe children are missing out on their childhood.

I grew up with a lot of supernatural and mythological stories. I thrived off them but I was always told they aren't concrete and I needed to make my own mind up about certain things as my life progressed. Still, the tales of God of old were inspiring, fun and most importantly, they let me use my imagination and this what children do best, they use their wild imaginations.

Now why would you want to take that away from them? To turn them into younger, systematic people that know ins and outs of the world, to YOUR standards.

I believe it is just as wrong to try and convince children that nothing exists when that's only your own opinion. To me that's just as wrong as making your children believe in something just because you do.

"Heaven" doesn't need to be a religious doctrine forced upon a child. Why can't we talk about "heaven" as a peaceful afterlife, to calm and nurture a child. When they grow up and realize things out for themselves, do you really think they're going to come back like "omg you lied to me when I was four years old?" Pah! Perish the thought. May as well take Christmas and Easter away from them too. "Oh but it's a beautiful family tradition that kids enjoy". Yeah, well, Heaven is also a beautiful traditional place that our families have held in high regard for eons.

 

What sucks more is growing up from before the age of 4 around people who tell you that silly lies are fact - really messes with your worldview, and gives you a much bigger hurdle to clear before you can think on your own. It's hard enough to be logical, much less logical in the face of anti-logic indoctrination.

 

Oh please, you can't remember anything before four years old.

 

Language clearly develops in that time frame, which requires memory and a whole bunch of other neural and motor activity develop. I assume (and hope) you are referring to a more specific type of memory process but in the first few years, there is an unprecedented amount of synaptic growth in the brain.

This is certainly a vulnerable time for influence and who knows what may get stored unconsciously.

 

If the basis of the argument is "who knows" then I stand by my words.

I don't remember anything before I was four. I possibly remember our ginger cat. Possibly. And I may have been older than four. And I'm not really referring to anything, I just don't believe stories you are told before you are four years old are even perceived or processed to the level needed for someone that young to even begin to understand the complexity of what is being told.

 

The basis of the argument is that memory comes in different forms, some of which develop in infancy and as toddlers, such as language development, which you grossly overlooked.

The "who knows" was in regards to unconscious or memories that may be repressed at that age. I was attempting to grant you that your argument was a bit more nuanced than the ignorant oversight that it appears to be on the surface.

 

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory_development

 

There's a reason young children are read Jack and the Bean stalk and not books on the mysteries of the universe.

There's a reason they watch Sesame Street and not the science channel.

 

I just had a read about what pre 4 year olds can understand.

They MAY be able to comprehend simple commands such as stop. They MAY also understand things like breakfast in the morning, dinner at night.

Yeah, something tells me that they won't be able to comprehend the complexity of things we as adults still are learning to understand.

 

Then we should definitely not feed them false information at such a young age. At least we can say "I promise to tell you more about this when youre a little bit older, ok?"

 

What are you to do then? Take away all the fantasy fiction children novels because they have misleading truths?

I'd rather live in a world where kids believe in dragons and use their imagination to conjure up fantastical stories and imagery than a world where every child ends up like Sheldon from Big Bang Theory.

I wouldn't rob a child of any of that. May as well be child abuse if you ask me. Robbed of their precious, wild little imaginations.

The original passage copied from Facebook in the OP is a perfect example of splitting the two 50/50 because "heaven" has been around much longer than religious doctrines.

Heaven is: the sky, especially perceived as a vault in which the sun, moon, stars, and planets are situated.