Skip to main content

With all due respect...

And so the battle between having the greatest, and devoutly Christian, parents in the world and my very strong atheistic beliefs begins. This morning, my daughter told me that the bad people in heaven would like the fact that I have a bad cough.

My initial reaction to this was to find it a genuinely funny thing to say, immediately creating images in my mind of the Pirates of the Caribbean ride in Disney World, with hordes of bad guys drinking flagons of ale and singing songs about my cough and chasing a buxom young wench, all while the village burns.

But then came the realization that this was a seminal moment in Emma's upbringing. Do I completely dismiss the notion of heaven and begin Emma's education in her Father's belief system? Or do I maintain the magical illusion that the people she knows and relies upon for guidance are unified when it comes to such important matters? Her Grandparents are amazing, generous, gracious people, but Daddy doesn't agree with them.

I made the most important point first. Anyone who would laugh at Daddy's cough is not in heaven, they are in hell. Interestingly, my parents had not garnished my 4 year old with any information on hell whatsoever. She's never heard of it. So she has been given details of the good bits with angels and everyone you love being together, but they leave me holding the can on the pitchforks, fire and eternal damnation. Excellent. Thanks.

I then went on to say that Daddy doesn't believe that either heaven or hell exist and so is not particularly worried about being mocked for having a tickley cough by bullies from the afterworld. People believe in many different things and this is where Daddy stands on the matter. It is up to you to make your own mind up.

"My friend was sad once because he thought his Grandma had died and is now on the roof. He doesn't understand heaven either".
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Secular Faith

I am trying to raise my daughter to have faith. Not faith in unproven, existential beings. Not faith that all people are essentially good (I don't believe that to be true and so would have a real problem selling it to Emma as a philosophy). No, I am trying to raise her to have faith that asking questions until you hear an answer that satisfies your curiosity is a worthwhile endeavour. In fact sometimes, asking questions is more important than getting answers. That takes real faith in your convictions. It is extremely difficult to attempt to instil faith in another living, breathing, pooping human being when the word itself has been commandeered by the non-secular. When I discuss the things I want for my daughter with other friendly, ever so slightly passive- aggressive parents, I am told that developing faith means that I must educate her to believe even without proof and hand over some of my daughter's already well developed sense of inquisition. I don't use the word “pop...
Post a Comment
Read more

God's Harmful Rays.

Whilst running errands in Sheffield City Centre I was approached by a pleasant enough looking young man who handed me some reading material. I always take leaflets or pamphlets when they are proferred, for two reasons. Firstly, I think turning them down is confrontational and I like an easy life. Secondly, you never know what you might find out and there is no such thing as too much information (unless your best friend is trying to tell you the best way to clean obscure parts of the human body with a moist towelette after running, that is). What I was handed was a 16 page lesson in how to (or more specifically, how not to) use graphics to illustrate your point, disguised as a guide on how not to go to hell. Now, my writing partner, Chella Quint here , and I know a little something about this, having recently produced a spoof research paper on forming the perfect pub quiz team (search 'The Venns' on Facebook), which includes many illustrations and graphs showing the internal wor...
1 comment
Read more

Not My Opinion

When did this happen? Without warning, I am now the go-to guy for every contentious discussion of which anyone in the office wishes to be a part. Recently, I have started to be hit with one line points of argument which make very little sense when flippantly thrown at me out of context and which make even less sense when given context by the aggressor. Do you think you're born gay or do you turn gay? What do you make of the 2012 end of the world? Both of these minor issues were thrown at me within the space of three hours last week from co-workers. Now, there are quick answers (“It's not for me to decide” and “It's bullshit”, taken in order), but that wouldn't do the combative nature of the questions any justice. I was asked in earnest to shed light on the subjects at hand. Although, with my reputation for being opinionated, loud and, well, a prick, I think they asked me for entertainment purposes more than anything else, like asking the drunken conspiracy-theory-guy in...
Post a Comment
Read more