Ron’s Blog

Oz on God, in two acts

1. The arrival of Xmas crap in stores and ads has Oz struggling in that yearly way to work out his place in the world of his classmates and the like as a kid who doesn’t celebrate Xmas, and who with his family doesn’t believe in God.  And the God stuff is definitely a bigger part this year.  Lots of questions for me about "Why do people believe in God?", and "How did believing in God get started?"  (I of course love this stuff.) And he apparently asked a group of his classmates about God recently, and all of them said that they believed in God, and that God is where we come from.  Oz apparently responded by pointing out that (a) obviously, you come from your parents, (b) if you came from God, where did God come from, and (c) if you came from God, then you weren’t really your parents‘ child, were you?  I love that kid.

2. Sometimes Oz and I share notes on what we did that day.  So he tells me that they had a big subtraction test, and I tell him I taught a class about time travel.  Yesterday, I told him that I just finished teaching my intro class about free will, and the next subject was God.  His eyes get big.  "Really?"  Yes.  So he asks:  "So, you’re going to tell them there isn’t one?"  Well, I say, I’m going to teach them about what reasons there might be to believe, and what reasons there might be to not believe, but of course I think that the reasons for not believing are far better.  He responds: "Are you going to do Santa after that?"