Religious Dogmatism in 20 Minutes or Less!

It's our normal weekday routine for me to take the boys to their daycare in the morning, and for Laura to pick them up in the afternoon. Most mornings, all 3 of us are fairly brain-dead and don't do much except listen to music (lately, it's typically been the playlist of curse-free music I've compiled from my iPod that Jackson's expressed affinity for when I've played the songs in the past - songs like the aforementioned-in-a-blog-post "New England" by The Modern Lovers) or sometimes some sports talk radio. Occassionally brief conversations occur, but not many like the one that transpired this morning...

As we were exiting 465 to the road that takes us to daycare, Jackson asks, "Dad, who is your mommy and your daddy?"

I replied, "Well, Nana Sally is my mommy, and my daddy's name was Gary; but, he died when I was a little boy, before you were born. Then, Nana Sally lived with and married your Papaw Bob, but now they don't live together anymore."

"Oh. Well, do you get a new mommy when your mommy dies?"

"No, you've pretty much only got one mommy, so when she dies, you're without her."

"Well, God will decide when your mommy's going to die, and when she does, he's going to take her."

"Oh, is that right? OK."

As you may or may not know, I tend to lean toward the atheistic side of the spirituality scale, so these conversations are always a challenge for me, because I don't want to sway our kids one way or another - I'd like for them to learn on their own and ask us for our take on things as they read/hear/understand them. So, the topic shifts a bit to Jackson saying, "You know, one time the other day (which, is his way of saying some time in the past, it's not to be understood as literally the other day), God was feeding a whole bunch of people and they were giving them food from a breadbasket. And, then they looked down, and saw that there was no more food, and they closed the basket. Then, they opened the basket, and there was more food, and they fed everyone."

The story of the Feeding of the 5000. Where he got this, I have NO IDEA. Laura didn't even know the story, and I know it primarily because of the co-opting of the story's name by the band Crass in titling one of my favorite albums of all-time.

He made some other statements about magic, and finally brought Jesus into the discussion - which, is appropriate, because it was actually he that's accredited with conducting the Feeding - then, went the following direction with the conversation:

"Dad, did you know that God is my step-mom?"

"Really? Well, most people that believe in God think of him as kind of the super-boss. Like the boss over everything, including their mommies and daddies."

"Yeah, and he told me that he wanted me to take over and be God. And, I said that I can do that."

"Really, he wants you to be God now? So, when do you start the job?"

"I don't know, but I will."

At this point, we pull into the daycare driveway, and we notice that the squirrel that's been around for a couple of years at daycare is running around the yard with a corn cob in his mouth, so we sit in the car and watch him for a couple of minutes until I decided it was time to head inside. The religious dissertation was tabled for a bit, until, after we were inside and I had played with the boys and some of the other daycare kids for a bit. I was kind of getting ready to leave, after having sat in one of the chairs while playing, and Jackson runs up to give me a final hug and kiss goodbye. While I'm hugging him, he says, "Daddy, you know I told you that God wants me to be God now? Well, he told me that he wants me to be whatever I want to be, and so I said that I just want to be the same ol' Jackson."

To which I replied, "Aw, buddy, that's great. Because the same ol' Jackson is my favorite Jackson of all."

(K)