My Dilema....

[Henneth Annun]

With the exception of me, some European cousins, and my grandmother who's busy in Switzerland evading taxes or something, my family is religious. I don't know what horrors they'd inflict upon me if they knew I was a "non-believer".

Anyways...oneday I'm doing my work, typing something up on the computer. Everyone's out of the house except for me and my 9 year old brother. I'm typing away an essay on the Treaty of Versailles, and he walks up to me and asks me the Question, a Gretchenfrage if you will.

He comes to me with all these questions, and I answer them as best I can. Most of the time they're things with definitive answers, but sometimes they're more theological or just unknowable. Like "Does heaven exist?" and "What happens when I die?" I can't answer those for him. I've tried to explain to him all these different ideas and viewpoints as best as I could.

And, as I type on the computer, he asks me "Did Jesus really walk on water?" Normally he ends up telling our parents what I told him, just to get some back up and advice on it. If I answer that question with any answer that in any way doubts that Jesus did exist, was the son of god, and did really walk on water, then I'm in big trouble with the parents. "Big" as in being physically punished, pulled out of school and sent to some strict religious institution, and have the remained of me life controlled and censored until I turn 18 and bust my way out. So anyways, he asked me that question and I said "well, does it make sense to you that he did? does it make sense to you that a human walked on water?" I basically tried to use scientific reasoning and other devices to try to get him to think about wether or not a lot of this whole religion thing really made sense to him. His response "I dunno, I guess. They said he did though, so I guess he did."

I want to give my little brother answers and help him see things. I see that he's begining to just take things for granted and blindly following the religious "training" he's going through. I don't want this to happen to him. A couple days ago I was sitting down at the table and I jokingly said some "curse your ancestors!" joke or something. My brother thinks that means "curse Adam and Eve" or something, and I basically countered him with an evolution argument. Basically, we started "debating" about creationism and evolution, and he wants an answer from me, but I can't give him that without risking everything for me.

I'm just trying to get him to think for his damn self. Maybe it's too much to expect from a 9 year old (which it probably is actually) but I don't want him to start on the "yes I believe everything they tell me" path. I just want him to learn reason and to see that god might not exist and that religion has no factual basis (you can't prove it), and is fallacy. I want him to be aware of other beliefs and to understand....so much more than I think he can right now. whee

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One thing about science is that if I am a scientist and have discovered that 1 + 1 = 2, anyone can go out and do what I did (or something else) and come up with the same result, and find that one plus one does indeed equal two. It can be proven. With religion if I say that "the Lord has made it that 1 + 1 = 3", there is no way that it can be proven that one and one do actually equal three instead of two. I want my brother to understand that concept as well.

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If my brother believes in god, I don't really have a problem with that. I just don't want him sucked into any dogma. confused

So...how do I deal with his questions? sweatdrop  

[Athena_Ritashe]

I think the best thing to do with someone asking a million questions like your nine year old brother is show him how to find the answer himself. Take him to the library, or show him the internet and then show him how to get the ten answers for every question he asks. Tell him he should look at all the answers and perhaps choose the one that makes the most sense. Doing this means you don't have to give him the straightforward answer and you don't have to lie to him. You also can encourage him to think for himself without challenging his faith.  

[Dark_lord_15]

Athena_Ritashe

I think the best thing to do with someone asking a million questions like your nine year old brother is show him how to find the answer himself. Take him to the library, or show him the internet and then show him how to get the ten answers for every question he asks. Tell him he should look at all the answers and perhaps choose the one that makes the most sense. Doing this means you don't have to give him the straightforward answer and you don't have to lie to him. You also can encourage him to think for himself without challenging his faith.

although, maybe the internet isn't the best place to look for answers. We are pretty odd on here... and sometimes not good for a 9 year old's entertainment.
Tell him that only he can decide the answer and that he can believe whatever he wants...

 

[Daffodil the Destroyer]

If you don't mind my asking, how old are you and how sure are you that your family would do those things to you if you "came out" to them? They might be disappointed, but they might also surprise you. 'Course, not knowing your family myself I can only make guesses.

You might show him the story in the Bible where Jesus walked on water and say something like, "The Bible says that Jesus did walk on water. But it's really up to you to decide if you think that story really happened or not. Nobody really knows for sure what happened that day, so we have to make up our own minds about it."

 

[[-Erik-]]

Risk yourself! If your parent try to beat you up, threaten them by telling them you'll call the cops. Well, the cops part works in my country.

But if you want to get into their game say something like "What would God say about this unnecessary violence?!?"

Or if you don't wanna go through all that drama... tell your cousin that it is important to look at things from different angles. Teach him how to be open to other ideas and explain to him that people have different biliefs and how important it is to respect that.

But yeah, be patient, time for you to come out of the atheist closet will come :D

 

[Le Pere Duchesne]

I could say 'leave home' but that wouldn't be the proper answer.

As said above: Show him the library. If he asks questions that can be answered by the bible directly, say 'the bible says [insert bronze-age myth here].' Did Jesus walk on water? Well, the only primary sources (or close enough to it) that we have for anything about Jesus are the Gospels. Say that.

Well, all we know about Jesus comes from the Gospel, so what does it say?
(No, the Josephus quotes are 2nd(?) century forgeries)
As for your own understanding of Christianity:
Foundations of Christianity
It is my favourite history book of all time. The method used, the style of presentation and the conclusions are just brilliant.