One-hour conversation with my 7-year-old about religion

My Livy girl just can't seem to wrap her mind around the fact that adults (and children) could believe in make-believe. In this case, religion.

One of her little buddies likes to go to church with his mama, and each time, Livy looks at me and raises her eyebrows, as if to say, "Well, OK, but that's just silly."

On Sunday, it happened again, and Livy again asked me, "Why does he get so excited about going to church?" I explained that at church, they have fun stuff for young kids to do, so it's not really as much about the god thing and make-believe mysticism yet.

This led to a long talk with many questions about religion. We discussed morality, personal responsibility, facts, more facts, rationality, free will, independent thinking (even with parents and other adults), handling irrational people, the history of mysticism (going back 30,000 years), the abdication of thought by mystics (religious people), whether religious people think their alleged god would have a penis or vagina or whatever (we laughed at this part very much), and much more.

We ended like we usually do with such conversations, discussing the ramifications of irrationality on rational people, especially politically, with mystics voting for political domination of themselves and the rest of us. Livy now quite comfortably says things like, "People who go to church want the government to steal from us and give that money to other people because church people like for somebody to be in charge of themselves."

How refreshing it is to have a talk with an objective, clear conscience! How fascinating it is to be engaged with a young mind traveling down complex intellectual paths willfully and freely, integrating concepts, forming conclusions easily once facts are digested thoroughly, asking poignant and direct questions and dissecting the answers to ensure that the answers are themselves rational.

If this coming generation is filled with hundreds of thousands of such children as my Livy, as I think it will be, then I have a warning for the mystics and the government:

Your superstition and dominance will be laughed at and eventually exterminated.

And my Livy will have more money in her bank account to maybe buy me a new car. Ha!