Comparative Religion for 8 year old

Mairi: Mummy, are you Christianity?(the joys of having a budding bilingual daughter means she sometimes doesn't get it quite right in either language)

Me: (ahem), well, I don't go to church, but I suppose I was brought up in a Christian country...

Mairi: what do Christians believe?

Me: well Christians believe that Jesus was the son of God and think he was a great person and we should try to be like him. And the bible is kind of like their rule book on how to be a good person.

Mairi: and what about buddhists?

Me: well they think that Buddha was the best person and that what he teaches us is the best way to be a good person.
And the Muslims have a different set of rules and they call their God Allah and their rule book is the Koran...and there are lots more. Basically though they are all ways people try to make rules for how to be the best people we can be.

Mairi: and what am I?

Me: well you have to think about that yourself really. Mummy can't tell you what you believe or don't believe. My advice is to find out as much as you can about all the religions you hear about and then think about it, and you'll know what you believe. What do you think?

Mairi: I think I'll go with all of them for now, but as long as you try to be good that's the main point, right?

Me: exactly! Mummy thinks you don't really need to be a member of a club to know what is right and what is wrong. But you can be if you like.


This, while doing her research on "Native American Beliefs" for her ancient civilizations Unit of Inquiry. I love that HIS asks the kids to research things like this from such an early age, but without forcing one cultural or religious point of view on them. I certainly didn't know what pantheism was when I was 8.