Confessions of an Agnostic

The other day my daughter asked me why Christmas is called Christmas. I thought about it for a minute and explained that it's a celebration of the birth of the baby Jesus, who is also sometimes called Christ. I was a little nervous about where this conversation was headed; I'm not religious, but we do celebrate Christmas.

I've explained the Christmas story to her in simple terms, but I've been trying to figure out how to address the more spiritual (for lack of a better word) questions as they come up. How do I help her gather information and ask questions to ultimately form her own set of beliefs without necessarily dictating any particular dogma?

So, I was expecting the conversation to steer toward questions such as "Who is Jesus?" and "Why do we celebrate his birthday?" but she said, "Jesus came after the dinosaurs, didn't he?"

"Yes," I said, "Very much after the dinosaurs."

"But he was born before cameras?"

"Yes," I replied. "Definitely before cameras."

"Well, how did anyone take his picture?"

"No one did. There weren't any cameras."

"No, Mom. Someone had to take his picture."

"No, honey. There were't any cameras back then."

My daughter was beginning to get distraught. "But how did anyone get a picture of him??"

"I suppose someone could've drawn one."

"Oh." Pause. "And there weren't any cameras with the dinosaurs."

"Nope." Then again, what do I know?