What Harm?

What harm?
You hear that a lot you know. What harm is a bit of religion. Sure it’s no load to carry. Doesn’t it give people a sense of morality, a moral compass…

Well I think the whole moral compass is another day’s issue – let’s face it, there are plenty of religious people that could do with going a step further and maybe getting a slap of a moral sat-nav let alone a compass – but today I think I’d like to talk about ‘what harm’.

As I’ve said before, both of my children go to a Catholic School. And it’s a lovely school, I’m on the parents association and the principal and teachers are second to none. Although it’s small there are children from many cultures and religions although, of course, Catholic children make up the majority.

So anyhow only last week the youngest (only started Junior Infants in September) comes home and says ‘Mammy did you know that Adam and Eve were the very first people?’ And I was about to nod and say ‘Yes dear.’ You do that a lot as a parent, the nodding thing. Mostly to stuff like ‘Mammy do you know that Lucy Ann has a blue pencil case and she’s a girl’ or ‘Did you know that Jeremy’s Daddy is gone to live with his Auntie next door’ – that kind of thing…

So I was about to nod. And I would have, this time last year. I might even have asked did they know the rest of the story, about the apple and the snake and the whole do-what-you’re-told-or-God-will-turf-you-out-of-the-garden-too situation. Again, you do that as parents, from July to December you threaten that Santa won’t bring anything, and from January to July you threaten he’ll come back and take it all away. And well god is just another version of an omnipresent Santa really, isn’t he? Only he doesn’t just bring toys, he brings eternal life or a trip to the hot place.

So anyhow I didn’t nod. I ignored the warning stares from the driver’s seat and I said ‘Well now Child2, that’s not strictly true.’

‘Oh it is, Mammy,’ says she, ‘Teacher said so.’

‘Well it’s not.’ I was scrambling for some kind of middle ground at this stage so in desperation I said, ‘It’s kind of like a legend. A story, that was kind of made up to teach people the difference between right and wrong.’

‘So it’s a lie?’

And there she got me. It kind of is a lie really isn’t it? But then so is the aforementioned Santa, you might say. And you’d be right. But the Santa lie doesn’t follow children into adulthood. Doesn’t form their decisions, doesn’t cause them as adults to discriminate against other humans who think, live or love differently to the way they do.

So we’ll leave Santa alone for now.

I’d started some time ago with Child1 on the whole evolution thing. Back at the start of my metamorphosis into a thinking person I decided that I had a responsibility to my children not to allow them into their second decade (let alone fourth) without really understanding where they’d come from.

And no, it wasn’t just enough to tell them that we all used to be monkeys, because, well, we weren’t. Us and the other apes share the same ancestors which is different –I found out a lot of this kind of stuff this year.

Which brings me back to what harm. By telling our children that five thousand years ago God created the world in seven days and on the seventh day created two people in a garden with a penchant for talking to snakes – well you’re kind of not telling them all that other stuff. It is now known that the world is some 4.5 billion years old and that it took man a hell of a long time to evolve from pondlife to what we know now as man. Like your Great Grandfather (x 175,000,000 greats) probably swam around as some kind of lizard in the region of 340 million years ago.

That’s kind of a biggie no?

I mean it’s a fair whack of a difference – a week and 340 million years. And how do we expect our children to have any great regard for the wonders of a world that was created in a week? Actually I lie, rumour has it he did it all in six days, and had a lovely rest on the Sunday – proof (even if use of that word is somewhat ironic) that he was most definitely a man – what woman gets to rest on a Sunday? But anyhow, back to the point – surely it’s far better to teach them how it really came about and how responsible we are for where it all evolves to next? And how amazingly beautiful that whole journey was, and is…

Why are we trying to do ourselves out of the biggest miracle of all?

To help my mission, I found a book on the lovely internet called ‘Bang, how we came to be’. I wanted something suitable for small children and this was perfect. It contains beautiful illustrations of each stage of the evolutionary process and nothing quite speaks to a child like a picture. As I expected, it was a big success although there was a brief altercation where Child1 told Child2 she was ‘stuck a few pages further back than everyone else’ but they’re friends again now…

So anyhow, back to Adam and Eve. See I’m still a coward that isn’t ready for her four year old to go into their lovely teacher-who’s-on-the-same-committee-as-their-mammy-first-Thursday-of-every-month and say ‘My Mammy says you’re a liar.’

So I had one final stab at the proverbial middle ground.

‘It’s more like a fable. You know the book of fables that Santa brought for Christmas.’

‘Like the boy who kept crying wolf and then no one would help him?’

‘A bit like that.’

‘Oh. Right. Well anyway, I told teacher it was a bit ridiculous anyway.’

I nearly crashed with pride.

‘Really?’ I asked.

‘Well it is, who’d get into all that trouble over an apple. Like if it had been chewing gum or coke, but stealing fruit is just mad.’

All I could do was laugh as my four year old pointed out how maybe the Bible needed to evolve too.

And sure that’s no harm at all.

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