More just for fun than super serious...My 4 year old daughter saw a car accident and got a little upset when she was driving to the shore with her dad. She called me and said..."I don't like this one bit...I dont like that people crashed their cars and I don';t like that we were hit by th gu drinking alcohol and hit our car" So I explained how the people in the car were more impt than the car itself..and so on...and then said if she wanted to do anything she could ask God to keep them safe (I'm not really religous, but not anti either, she knows a little info just from various people) so she said "I don't have to God is in everyone", and then she asked, is God a Boy, and I said no God isn't a boy or girl, so that made these next two questions come up that I don't know how to answer for a 4 year old.
Question 1: So if God isn't a boy, why does everyone call God him?
Question 2: Is God in all boys and mother nature in all girls?
Yea not sure where she got that second question from, and couldn't really field either one, I was on the phone with her so I told her I'd think about it, research and give her an answer later....so from a not Uber religeous perspective how would you field those? I thought the questions were cute, they made me smile...she may forget by the time I see her but out of curiousity, how would you field them?
So wow I went to catholic school k-college and was always taught God was not male or female but a higher being and we simply refer to him as male (and that God encompassed the holy trinity), also I was always taught as we were made in God's image he was also in each of us, and if God is the Holy spirit and the Holy spirit is in us, than God is in us right?? If God is the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, he can;t simply be male...he is not an animal, with gender he is a spirit above us, I was taught
IDK this whole religion thing always confused me...lol
I'm still trying to figure out why cars and boats are female.
Huh. There is no such thing as mother nature, first...God created nature. I believe God is "male"...after all, He made Adam in His image. The Holy Spirit is what is "in" people...I do believe He is in children, up to the age of accountability, and then one has to make a choice.
My 4 yo has asked a similar question once before. He asked if there was a girl God, too. It caught M. off guard, as well. We are agnostic, but he goes to church with our mothers. I don't have a problem with that- being agnostic to M. means I am generally open-minded. Whatever you believe is your business. Anyway, I told him "God" was like our cat. Rufus (our neutered cat) doesn't have boy parts. He doesn't have girl parts either. But, we still call him a He because we gave him a boy name. "God" is the same way. God is neither male or female, J. like Rufus. But some people J. call him a "He". He J. said "Oh ok",and moved on to the next subject.
I want my son to understand that men and women are equal and there is no gender that is more important or should be subservient to the other- in "God's" eyes, society, nature- whatever the context. We are all creatures of this earth that J. have different "parts", and in some cases, no parts at all. And that's totally ok, too. :)
Wow! I think you are going to have to explain it in a simple way that makes sense to you. I've heard people from to different Christian backgrounds argue about the Trinity. They actually met on a weekly basis, both intent on converting the other. They each had a Bible with references to support their view.
Your daughter is smart! I have a feeling she's assigned genders to God and Mother nature due to the references we hear, and has heard the reference that "God (or the Holy Spirit) lives in all of us". She took that a step further with the male/female specifics of who lives in who. Maybe she will be a great Theologian when she grows up and can give us some answers.
This is where you get to answer any way that you want to, or any way you believe! ;-) Children make us reexamine our beliefs with these types of questions...
Every response you get here is only revealing the responder's beliefs or views. There is no "right" answer to these questions. I'm trying to raise my daughter as a freethinker. What I might do in this situation is to ask my daughter "What do you think?" and then have an open discussion with her about the possibilities and different peoples' beliefs.
If I wanted her to believe what I believe, I would tell her that "God" is referred to as a man because all the people that came up with the major religions that exist today were men and that they lived in strongly patriarchal societies. Then we would have a lesson on what a patriarchal society is. Then we would talk about matriarchal societies and how those led to previous religions that were heavily about "goddesses". Then eventually she was say "that's enough!" :-) My daughter is now 9 and we have many deep discussions and have for a long time.
My kids know that the great spirit is both masculine and feminine and is in all living things.
In reform Judaism, God may be thought to be androgynous and may be referred to as s/he or he-she in texts. Since the old testament (and I assume the new as well) was not written in English, I would be skeptical of relying on English translations to absolutely state the gender of God (if one chooses to believe in him or her).
Yes, God is a man. That's why some call Him Heavenly Father. Christ is also a man. I have a feeling we don't know anything about "Heavenly Mother" because mankind uses God's name in vain so much. I would imagine He is protective of His wife and her name being used in vain. But that is only my humble opinion. I can give you scripture references for God or Heavenly Father being a man, if you want them.
Mother nature is J. a common name referring to the wonders of nature and associating it with the wonders of womanhood and the love we have for our mothers.
Good luck to you and yours.
If you're not really religious then it doesn't matter how you field them, since you don't have a set answer she needs to take from you. People usually say, "God is the spirit that lives in us" or whatever their religions specifically says, or they say, "there is no such thing as God and we're all dust when we die" or whatever. The sky is the limit on what you can say. Don't sweat it! Treat it like anything else you don't have strong convictions or knowledge about. Say, "I don't know". Or, find someone whose beliefs you admire, and let them explain them to her, or tell you what to say.
God is everyones Father, so it would be ok to tell her he is male. Nature is the outdoors & God created nature. Somehow along the way someone named nature "Mother Nature". Its J. a nick name.
It really depends on how religious you want to be about this. The earth is our nature and we all come from the earth and we wll all will eventually fnd our way back into the earth. It that way Mother Nature is in all of us.
You could tell her that women are thought to be more nurturing so that is why we refer to "Mother" nature. The men who wrote the bible refer to God as "He" so we contnue to refer to God in that way. (yes, the Bible was written by men. I know there are going to be people who object to that, but there is no other way possible).
The male/female dichotomy makes it easier for us to explain our reality. If she wants to think about one as male and one as female there is no harm in that. We all come from the same place so we are all One.
I'd tell her she could call God whatever she wanted... Mother, Father, God or Goddess. Whatever she felt fit that being's meaning to her best.
I'd also tell her the divine is in everyone and everything. God and Mother Nature are all part of the same divine, two sides of the same coin.
