Moolies

Incredulous face

McK had to execute his delayed Jury Service, as I previously posted, which meant I was picking the kids up from school, after (for James) a long, long day of Nursery school in the afternoons and as short a time in after school club as my work-guilt would allow.

One evening I picked them up and Nora was still making a mother's Day card so took a while. The boy sitting next to her was looking incredulously at her, saying "God made me! He made you!, He did, I know it's the truth!" Nora looked back at him, bemused, saying "No he didn't, my Mummy did".

The look of absolute horror and amazement on the lad's face was at once hilarious and sad. I piped up, to save him.

"It's true, you know. Everyone's Mummys around the table made them inside their bellies. Nora used to be a little bean inside me, can you believe it?"

He still looked doubtful. I said to him, "You know, some people say that there is a God, and some don't. It's OK to think either things really". This seemed to be the perfect answer, and was accepted readily. I didn't think trying to explain the excesses of power and oppression by world religions in the name of any number of different non-existent deities would have gone down too well with that particular 7 year old boy.

McK was badgered later in the week by a lad who asked him if he believed in God! We suspect that Nora is spreading her Athiesm virus liberally. Given the richly African nature of the school population, I sincerely doubt she's going to get very far with her secular arguments.

Half of me is laughing out loud with pride, and half of me is slightly worried she's going to encourage bullying. I think I'll try to convince her to modify her tone slightly.

Franklin's Christian Mission

Yes. Here's something I wanted to mention. Franklin Graham (son of Billy) has organised a bunch of aid help through his aid agency, Samaritan's Purse.

This is an interesting moral quandry to me. Why do people who wish to be part of an aid agency feel the need to be part of a christian aid agency, as opposed to any of the other well established routes? What is it about Samaritan's Purse that is particularly great, as opposed to, say, the Red Cross?

I can only think it comes from 2 things 1) The need for community spirit and 2) Evangelical zeal. I've had many arguments in the past with people about this, but my (very) personal feeling is that aid groups associated with any religions should be made to agree to codes of conduct and should be banned from entering other countries if they are associated even vaguely with any religious missionary-ing.

I loathe religion. It makes my skin crawl. Personal spirituality - different kettle altogether.