God and the Devil

I don't mean to be turning this into "The Benjamin Show"...but this was too good not to blog about:

Friday mornings always seem a little more pleasant - Mike and I have the 'ah, the last rushed morning before the weekend' feeling, and even the kids are more animated and chatty while eating breakfast. On that note, Benjamin stole the show this morning.

You have to know that our household is non-religious. Mike is a self-proclaimed atheist, and I'm...well...I'm still thinking about it, but tending towards the agnostic side of things. However, we tread gently when it comes to our children. We do not want to push our views onto them, but rather let them have a chance to make up their own minds in due time.

Benjamin, having just turned 7, has been deemed too young to really talk to about this as of yet. So we've kept it at the level of 'some people believe...' and 'other people believe...', and tried to instill in him respect for different beliefs and the idea that this is a really private and personal matter.

Clearly, we need to do better, because unbeknownst to us, Benjamin has already acquired a lot of information on this subject. I almost coughed out my toast when this headliner came out of my lastborn's mouth as he finished his yogurt:

"God was lucky to die first!"

Mike and I looked at each other in stunned silence. 'What?!'

"What do you mean?" I inquired.

Well, that just opened the floodgates - God was lucky to die first because he got to go to Heaven and become God. Everyone else died after him and could not become God, because that job was taken.

Although Jesus was a nice boy who helped God and all the others. Benjamin's enunciation can be a little off sometimes, so 'Jesus' came out as 'cheeses'. Mike didn't get it first, and asked "God was helped by cheeses?". Only a man.

Benjamin also informed us that the Devil is made of fire and stone, and has a spear. He is not very nice, because he uses a weapon.

And when it comes to Heaven, well, it is divided into two. The first half is God's side, which is about 72000 miles. The other half is the Devil's half, and it is only 2000 miles. God's side is larger because Jesus helped him.

I have to admit, for a fleeting second after he said this I was tempted to turn this into a math problem (they are doing fractions at school). You know, 'is it really two halves, if one side of Heaven is bigger than the other?' But I wanted to hear the rest of it - and besides, that would just be such a lame 'mother' thing to do; turn everything into a lesson.

God's side - which is also called Heaven (yes, I see the inconsistency, but this is what you get when your poor son is left to his own devices) - is cloudy with water, and it looks like you are on the clouds, except you don't fall off. The Devil's side is called (lower your voice to a whisper) - Hell - but we are not allowed to say that, because it is a bad word. So we only say the Devil's side. It has red clouds and has fire, and you sleep on spikes.

As I said, we were stunned.

But wait...there's more... Benjamin wants to be the God of Thunder. Apparently that position has not been filled. Because the Norwegian God of Thunder - called Thor - died when he killed a snake, and it killed him back just before it died (this was a bit confusing, but he was adamant they both killed each other). Then a French God took over the thundering! Mike - and his British ancestry - was quick to seize this opportunity, "So we can blame the French for the thunder and lightning?", but Benjamin explained that the French God had died, too.

And there you have it. Any questions?