Moral Dilemma

Because of a question that was posed by my son, I was faced with a quandary that I should have been better prepared for, but I wasn’t.  For anyone who knows me, my stance on the supernatural and spiritual belief is well-known.  As it pertains to the impression of my position on my son, I always thought that my de facto answer should be something like “when you’re older, we can talk about it.  For now, take in all the information you can, and draw your own conclusion.”  I think that even though he is my son and my responsibility, leveling that kind of information may inhibit his ability to develop his own critical thinking abilities, similarly to how exposing him to a religious tradition would. 

My son asked, “Dad, does God really exist?”  My cop-out answer was to quickly say, “people have different opinions, and if you’re interested, use what you can to make your own opinion.”  My dilemma is that I very much want to share with him the conclusions I have reached, and by what means.  I want to spare him having to toil with this question for years.  I would love to jump start his ability to reason, and to use the overwhelming evidence to contradict the foundations that the current incarnations of religion stand for.  I would genuinely take pleasure in sharing with him the collective works of great writers and thinkers of the past and present, like Spinoza, Lucretius, Einstein, Orwell, Hitchens, Dawkins, etc.  That there are so many points of view and boundless examples and information from which he could form his own opinion.  And that exercise, I think, would be so  much more rewarding than taking the false comfort of falling back on wishes and hopes, and molding those into a belief system.

What force drives me to want so badly to discuss this with my son?  It is due to the fundamental belief, one which I would like to think could be shared by the whole of humanity, which is that it is immoral to lie to children.  I think that it is reprehensible that you can threaten children with eternal damnation and suffering for not following the outdated traditions of two thousand years ago. 

The argument, I would guess, could be made, that without those religious foundations, how ever would I be able to teach my son about what is good, and just, and what is wicked and evil?  My reply would be simply that one apparently has nothing to do with the other.  The morality of religion, as has been shown throughout history, is barbaric at best.  If I take the only evidence I have, the historical and more recent actions of those claiming to act on the behalf of their god’s will, I should be able to work out how to figure out right from wrong just fine, thank you.