‘Is it wrong for me to tell my grandchild there’s no God?’

An atheist grandmother in the United States is questioning if it’s wrong to tell her granddaughter that there’s no such thing as God.

If you’ve got grandchildren, you’ll know how difficult it can sometimes be to explain the ideology behind religion – especially if the one they’re asking about goes against your own beliefs. With countries around the world more diverse than ever before, chances are our little ones are going to have even more questions.

In Australia for example, Christianity was the religion of 88 per cent of the population in 1966. During the most recent census in 2016, just 52 per cent of the population identified as Christian, while a growing number, 30 per cent to be precise, said they had no religion at all.

Thrown into the mix was a variety of other religions including Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam and Judaism, which all make up a significant proportion of religions for many.

Writing to the New York Times, the grandmother expressed her confusion when it came to answering questions her six-year-old grandchild had when it came to the topic of religion. Although the girl’s parents aren’t overly religious, they do send their daughter to a parochial school.

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One day, the girl asked her parents why some of the kids at school are baptised, but others weren’t. She also became curious about heaven when the grandmother’s sister passed away, began asking if that’s where she now was. To date, the family have simply been telling the girl that some people are baptised, while others aren’t. They also explain that some people believe in heaven, while others don’t.

“But at some point, won’t it be in my grandchild’s best interests for me to explain that belief in a fictional deity is a poor substitute for science and rationality?” the grandmother asked.

The advice from the New York Times was for the grandmother to hold off on expressing her opinion too soon. The publication noted the child was probably too young to understand the topic completely. Furthermore, they said telling her granddaughter God didn’t exist could cause problems with her daughter and son-in-law, particularly because they have chosen to enrol their kid in a religious school.

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Instead, it was recommended the grandmother should let the parents directly handle these kinds of questions because it could be in “the best interests” of the child. While it may be easy to brand the grandmother as unfair for wanting to steer her granddaughter away from religion, it raises the question of whether grandparents and parents should be raising kids with religion in the first place.

What do you think? How do you answer a grandchild who is curious about religion or belief that is different from your own?