out of the mouths of babes

The latest theological ruminations from those crazy prepubescents I roll with:

You can stop pondering the existence of a higher power - these kids have it sorted. Yesterday they were kind enough to inform me that God isn't a real person. (No, not even at Christmas.) Heaven and hell are just grown up pretends, and hell is a bad word you shouldn't say even if you shut your fingers in the front door.

I swear, I did nothing to provoke this discussion. I was simply asked why anyone would actually want to eat matzah. So I told them the story of Passover, emphasizing that it was just a story to some people and to others something really important. I kept it as neutral and straightforward as possible.

Then Kate, Sophie, and Chloe launched into a debate on miracles, nasty Egyptian kings portrayed by attractive bald actors (okay, so my version of the story may have gone a bit off topic in places), and who the tartar sauce was this God fellow, anyway?

I, very carefully, said absolutely nothing.

Thus, we learn that God is not dead, but rather just about as "true" as the evil witch in Sleeping Beauty - in other words, something grown ups talk about to scare you because sometimes being scared is fun, but really everyone knows that it's all just pretend. So, God? Definitely not real.

Superheroes they weren't quite so sure about.

Eventually, they came to the conclusion that superheroes do, in fact, exist - they just don't live in Portland, because nothing bad happens here.