Mig: [closes book gently] …and so that’s how geysers work. Okay kiddo, lights out.
Gamma: [reopens book and points at picture] What if you were standing there?
Mig: You wouldn’t want to. It’s boiling mudpots. You know, bloopbloopbloop.
Gamma: [Laughs] I like how you say that. It sounds just like boiling mud. Do it again.
Mig: Bloopbloopbloop.
Gamma: Hehe. What if you were standing here, then?
Mig: Boiling mineral-laden water would rain down on you and you’d be cooked.
Gamma: Uh-huh. So where does God come from, anyway?
Mig: ["God was always there," goes through his head] Ehm…
Gamma: Grandma says God was already always there, but that doesn’t make any sense to me. God had to come from somewhere.
Mig: Dude, look at the time. I have to go clean the kitchen.
I felt bad about running away from an interesting discussion. But seriously. We would have been talking for hours. I’m still trying to figure out the answer to that question.
um. i have no idea how to answer your kid’s question, either.
Although I don’t believe in god myself, when it comes to issues of infinity, I always like to go down the path that most of the things we think of as having a starting point, don’t really. You think a plant coming out of the ground is the start of the plant, but it came from a seed that came from another plant and so on.
We think of a day beginning, but its really just part of an (practically) endless turning of the earth…
So the whole idea of things needing to “begin” is mostly an illusion, so why would God (if he existed) actually need to have a starting point?
imho, god comes from believing in the idea of him/it/her. Without belief, there is nothing.
take care
d.