I visit many sites in my internet wanderings, both those that support what I believe and those that don’t. Today I ran across a post on Religious Freaks that referred to Richard Dawkins — The God Delusion.
In the book Dawkins said

But to teach children that it is a fact that there is one god or that God created the world in six days, that is child abuse.

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That got me to thinking about truth.

Now the Dawkins quote is taken out of context of course, but given what I’ve read doesn’t seem too far off base for a man as filled with hate for all things religious as he seems to be. Assuming though, that this is in fact what he believes, I’m guessing that he says that because he doesn’t believe that it is literally true and that it stands in the way of a child learning about the scientific reasoning behind how we got here. My personal belief along these lines is that creation took longer than six twenty-four hour days. I also believe that the world is older than six thousand years. I will teach my children that God did create the universe. I believe that with everything in me. I will teach them that the Bible says that God did it in six days and that I believe this is a literary device. I will also tell them that I could be wrong, but that as far as I know these things are true. So according to Dawkins, I’m being abusive. That really doesn’t hurt my feelings in the least, but it does raise a good point.
We feel that we owe our children the truth. That’s why our house isn’t visited by Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, or the Tooth Fairy. In spite of that philosophy though it’s amazing how easy it is for us to tell “little lies” to our children. When our son asked what a button in our van did, my wife answered that it would cause our van to explode. Naturally that didn’t deter him from wanting to touch it; in fact it probably had the opposite effect. But when we get asked the “hard questions” we’re often forced into a corner. If we are literally truthful we may give them explanations that they aren’t ready for yet. The alternative seems to be coming up with things like a stork that delivers little boys and girls to waiting parents. That certainly makes our life easier in the short term, but eventually we have to come clean. Neither alternative leads to happiness and joy.
That leaves us with the quandary. How much truth is enough? And that’s not just in relation to our children. If someone asks me to critique their story and they’re a friend of mine I feel that I owe them my honest opinion, but if it’s bad I don’t want hurt their feelings. If those jeans do make her butt look big, do you tell her? What sacrifices do you make in order to maintain peace?
The Bible is clear that we are to speak the truth in all things. We’re to speak the truth in love (Eph. 4:15) which preceding and subsequent passages indicate requires a good bit of maturity. A few verses later Paul says that we are each to “put off falsehood and speak truthfully to [our] neighbor”. The Message translates 1 Cor. 13:6 as [love] “takes pleasure in the flowering of truth”. So don’t be afraid to share hard truths with the ones that you love. Do it in the spirit of love and maturity. If the answer to your child’s question is something that you don’t feel comfortable sharing with them right now then tell them that. Tell them that you want them to know the truth and that either they aren’t ready to hear it or you aren’t ready to share it.
However you handle it, don’t take the easy way. Anyone you love deserves better.