[Legatus]

Thanks. Anything I have managed to understand is due to needing to figure out how to explain all this stuff to 8 year olds while still being able to talk about it with grownups. I think children in general, but certainly my children specifically, will find any holes and poke them mercilessly.

I don't know how but kids can be dogmatic fideists and rationalist skeptics AT THE SAME TIME. My 9 year old daughter will find the most obscure loose end in something and unravel everything in a matter of seconds, it's not fair that I have to have a copy of "Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma" and the Summa just to teach 5th grade religion. The temptation to say "it's that way because it's that way" is very strong.

Someone earlier said something like "I wonder how the Catholics feel knowing they're on the same side as an agnostic" or words to that effect. I thought how weird it is that people don't see the point of knowing what one doesn't believe... apparently in opposition to not knowing what one does believe.

[kosta50]

Anything I have managed to understand is due to needing to figure out how to explain all this stuff to 8 year olds while still being able to talk about it with grownups

Kids are our best confessors. Sometimes you love them for it and sometimes you don't! :) Tuth can be soothing, but it can also burn. So they are angels and devils all in one. But if you can explain soemthing to an 8 year-old you have reduced it to its essentials, free of fluff and excess baggage. It's a feat in itself.