12yo Questions

Last night at P1 we had a very interesting devotional time.  We started with Megan requesting the assitance of 7 volunteers.  Their eager enthusiasm quickly turned to suspicion when each was presented with a bowl of very dodgy food.  The looks on their faces and the smell of the green ham caused me to run and retrieve the camera.

This lead to a bible reading about Thomas who stated that he would not believe in God unless he could see the scars from the nails and place his hand in the wound in Jesus's side.  John 20:24-29

After a while the kids came up with some questions.  I figured that these were pretty basic questions that we should think about rather than waiting till some impressionable 12yo asks me and then wonders why I mumble and stammer.

1. After we die do we come back and get re born.
2. When you go to heaven do you stay a certain age.
3  There was a question about the creation of time and space.
4  Where is heaven
5  Why do I hate my life

So I figured I would put down my answers.  Please feel free to post a response with your thoughts.
1. After we die do we come back and get re born.
Some religions such as the Hindu religieon in India believe that when people die, that they are re born.  If you are good you come back as a rich person.  If you are bad you come back as some sort of disliked animal.

I believe that we have a soul or a spirit but I do not believe that we get reborn as another physical being.

2. When you go to heaven do you stay a certain age.
To me it is our physical body that dies and is buries here on earfth and my spirit goes up to heaven.  As this spirit does not have a physical form the idea of age is not relevant to me.  I would say though that my answer is No.  My spirit would age but not in the way that our physical body does.But it is possible that heaven is outside time and space as we know it.  In which case I guess that the idea of age causes a divide by zero error.  Coffee anyone?

3  There was a question about the creation of time and space.
I don't remember the exact question, but my enerstanding is that at the big bang, scientists believe that time and matter and space were created and that as the universe expands, that time and space are created at the edge of the universe.  Its not that the universe expands into something.  Makes your head spin.

4  Where is heaven
We don't know where heaven is or what it is like other than it is nice and there is a place for us there.  Perhaps another dimension.  Bt not "just up there"


5  Why do I hate my life
We have free will.  God does not micromange any of us or the environment around us.  So things, from my perspective can go wrong.  Sometimes this going wrong can make us feel bad.  It may be something at a biological level like a chemical problem that makes you feel bad or it may be other people doing nasty things.  What to do? Pray and ask God to help.  Do things that you like with people you like.  Don't waste time and energy hating those who do you wrong


As an aside,
Recently in family worship we had a very interesting discussion about intelligent design vs evoltion.
here  http://thomsoneu.blogspot.com/2010/11/family-worship.html