re: #78 DaddyG

Absolutely! I try to answer the “why” question as often as possible. There are very few absolutes where I ask my kids to believe “simply because” and hopefully my track record with them is good enough they have some level of trust with me on the questions I don’t have a ready answer to. There are always going to be articles of faith in any belief system but fear of judgement and appeal to authority are not a strong bulwork like trust.

That of course depends on the age of the child.
It’s all well and good to answer the why questions so that by rote repetition if anyone doesn’t give them an answer that doesn’t come with ‘…because blah blah blah’ they should immediately be skeptical of it (it’s input not in the right format) the fact is until a certian age you’re not going to get ‘higher’ functions, thus we run with getting caught

the last scary study I saw suggested that up to 22% of people never really develop the bits of the brain neccissary for that ‘highbrow’ reason…