When you are a child, there are some rules and facts that you are simply born with, which make complete logical sense to everyone at the time. I helped out with children’s church today, teaching some of the short story of the first part of Christmas, as well as playing cars with the kids after. I was reminded today of a simple fact of childhood: that if you open both a car’s doors at the same time, it is capable of airborne flight. No one questions it, in fact, I can hardly believe I had forgotten it at all.
However, we did have some problems with a little girl who, despite the fact that her monster truck could not open its doors, somehow thought it could fly and hunt down a similarly airborne police car. Foolish little girl. Maybe someday she’ll have some sense knocked into her – car’s only fly with their doors open!
One learns all sorts of things around children, the very first of which is that there is very little different between them and adults. It baffles me to think that someone would even consider John Locke’s ideas of children being ‘blank slates’. Which world did he live on? Perhaps very few would accept the philosophy if the realized the man never had any children himself! Only imagine if he did. We would read instead of tabula stinky poopy anarchy.
I mean, when it comes to children, I really think that, in many ways, William Golding’s Lord of the Flies has a great deal more to offer us. At least he had a wife and children. But seriously, who wouldn’t argue that people are born good. They only learn to be selfish, brutal, greedy liars by the time they are four because…. well, because of society – it’s their society of selfish greedy little four-year-olds that turns them evil really. And those other four year olds… they learned it from… well, it just wouldn’t be philosophy if it had any answers, would it?
As a side note, I just want to say that I am really looking forward to heaven. If every bad thing comes as a result of sin, I would put the need to use the toilet as a result of sin. Think about it, no poo poo means no potty, and no potty with the poo poo means no cleaning the poo poo potty! So, there’s one more thing to look forward to in heaven. Take comfort in that thought, for all those blessed enough to be reminded constantly that toilet hygiene comes at a price.