Praying ?

MIL: yx 会 拜 拜，很好笑。。。
me: woah, 真的？
MIL: blah blah blah blah.....
me: o__O haaaa

that leads me to wonder how should I answer yx questions about life such as:

1. Who created Earth and human beings?
2. Why are there animals in this world?
3. Where do we go when we die?
4. Is there really heaven and hell?
5. What is the purpose of life?
6. Why do we need to pray?

...
......


To put things simply, I am "free"- an Agnostic or sometimes in between Agnostic and Atheist although hub is a Budhhist. I remembered when my niece asked me (think when she was 5 if I remembered correctly) who discovered Earth? But then in the first place, who discovered human beings?

Well, there are 2 school of thoughts in my opinion - the scientific way and the religious way - so I answered both very briefly: Scientific - Nicolaus Copernicus who discovered earth as one of the planetry system, and Charles Darwin's evolutionary theory; Religious - God who created Garden of Eden in Genesis. Surprisingly, she filled me with the details with such maturity that I don't think I could have mentioned when I was her age. Interestingly, she didn't mention about Buddha's world is nothing notion and I thought I better not elaborate much cos I am no expert and actually, I don't even understand why I don't understand in certain areas !!!

I have read the New Testaments of the Bible about 10 over years ago, and recently the heart sutra (般若波罗蜜多心经). As Thich Nhat Hanh, author of Living Buddha, Living Christ mentioned about the goodness of fruits where different fruits have different vitamins, but they serve the same purpose - beneficial to your health and this is akin to Buddhism and Christianity - they are different school of thoughts in some ways but they preach love, understanding and acceptance. I kindda subscribe to this logic. Then again, sometimes I  also feel "宁可信其有, 不可信其无". ha. complicated.

I reckon the best way is to expose her to both school of thoughts and let her decide what she wants to believe in. Most importantly, she must have good values (ok what are good values? How good is 'good'?- that's another story for another day...) Daddy is not as liberal but he gave me a reluctant 'ok lah' when I mentioned about freedom of choice in religion. Then the next question is, must one need religion? Is Buddhism and Christianity a religion?

It's funny that after so many years I finally realised that GP probably has some use, but I know I wouldn't be tackling questions like "Is it necessary to have religion?" or anything remotely related to it.

Christians would say, "Without Christ, I Am Nothing" (CHRIST-IAN)
Buddhism mention mindfulness. I am still thinking.

I would leave this as it is now. I pray that yx will be more enlightened than me in future.