Eight year old Danny Dutton of Chula Vista, CA wrote this for his third grade homework assignment to "Explain God". I wonder if any of us could have done as well?
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EXPLANATION OF GOD
One of God's main jobs is making people. He makes them to replace the ones that die, so there will be enough people to take care of things on earth. He doesn't make grownups, just babies. I think because they are smaller and easier to make. That way He doesn't have to take up His valuable time teaching them to talk and walk. He can just leave that to
mothers and fathers.
God's second most important job is listening to prayers. An awful lot of this goes on, since some people, like preachers and things, pray at times beside bedtime. God doesn't have time to listen to the radio or TV because of this. Because He hears everything, there must be a terrible lot of noise in His ears, unless He has thought of a way to turn it off.
God sees everything and hears everything and is everywhere which keeps Him pretty busy. So you shouldn't go wasting His time by going over your mom and dad's head asking for something they said you couldn't have.
Atheists are people who don't believe in God. I don't think there are any in Chula Vista. At least there aren't any who come to our church.
Jesus is God's Son. He used to do all the hard work, like walking on water and performing miracles and trying to teach the people who didn't want to learn about God. They finally got tired of Him preaching to them and they crucified Him But He was good and kind, like His father, and He told His father that they didn't know what they were doing and to forgive them and God said O.K.
His dad (God) appreciated everything that He had done and all His hard work on earth so He told him He didn't have to go out on the road anymore. He could stay in heaven. So He did. And now He helps His dad out by listening to prayers and seeing things which are important for God to take care of and which ones He can take care of Himself without having to bother God. Like a secretary, only more important.
You can pray anytime you want and They are sure to help you because They got it worked out so one of Them is on duty all the time.
You should always go to church on Sunday because it makes God happy, and if there's anybody you want to make happy, it's God! Don't skip church to do something you think will be more fun like going to the beach. This is wrong. And besides the sun doesn't come out at the beach until noon anyway.
If you don't believe in God, besides being an atheist, you will be very lonely, because your parents can't go everywhere with you, like to camp, but God can. It is good to know He's around you when you're scared, in the dark or when you can't swim and you get thrown into real deep water by big kids.
But ... you shouldn't just always think of what God can do for you. I figure God put me here and He can take me back anytime He pleases. And ... that's why I believe in God.
(an email forward)
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Comments: 26
You can tell this child has parents who believe in teachiing their children what is important in life.
Whoever they are, I congratulate them and applaud their efforts.
I pray there were more like them.
Barbara S.
Very astute observation there!
(since that's what most think about it all, it seems)
Also, the writing is too advanced for third grade--not the ideas expressed, but the sentence structure. There is a link on the Snopes site for (essay-contest-winning) third-grade writing--compare the length of the sentences. It looks more like an adult trying to write from a child's perspective.
Granted, in this day and age of instant gratification, video games and mindless entertainment, there are probably not as many children concentrating on the craft of writing.
My purpose in posting this e-mail forward was to provoke thought more than anything else. All too often, we go through life without spending one minute thinking about the BIG questions that separate us for simple animals of instinct.
Jules said it simply: Consider the message, not the source.
In all honesty, I did not try to track down Danny Dutton of Chula Vista, CA to confirm it's authenticity. I read the message and it made me think... so I shared.
I know quite well that there are huge differences between kids, but, as I emphasized, the Snopes link is to winning essays and represent advanced third-graders. That doesn't mean that there aren't rare kids who are even more advanced, but if they are, I would expect some other things to be true as well.
One of my children also writes way above his grade level--he's in 7th grade, and he writes better than--well, I don't even know what to say. The average adult, if this website is anything to go by? I'm not kidding, or being the typical mom--I could show you his article in the school newspaper next to another kid's on the same topic, and you wouldn't believe the difference. But here's my point: not only is his sentence structure advanced, so is his grasp of the logical structure of what he's saying, his vocabulary, and his maturity level, and by that I mean he does not sound like a 12-year-old in terms of what he's saying--he sounds more like a slightly hot-headed and overintellectualizing college student. The only reason I say all that is to point out again that this is not the case in the piece you published here--there's a mismatch between the syntax and the intellectual/maturity level. I might be wrong, of course, but the feeling I get is that this is the "adult writing from a child's perspective" situation. There's nothing wrong with that, of course--that's the whole of children's literature--but I do think that the "message" here is affected by whether the claim that it was written by a child is true or not.
Thanks. I thought, "Gee, these people haven't seen this a thousand times already? This member publishes email forwards and doesn't even bother to check them out? This person knows he published an email forward that is dishonest and doesn't care? What is this world coming to, and why don't people who try to tell everyone else about God care about honesty?
(Truth be told, there used to be more of them, but given my habit of responding with Snopes links and arguments, only one brave soul persists. Until the chain letter gets picked up and translated by a Hungarian, that is--then I get it from my brother. But only once--he's nice that way. Oh, and very occasionally I get a Spanish version too. It's kind of fun comparing the adjustments the various translations make.)
Thanks, Landen.