Daughter's Questions: Eating Meat

Around her birthday, our daughter asked us whether it's cruel to eat meat.

I think a lot of children at some point ask this one, and it's a difficult question. Partly because it is so morally unsettling and makes we non-vegetarians question ourselves. What is the best answer we can provide? Or perhaps we should all go vegetarian?

Daughter's Questions: Why is the sky blue (or red)?

A few months ago my daughter asked another of her perceptive questions. After asking why the sky is blue, and recieving an explanation, she quickly followed up with a questions about why sunrises and sunsets are red.

I'd been ready with an answer for the first, but not the second and then it quickly turned out that my answer to the first wasn't sufficiently thorough. The answers related to the wavelengths of red and blue light being at opposite ends of the visible spectrum, and the way that light of shorter wavelengths gets more easily diffused as it travels through the atmosphere.

However, blue isn't at the end of the spectrum, violet is. So that should be diffused more in the sky. The sky shouldn't be blue during the day ... it should be violet. Why isn't it?

Daughter's Questions: Frankenstein's Monster?

Our daughter continues to ask difficult questions. One recent query was whether (in principle) if you assembled all the atoms and molecules correctly, you could make a person. Would they be a real person? Would they be alive?

I think this is an awkward question for those of us who, like me, don't believe that we are merely material machines. Does my view commit me to saying that such a thing wouldn't be alive? That if it was alive, it wouldn't be a person? Or are there other ways for non-materialists to go here? I think so, but I'd be keen to hear your thoughts.

For the record, my basic answer was "I don't know ... and I'm not sure anyone else knows for sure either."