My parents did a pretty good job at religion, I think. They were different from eachother which was also good. My dad more intolerant but also very clearly saying "It doesn't really matter what I believe, you have to make up your own mind". My mom more tolerant and more aware of the social aspects of religions, herself personally interested in history and different belief systems.
I think my mom started off in preschool years by telling me some Greek myths (in addition to some long and boring stories about various greek battles, she was just interested in Greek stuff). And in everyday stories like Aladdin she might make a reference to the genie being god-like. So I think I heard early on the idea of a god being a powerful being that might be able to do magic type things.
Later when I was around 8 or 10 she and I read parts of the bible together, for fun, and looked up all the places and really talked about what Christians believed versus Jewish people, etc. She had quite a bit of knowledge about various (western) religions so if I'd ask "what's hell?" she'd respond pretty specifically "well Catholics believe X.... and Mormons believe Y".
If there's any advice in that it would be to get a brief text that discusses religious beliefs in some detail in order to be clear on it yourself and able to answer questions fairly specifically.
Polly
