God and Santa

[phildonnia]

More than once in new-atheist writing, I have seen the idea of God compared with Santa Claus, as a way of ridiculing the arguments in favor of His (God's) existence. But something always seemed off to me about this comparison. I got to wondering why Santa is so easily considered a juvenile fantasy, and God is taken so seriously.

This becomes all the more puzzling when we consider the evidence in support of God or Santa. There is deliberate, pervasive, and concerted action to fake the miracles attributed to Santa. The person himself can often be seen in stores around December. But with all that, kids still figure it out eventually! The evidence for God is at best circumstantial, and subject to interpretation, yet many people take their beliefs into adulthood.

It has been observed that "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it." To seek Santa is to call into question the cosmic forces that bring presents and candy canes every year. But kids are such natural scientists that they still look for and discover an alternative theory! Yet God, whose gifts are never actually seen, and which are promised in the distant future, is given the benefit of the doubt.

What accounts for this difference in the acceptance of God versus Santa?

 

[Dinwar]

What accounts for this difference in the acceptance of God versus Santa?

As I've said repeatedly on this forum, belief in God/gods is largely due to hard-wired issues in our brains. False attributions of agency and near-death experiences are two examples. Because these issues are inheret in our brains, thanks to evolution, they are incredibly difficult to shake. It's like how we always try to visualize things such as gravity: it's false, but that's how our brains function and therefore that's what we work with.

 

[Beelzebuddy]

Santa is falsifiable.

He cannot come down the chimney, when we have no chimney.
He cannot come to everyone's house at exactly midnight.
He cannot have known to bring me the toy I specifically only told you about because I only decided I wanted it after I wrote my letter to him.

If you took Santa, and cut away all the bits that actually interacted with the world - "Oh, Santa doesn't bring physical toys, but the spirit of good cheer! And he comes, yes, but down the chimeny to our hearts!" - you'd have something indistinguishable from any other religion.

That and the fact that learning Santa isn't real is considered a stage of adult growth, so is actually encouraged by parents. A grown man insisting that Santa Claus really comes to his house every year would seem a little... odd, wouldn't it? Why then do you visit such a man every Sunday?

 

[Navigator]

More than once in new-atheist writing, I have seen the idea of God compared with Santa Claus, as a way of ridiculing the arguments in favor of His (God's) existence. But something always seemed off to me about this comparison. I got to wondering why Santa is so easily considered a juvenile fantasy, and God is taken so seriously.​

What gives me more reason to wonder is at how many atheists get into the Santa thing and tell there children the same rubbish stories.
I think because it has to do with going along with what others are doing and not letting their children miss out on what other children are involved in.
But really, Santa is an adaption designed to collect revenue. He (Santa) is a fat capitalist who sits back running the show while all his elves do the hard work creating and maintaining the infrastructure and he gets all the glory.

'Ho ho ho' would be more honestly expressed as 'ha ha ha' when coming from Santa.

But it does set up kids for their journey into adulthood. The impression is that it creates excitement and anticipation, trust and confidence in rewards.

It also teaches us that our parents are all too willing to lie to their children and we take that baton from them and apply it to our own children who in turn do likewise.

This becomes all the more puzzling when we consider the evidence in support of God or Santa. There is deliberate, pervasive, and concerted action to fake the miracles attributed to Santa. The person himself can often be seen in stores around December. But with all that, kids still figure it out eventually! The evidence for God is at best circumstantial, and subject to interpretation, yet many people take their beliefs into adulthood.

This has to do with a lot of things. One major thing as far as i can tell, is that the reward for being good or the punishment for being bad is increased. Be good and you get to heaven. (you get the presents) be bad and you not only miss out on heaven but you spend the rest of eternity tormenting in hell.

It has been observed that "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it." To seek Santa is to call into question the cosmic forces that bring presents and candy canes every year. But kids are such natural scientists that they still look for and discover an alternative theory! Yet God, whose gifts are never actually seen, and which are promised in the distant future, is given the benefit of the doubt.

What accounts for this difference in the acceptance of God versus Santa?

The fear of hell.

Of course I am speaking specifically of one particular idea of god. Others are attracted to their idea of god for reasons which are not dependent upon fear as a motivator.

 

[Navigator]

As I've said repeatedly on this forum, belief in God/gods is largely due to hard-wired issues in our brains. False attributions of agency and near-death experiences are two examples. Because these issues are inheret in our brains, thanks to evolution, they are incredibly difficult to shake. It's like how we always try to visualize things such as gravity: it's false, but that's how our brains function and therefore that's what we work with.

^Its a theory which requires belief that what is being observed is actually what is also explained.

Another theory is that we are all experiencing a virtual reality. This explains synchronicity (seeing patterns that are there and placing the agency of conscious intelligence behind it as a theory) OBEs and NDEs and the possibility of consciousness continuing to exist outside the confines of brain/body.

No one really knows. People just believe what they will. That is probably more of a brain hardwired issue of the brain. the need to believe something.

 

[Craig4]

When Santa gets mad he just delivers coal. When God gets mad he throws you in a lake of fire and giggles like a school girl while watching you burn in agony for all time. People take the lake of fire thing seriously.

 

[Navigator]

When Santa gets mad he just delivers coal. When God gets mad he throws you in a lake of fire and giggles like a school girl while watching you burn in agony for all time. People take the lake of fire thing seriously.

Some people just need to take it seriously I suppose.

Like taking the law seriously because there is consequence involved in not taking the law seriously.

Others have a handle on self control and don't need to take the law seriously in that they are able to behave lawfully without the device of persuasion and consequence.

 

[Brainache]

...
What accounts for this difference in the acceptance of God versus Santa?

The rewards and the punishments are greater.

 

[Gawdzilla Sama]

What accounts for this difference in the acceptance of God versus Santa?

Santa is picked up on radar every year. No radar sightings of any god or gods that I've heard of.

 

[Delvo]

Figure out that Santa Claus doesn't make sense and must be fictional, and those who've been lying to you about him admit it. Figure out the same thing about God, and they... react somewhat differently.

 

[Brainache]

Maybe a God who sends floods and earthquakes is easier to believe in than one who sends Playstations.

 

[bruto]

Taking the original post sort of seriously, I think the difference is that the doings of Santa are knowingly made up by adults, and are easily explained by reality. It's easy to understand where Christmas presents really come from, after all, and life is simpler and less complex without Santa.

The doings attributed to gods are, by contrast, things we cannot understand readily, and cannot all agree on. Life is harder to understand and more complex without a God to relieve us of the need to understand hard things and accept hard reality.

Taking the original post less seriously, of course, I remember from my childhood the joke "What's the difference between God and Santa," and the answer is, of course, that everyone knows there's no God.

 

[TragicMonkey]

There was a Santa, historically, but he was torn to pieces by wild dogs in 1828. The same may be true of God as well, but nobody reported finding little shreds of God's corpse strewn all over a field, and piles of dog poop with candy cane shards and little jingle bells in them showing up the next day.

Really, of the Big Three (God, Santa, and Dracula) most of the evidence points to the nonexistence of the first, the historical existence and death of the second, and the amazing profit potential of the third. If you have to invest in just one, pick Dracula, because gods have come and gone, and Santa's only once a year, but Dracula is always in style.

 

[Brainache]

There was a Santa, historically, but he was torn to pieces by wild dogs in 1828. The same may be true of God as well, but nobody reported finding little shreds of God's corpse strewn all over a field, and piles of dog poop with candy cane shards and little jingle bells in them showing up the next day.

Really, of the Big Three (God, Santa, and Dracula) most of the evidence points to the nonexistence of the first, the historical existence and death of the second, and the amazing profit potential of the third. If you have to invest in just one, pick Dracula, because gods have come and gone, and Santa's only once a year, but Dracula is always in style.

So Jesus saves, but Dracula is a corporate bloodsucker...

 

[Brian-M]

This thread reminds me of a page from webcomic I started to practice my drawing skills a few years ago. It didn't actually become webcomic, Just an abandoned sit-on-the-harddrive-and-forgotten-comic.

But here's the God-and-Santa one anyway....

 

[Recovering Agnostic]

Santa is falsifiable.

He cannot come down the chimney, when we have no chimney.
He cannot come to everyone's house at exactly midnight.
He cannot have known to bring me the toy I specifically only told you about because I only decided I wanted it after I wrote my letter to him.

If you took Santa, and cut away all the bits that actually interacted with the world - "Oh, Santa doesn't bring physical toys, but the spirit of good cheer! And he comes, yes, but down the chimeny to our hearts!" - you'd have something indistinguishable from any other religion.

That and the fact that learning Santa isn't real is considered a stage of adult growth, so is actually encouraged by parents. A grown man insisting that Santa Claus really comes to his house every year would seem a little... odd, wouldn't it? Why then do you visit such a man every Sunday?

This, absolutely. It's not the inherent sense of the beliefs or the consequences (either positive or negative) of different beliefs, but the lack of investment in ways of explaining away the inconsistencies and absence of evidence. That's not part of the game.

But the reason why no one's heavily invested in writing lengthy apologetics to explain why rich kids always get fancier toys than poor ones, or how it's possible to deliver presents to every house in a single night, is that we all have to confront the truth sooner or later. However hard we try to believe, everyone becomes an aSantaist once they leave home and there's no Mum or Dad to fill up that stocking. So the adults all know it's just a game, rather than passionately believing that there's a very clever reason why Santa really does exist in some subtle way that we can't understand.

 

[Cuddles]

Santa is falsifiable.

He cannot come down the chimney, when we have no chimney.
He cannot come to everyone's house at exactly midnight.
He cannot have known to bring me the toy I specifically only told you about because I only decided I wanted it after I wrote my letter to him.

How is this different from God?

God is supposedly omnipresent, so why is Santa claiming to be in a limited set of places at one particular time more of a problem?
God is supposedly omniscient, so why is Santa claiming to know a few limited things about what presents you'd like more of a problem?
God is supposedly omnipotent, so why is Santa claiming to do one impossible thing more of a problem?

 

[Hellbound]

It's an interesting question, but I think the OP mentioned the answer wihtout realizing it.

As he said, there are some efforts to promote Santa: he's at malls, there are presents at Christmas, and so forth. Eventually, the kids realize that Santa can't be at both malls in town (and pay a visit to the school) all at the same time. Or they see Mom and Dad puttin presents under the tree labelled as being from Santa. Or any of a thousand other inconsistencies in the evidence.

With God, and most religions, however, there isn't any evidence. There's nothing to point out inconsistencies in. And when you do, it's just tossed aside as if it's unim,portant, either explained away with omnipotence or mysterious ways, or simply tossed aside as a "that may be wrong, but here's a new one!".

In other words, it is specifically the lack of evidence that allows religious belief to prosper. It's trivially easy to prove that the mall Santa doesn't have a sleigh parked outside, and that no one outside your family is putting presents under the tree. These are the "core" Santa attributes, so once they're disproven that's pretty much it. There's nothing that can be pointed at to say "that's definately God", which can then be shown to be something else. With God even the core attributes are impossible to pen down, and untestable. It would be as if the only attributes you had for Santa was "always watches you" and "wears red". Add to the fact that nothing is predictable with God, and that ties it up. (For example, Santa has to come on Christmas, has to leave presents, etc. God may answer prayers, may perform miricales, uses mysterious ways, etc).

Because there's no possible evidence for God, there's no way to prove or disprove such a nebulous concept. You can disprove some secondary aspects, but not the core.

 

[tsig]

^Its a theory which requires belief that what is being observed is actually what is also explained.

Another theory is that we are all experiencing a virtual reality. This explains synchronicity (seeing patterns that are there and placing the agency of conscious intelligence behind it as a theory) OBEs and NDEs and the possibility of consciousness continuing to exist outside the confines of brain/body.

No one really knows. People just believe what they will. That is probably more of a brain hardwired issue of the brain. the need to believe something.

I seems to me that the less complicated explanation is that things are just as we see them. Why postulate a matrix like universe when we have one here right before us?

If you can show any way that consciousness can exist outside the body I'd like to see it.

 

[Beelzebuddy]

How is this different from God?

God is supposedly omnipresent, so why is Santa claiming to be in a limited set of places at one particular time more of a problem?
God is supposedly omniscient, so why is Santa claiming to know a few limited things about what presents you'd like more of a problem?
God is supposedly omnipotent, so why is Santa claiming to do one impossible thing more of a problem?

Exactly. Santa is falsifiable, God is not. God is all those omni-things. Santa's just a fat bastard with a good spy network and a glowing sled-deer.