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God and Santa

Navigator said:
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.

Snip....
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Not me. I've always told my kids the truth about Santa. They all love Xmas and get incredibly excited about it.

Mind you, plenty of other people lie to them about Santa but hey, my conscience is clear!
 
Cuddles said:
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?
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A letter in the LA Times today..
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" What’s the point if God knows all?

Re “Putting prayer in its place,” Letters, Nov. 7

Christians — nondenominational evangelicals, most mainline Protestants and Roman Catholics — and many other non-Christians believe God or another deity sees all, hears all and knows the past, present and future. God knows everything humans have done, are doing and will do.

Publicly spoken prayer is not needed for these groups to “invoke their deity.” God needs no summons, if they believe what they say they do. In fact, they can’t un-invoke God’s presence.

Thus, in secular settings, publicly spoken prayer’s purpose may be to alert attendees that God is in the room and is a mind-reader. If that’s the case, a simple non-prayer statement would be refreshing, such as this:

“Before we begin, a reminder that many people believe God or another deity is hearing everything that’s said or thought in this room, and said deities may influence comments and decisions made tonight. You’ve been alerted. City Council is now in session.”

MARK DAVIDSON"
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And who among us can't say "Amen" to that?
 
Navigator said:
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.
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I did it for two reasons:

1) It was fun for me and my wife; and
2) It gives the kids something to debunk.

Finding out that there is no Santa is the first step to skepticism. Why take that away form my kids?
 
Dr. Keith said:
I did it for two reasons:

1) It was fun for me and my wife; and
2) It gives the kids something to debunk.

Finding out that there is no Santa is the first step to skepticism. Why take that away form my kids?
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Sounds like a plan.
Hey if you think lying to your kids in the first place is fine and dandy, why take that away from them?
That way they can be like their folks and lie to themselves about why they are lying to their kids.
 
Navigator said:
Sounds like a plan.
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Yes, and it worked quite well.

Hey if you think lying to your kids in the first place is fine and dandy, why take that away from them?
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Exactly! I think you've got it.

That way they can be like their folks and lie to themselves about why they are lying to their kids.
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Umm, you lost me there. Are you saying I am lying to myself about why I lied to my kids?

I think I was pretty honest, I even put them in the proper order of importance. Do you think I'm lying to you about that?
 
Brian-M said:
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....

[qimg]http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/picture.php?albumid=721&pictureid=8328[/qimg]​
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Pervs.
 
Gawdzilla said:
Help a poor ole country boy understand that better, please.
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Santa isn't given the same excuses God is. Santa can be very fast in Christmas Eve, but he can't be at the Mall and the Other Mall and the North Pole all at the same time. This despite assurances that he's everywhere, he's everywhere.
 
Dinwar said:
As I've said repeatedly on this forum, belief in God/gods is largely due to hard-wired issues in our brains....
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You might say it but it's only an hypothesis, and nothing even remotely resembling a scientific consensus, and even if there is some genetic tendency to buy into god beliefs, it's still a multifactorial outcome.

Or are you saying Europeans with larger swaths of atheism are genetically different from people in the US? Did the non-believer genes migrate to large metropolitan cities?
 
Beelzebuddy said:
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.
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What on Earth do you mean by "exactly"? The entire point I was making is that the claims about God are much less reasonable than those made about Santa. You claim that Santa is falsifiable because he claims to be able to visit every house at midnight, but God claims to be able to visit every house at midnight as well. God just claims to be able to do much more on top of that. If you dismiss Santa on the grounds that this clearly isn't possible, you must dismiss God on exactly the same grounds. On the other hand, if you make an exception for God, why can't you make the same exception for Santa?
 
phildonnia said:
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.
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It's not always used to ridicule arguments. Another use is to point out the very conundrum you have highlighted in your post.
 
Santa Claus as we know him today is a childhood fantasy that is fun for little kids and their parents. Why not a little magic and fantasy under controlled circumstances? Reality will rear its head soon enough. Responsible parents will dispell the idea if the kids are hopelessly stupid. Most kids figure it out long before telling their parents.

God is a whole other thing. The idea is deliberately driven home by the church, well meaning parents, and the surrounding culture as something to base your entire life on with the additional promise of having it go on forever.
Its all a matter of how your brain is imprinted by others.

Both ideas are equally absurd, but that's just the way it is.
 
Craig4 said:
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.
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This one made me laugh.
 
Cuddles said:
What on Earth do you mean by "exactly"? The entire point I was making is that the claims about God are much less reasonable than those made about Santa. You claim that Santa is falsifiable because he claims to be able to visit every house at midnight, but God claims to be able to visit every house at midnight as well. God just claims to be able to do much more on top of that. If you dismiss Santa on the grounds that this clearly isn't possible, you must dismiss God on exactly the same grounds. On the other hand, if you make an exception for God, why can't you make the same exception for Santa?
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Because Santa doesn't have centuries of apologetics greasing the stairs of childhood inquiry. He still has a physical body, for example. He's got some magic: if you don't have a chimney he can come in through the stove or the drainpipe or he can call Dad to be let in, but it has to be done physically. God has no such theoretical limitations: first question from Junior that can't be easily fielded and bam! mysterious ways all up in this hiz-ouse.
 
342673339_the_real_santa_xlarge.jpeg


S A N T A C L A U S @ A=6
 
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