Santa Claus is good for the atheists

[buritobr]

1) When he becomes the biggest celebrity of the Christmas, instead of Jesus Christ, he makes the Holiday less religious

2) Children learn that Santa Claus, the guy who gives gifts to the children who behave well during the year, is just fiction. This is the first step to think that God, the guy who allow the entrance in the heaven for people who behave well during the life, is just fiction too.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

1) When he becomes the biggest celebrity of the Christmas, instead of Jesus Christ, he makes the Holiday less religious

This is true.

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This is a smug just-so hot take on religious psychology.

[Joe Republic]

1) When he becomes the biggest celebrity of the Christmas, instead of Jesus Christ, he makes the Holiday less religious

That's been the case already for quite a few decades.

[DC Al Fine]

2) Children learn that Santa Claus, the guy who gives gifts to the children who behave well during the year, is just fiction. This is the first step to think that God, the guy who allow the entrance in the heaven for people who behave well during the life, is just fiction too.

This is a smug just-so hot take on religious psychology.

Indeed

[afleitch]

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This is a smug just-so hot take on religious psychology.

On what basis are they actually different? Seriously. On what basis are beliefs in those two omnipotent fundamentally and structurally different?

[Cassius]

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This is a smug just-so hot take on religious psychology.

On what basis are they actually different? Seriously. On what basis are beliefs in those two omnipotent fundamentally and structurally different?

Well, one is backed by a multitude of established Churches, many with histories dating back centuries, whilst the other (at least in his modern form) is primarily a marketing ploy by the Coca Cola corporation.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

You must be logged in to read this quote.

This is a smug just-so hot take on religious psychology.

On what basis are they actually different? Seriously. On what basis are beliefs in those two omnipotent fundamentally and structurally different?

1. The social and psychological functions that believing in God (or whatever else one's religion has to communicate the idea of 'ultimacy') has are far broader. This is what I mean when I say that it's a hot take psychologically. EDIT: This is sort of a less cynically institutionalist way of saying what Cassius just said.
2. God is held to do a less overtly specific set of things and is, at least in theory, not as obviously in hock to a specific set of immediate human needs. This isn't really relevant to why I said what I originally did, but it is why the beliefs are theoretically as well as practically of different kinds.

A lot of people who believe in God definitely treat Him as Cosmic Santa, but my point is that saying something like that not believing in Santa will somehow 'prep' one for not believing in God ignores the fact that for most people God fulfills a way more broad-based and conceptually firmer set of psychological needs.

[Alcon]

...right, but isn't the point that realizing that some "received truths" are based on psychological need/pleasure instead of truth, might lead people to be more likely to question other received truths?  You guys seem to be arguing that the claim is ridiculous because belief in God is a more robust belief, but that's not mutually exclusive from the claim he's making.

I think the bigger problem is that the Santa "reveal" is well-settled by the time that children can do that kind of abstract reasoning, so it doesn't prompt it.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I think the bigger problem is that the Santa "reveal" is well-settled by the time that children can do that kind of abstract reasoning, so it doesn't prompt it.

You're right, that's actually a better point than the one I was making.

[RFayette]

Interestingly, the point that the OP is making was made (in an extremely dramatic and exaggerated way ), by this Chick Tract.

https://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/1033/1033_01.asp

I do think there is some degree of truth to the assertion, insofar as kids could draw similarities between Santa and God, even though the two are very different in many ways (as Cassius and Madeline eloquently pointed out).

Personally, I would tell my kids the truth about Santa (and the tooth fairy, or not tell them at all about the figures) just so this doesn't become an issue.  

[afleitch]

I was asking because ultimately, the 'Santa reveal' tends to be adult driven. Children, particularly those brought up with religious faith and particularly those who understand the 'harmony' between celebrating a religious festival and having the messenger like symbolic Santa happening at the same time may not be as forthright in 'accepting' that Santa doesn't exist, or more importantly daring to doubt, even when faced with peer pressure until such time as there is adult validation of their assumption.

One the same basis children who are brought up with faith and their parents lose it (and I can't quite put my finger on the paper about this) when they are children are not necessarily driven to 'stay as believers' (ignoring the heavily constructed born again rhetoric that you sometimes get from people who falsely recall their own past state of being), because that belief is somehow as Alcon was saying 'robust'. That belief rests on the same assumptions, and the same adult prompting at least in childhood and can fade away in exactly the same way. Therefore, as throw away as it is, it can be argued that there is a 'Santa Claus' effect in terms of adult belief systems based on psychological needs.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

Oh, Santa's great for atheism! Mr. Kringle's powerful media campaign has turned Christmas into a consumerist bonanza! The increased atomization of the citizenry combined with their enslavement to television norms is one of the greatest schemes the secular-industrial complex could have ever dreamed!

[ingemann]

Oh, Santa's great for atheism! Mr. Kringle's powerful media campaign has turned Christmas into a consumerist bonanza! The increased atomization of the citizenry combined with their enslavement to television norms is one of the greatest schemes the secular-industrial complex could have ever dreamed!

Christmas have always had little to do with Christianity and the whole "consumerist bonanza" are precisely in its spirit, as a celebration of the days become longer and the general drinking, partying, whoring and over eating which have been the true spirit of Christmas as long as it have been celebrated.

[buritobr]

Few people believe in God by using the logic (example: the ones who read Thomas Aquinas' works)

Most of the people who believe in God don't care about theology. They just want a powerful guy who can do good thing for themselves. They want a Cosmic Santa Claus.

[Kingpoleon]

Children learn that Santa Claus, the guy who gives gifts to the children who behave well during the year, is just fiction. This is the first step to think that God, the guy who allow the entrance in the heaven for people who behave well during the life, is just fiction too.

"Virginia, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men’s or children’s, are little. In this great universe of ours, man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.

"Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus! It would be as dreary as if there were no Virginias. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.

"Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies. You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if you did not see Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that’s no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.

"You tear apart the baby’s rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived could tear apart. Only faith, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, Virginia, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.

"No Santa Claus! Thank God! he lives and lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay 10 times 10,000 years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood."

Not believing in something is not the same as not knowing of something.

[Swedge]

I've never thought of it this way haha, brilliant.

[i4indyguy]

I agree totally with OP that Santa and Easter bunny are bad for devout faith...

and yet strangely, i have absolutely no objection to them...    : )