I always questioned the existence of Grandfather Frost (the Russian equivalent of Santa). It didn’t make sense to me that someone could break into so many tightly locked apartments all in a single day, and leave no traces of it.
To that end, I tried to stay awake on New Year nights and see for myself how he does it. This required my parents to jump through hoops, like carrying me to a different room “for my own good”, to preserve the illusion. The turning point was when I peeked into my parents’ closet and saw gifts that Grandfather Frost was supposed to give me. I still wish they just told me the truth from the get go, and I’m annoyed that they’re bent on doing the same thing with my brother, who lacks my capacity for critical thinking.
Strangely, I stopped believing in God long before that, and before I knew it was called atheism.
Reflecting in hindsight, it could have happened because I saw less evidence for God than for the Santa-equivalent. Intuitively, I could have preferred the simpler explanation “Grandfather Frost exists”, even thought it included unknowns such as the question how exactly he could leave presents everywhere at once and leave no trace of breaking in, rather than believing a conspiracy theory.
With God, on the other hand, I had no reason to hold that belief other than the words of the Bible and religious people like my great-grandmother, and I already saw that they were wrong on many other accounts.
That may be true, but from my experience, most people’s opinions on the existence of God here are “meh, maybe, maybe not” (which by itself is enough to make Russia one of the most non-theistic nations on the planet), while I went strictly from “God exists” to “God does not exist”.
I always questioned the existence of Grandfather Frost (the Russian equivalent of Santa). It didn’t make sense to me that someone could break into so many tightly locked apartments all in a single day, and leave no traces of it.
To that end, I tried to stay awake on New Year nights and see for myself how he does it. This required my parents to jump through hoops, like carrying me to a different room “for my own good”, to preserve the illusion. The turning point was when I peeked into my parents’ closet and saw gifts that Grandfather Frost was supposed to give me. I still wish they just told me the truth from the get go, and I’m annoyed that they’re bent on doing the same thing with my brother, who lacks my capacity for critical thinking.
Strangely, I stopped believing in God long before that, and before I knew it was called atheism.
Upvoted for catching on to the nonexistence of God before you figured out Santa Claus. I think that’s the first time I’ve heard that one.
To my deep chagrin, while I became an atheist around 5 or 6, I don’t think it was until 7 or so that I really gave up on Santa.
I say chagrin because really, even my books were telling me there was no real Santa which they certainly weren’t doing with God, yet still...
Reflecting in hindsight, it could have happened because I saw less evidence for God than for the Santa-equivalent. Intuitively, I could have preferred the simpler explanation “Grandfather Frost exists”, even thought it included unknowns such as the question how exactly he could leave presents everywhere at once and leave no trace of breaking in, rather than believing a conspiracy theory.
With God, on the other hand, I had no reason to hold that belief other than the words of the Bible and religious people like my great-grandmother, and I already saw that they were wrong on many other accounts.
I would suspect it might have more to do with living in a country that was an atheist state until 20 years ago.
That may be true, but from my experience, most people’s opinions on the existence of God here are “meh, maybe, maybe not” (which by itself is enough to make Russia one of the most non-theistic nations on the planet), while I went strictly from “God exists” to “God does not exist”.