I’ve been exposed to the alternate viewpoint that this realization may be good for developing rationalists, because it provides children with the experience of discovering that they hold beliefs which are wrong and absurd, and that they must reject them.
At least one vociferous anti-rationalist agrees with this viewpoint: learning the truth about Santa Claus can lead one to reject Jesus, with disastrous results. You all know Jack Chick, right?
There’s a valid point here, with one big qualification: one can learn the truth about Santa Claus without first being deceived by one’s parents, with the emotional confusion that may bring. It’s the same as how I learned about skepticism of God: I was acquainted with the concept through my peers’ belief in it, and when I asked my mother about it she explained that this is an idea people came up with when they didn’t understand the Universe as well. My parents could have let me learn about the fiction of Santa the same way, without modeling deception themselves.
Well, what I like about that comic is that it implicitly accepts that killing a fellow child in a murderous rage would be OK if that child denied the existence of Jesus, because Jesus is real!
Well, I don’t think that Chick really accepts that conclusion. But I don’t see how “The day that changed Harry—forever” would have gone differently if Harry had not been told about Santa etc, but the children had taunted him over Jesus instead. (Obviously Harry is not a Christian by Chick’s standards, but we know that he has been told about Jesus.) If we are to blame stories about Santa etc for his actions, then we stories about Jesus are just as dangerous.
Now that I write this out, perhaps Chick would agree. Stories about Jesus of the sort that you get in wishy-washy liberal churches (especially Roman Catholicism) are harmful, according to Chick. I came to my conclusion by assuming that Chick would never consider stories about Jesus to be harmful, but this was a mistake. So you are right.
At least one vociferous anti-rationalist agrees with this viewpoint: learning the truth about Santa Claus can lead one to reject Jesus, with disastrous results. You all know Jack Chick, right?
There’s a valid point here, with one big qualification: one can learn the truth about Santa Claus without first being deceived by one’s parents, with the emotional confusion that may bring. It’s the same as how I learned about skepticism of God: I was acquainted with the concept through my peers’ belief in it, and when I asked my mother about it she explained that this is an idea people came up with when they didn’t understand the Universe as well. My parents could have let me learn about the fiction of Santa the same way, without modeling deception themselves.
Well, what I like about that comic is that it implicitly accepts that killing a fellow child in a murderous rage would be OK if that child denied the existence of Jesus, because Jesus is real!
I’m no fan of Chick’s, but that’s a bit of a reach.
Well, I don’t think that Chick really accepts that conclusion. But I don’t see how “The day that changed Harry—forever” would have gone differently if Harry had not been told about Santa etc, but the children had taunted him over Jesus instead. (Obviously Harry is not a Christian by Chick’s standards, but we know that he has been told about Jesus.) If we are to blame stories about Santa etc for his actions, then we stories about Jesus are just as dangerous.
Now that I write this out, perhaps Chick would agree. Stories about Jesus of the sort that you get in wishy-washy liberal churches (especially Roman Catholicism) are harmful, according to Chick. I came to my conclusion by assuming that Chick would never consider stories about Jesus to be harmful, but this was a mistake. So you are right.