Faith, Mythology, Truth, and Santa (or, Poly Writes a Myth)

Great Debates
1

One of the classic analogies brought forth against any religious faith espoused here is the one to Santa Claus (and the first person to spell that with a final -e here will be firmly escorted to the Pit and have a Tim Allen videotape inserted in lieu of a suppository! :mad: ).

The essence of the argument seems to be that just as little kids believe in Santa Claus as the all-seeing arbiter of good and evil who rewards them for being good in some magical and mysterious way, so God is likewise a construct of human mythology who is an “all-seeing arbiter of good and evil who will reward them for being good in some magical and mysterious way” – and as such should be as firmly rejected as the Santa Claus myth.

However, I can recall explaining to my mother at age 7 that Santa Claus is real – but he’s not a guy who comes down the chimney (fortunate, that; we had oil heat and he’d have ended up in the oil burner instead of the fireplace we didn’t have) but rather the way that people express being generous without letting on that it’s them who are doing it. (Something like a lot of board members, to my certain knowledge! :))

I still remember the warm grin on her face when I said that. Stop grinning, Mom; I’m trying to be serious here!! :smiley:

The God-as-Santa-for-grownups concept was well expressed by mrfoi in the “Religious people are really immature” thread, which I don’t want to hijack:

So let’s take a look at the Santa Myth for a moment.

First, the historical foundation for it lies in the work of Nicholas, Bishop of Myra, who died on December 6, 326. From the early-winter commemoration of a gift-giving saint, combined with a pagan figure that was transmogrified into Father Christmas, evolved the Santa persona we all know.

And yes, he has come to symbolize the warmth and generosity of the Christmas season. And there is a “reality” to him that transcends any historical or metaphysical validity about him, just as the Camelot mythos carries a construct of meanings that far transcend the historical reality behind Artorius, Warlord of the Britons.

But it occurred to me that there’s yet another aspect of Santa that I haven’t discussed here.

I was his guest at dinner with him once, at the Congress of Vienna. And he was exactly as specified, save that his cheeks were not quite as ruddy as depicted – heavyset, bearded, jovial, and warmly caring. With us were a number of pert and vivacious elves of both sexes, the President and First Lady of a neighboring Free State, the Court Mathemagician, and a gentle and thoughtful Bear (who so far as I could tell was neither Grizzly nor biPolar, though the stresses of his life would be ample justification for the latter).

Santa himself has relocated his operations to the D.C. area (probably to avoid discovery) but continues to monitor the well-being of boys and girls and of others who may need his help, to evince warm caring and wise advice to those he encounters, and to show the love of God and his fellow men in all that he does, just as the original Nicholas did. What he’s done about the reindeer, I’m not sure.

And at least seven Dopers can vouch for the literal truth of those last two paragraphs.

And that, my friends, is how literal truth becomes myth.

Now, of course, the truth about Santa is that it’s not really a guy that watches to see if you’ve been bad or good from some remote location, and magically makes presents appear. It’s really your father who loves you, and others who love you and carry on in the Santa tradition.

And, my friends, IMHO that’s the truth about God. He’s not a Magical Sky Pixie who makes notes about whether you’ve been bad or good with the idea of rewarding or punishing you –

He’s your Father who loves you. And who works through those who love Him and you, and carry on the God tradition.

2

Well, Santa, in the sense I think you’re getting at, could not exist without humans, and did not exist before humans did. (And would cease to exist if we did.)

Do you mean to suggest that God is not the creator of the Universe?

3

Is God an unjust judge? Or a man who plays favorites between his two sons? How much faith does a grain of mustard seed have anyway? Whaddaya do with a pearl of great price once you’ve bought it? (aside from read it, if you’re Mormon! ;))

Which is to say, don’t try to stretch a metaphor beyond the limits it sets for itself.

4

to the OP…amen poly, and it’s nice to see you again.
we missed you.

5

Could it be? Could George W Bush actually be Santa? Could Norad be mistakenly tracking him coming from the North Pole? Sounds like Bushy Claus shoulda dropped the Golden Bough by Sir James George Frasier in someone’s stocking.

As per MEBuckner’s comment, it quickly becomes some kind of cyclical religious mobious strip with no ending or beginning of the myth, but of course, that’s only one side.

I guess I’d like to think a little bit to the fact that things are done without the necessity to have it illogical explained to be the cause of a god.

6

One thing which has always bothered me about the Santa myth is the way in which it can hurt children; apart from those parents who deliberately use it for that purpose, children who are young enough to still believe in Santa are generally still young enough to be distressed by Santa leaving them a $10 doll while the ashole kid from hell down the road gets left a Playstation 2.

I see the same thing happen with young children and religion - the use of God as the ultimate deterrent to bad behaviour, and the utter confusion and sense of betrayal children feel when God apparently punishes “good” people and rewards “bad”.

I think that mythological characters can be very powerful examples of what is both good and bad in humanity. I don’t have to believe there is a God or that Jesus was ever a living person in order to see that there is much wisdom in what we are told that he taught - the lessons stand alone, whether Christ was a fictional or non-fictional character.

It’s how we use our mythologies which I often find disturbing.

7

I agree. This is exactly why I think that the study of mythology’s effect on the human psyche should be required at the public high school level.

8

Stpauler, I suspect strongly that the Doper I depicted (accurately) as “Santa” will be strolling by rather upset at the idea you saw GWB in him (though his beard is bushy ;))

Could I get a rephrase on this? I want to answer it, but I’m a bit baffled by the sentence structure, and would rather answer what you actually meant to say, not what I misconstrued that sentence as meaning.

Reprise and Bryan: I agree. That’s part of the reason I wrote this – because (like Buck did in the first response) we’re trying to work with our myths as though they were factual. And so I turned a factual account of a Dopefest into a myth, to illustrate a theological point on what God is and is not to me.

9

Let’s take my “the way we use mythology” example a little further.

Police exist - that’s something on which we totally agree. Yet many parents create a mythology about how police use their power - “if you’re naughty, the police will come and take you away” (when I was a child, children’s homes used to be the big threat).

Other parents use a totally MYTHICAL creation - the boogeyman - to the same end; and in some ways I think the mythical boogeyman can be even more scary to children than the real policemen. While children KNOW that police exist, they have seen them and so have some concept of the attributes of “the monster”; the boogeyman, however, is this totally nebulous, amorphous threat - limited in horror only by the individual child’s imagination.

Does it matter to the child that the policeman is real and the boogeyman is not? Probably not; the mythology created about police and the myth created about the boogeyman are equally frightening to the child because it is the precise intention of the parents that the child be frightened.

Of course those same parents who’ve tried to frighten the child with the policeman will some day try to persuade that same child to trust police (no-one EVER tries to persuade their child to trust the boogeyman). And those same parents who’ve tried to frighten their child with God will some day try to persuade their child to have faith in him.

10

Sorry about that, the crux of that sentence is “things can be explained without resorting to divine intervention”. Or, “Jesus ain’t the reason for the _____”. Why not just attribute the great behaviour someone demonstrated to the person and not the myth.

11

Why should it matter either way?

12

Simply giving credit where it’s due, IMHO. Why make something more elaborate and grandiose than it needs to be.

13

Because the grandiose and elaborate stick to the human psyche alot easier.

14

I get all nervous when it seems that we are going to explain how we know there is a God. I don’t know how we know that there is a God. I know that there is a God, but I never checked His ID, or got references. It didn’t come up. And when I address other people about God, I generally don’t try to convince them that there is a God. Convincing is a matter of believing, or disbelieving. God is not.

God is someone. And our belief in Him only matters to us, and to Him. It’s kind of like little kids, and Santa Claus. For you, it’s just a guy in a suit, with a fake beard, telling kids what they want to hear. But for Santa Claus, it isn’t about telling the kids anything at all. It’s about listening to the kids, and paying attention to what they say. For you, Santa Claus is a myth about being good or bad. Kids don’t tell Santa Claus about stuff like that. Kids tell Santa Claus about what they want. And they ask him about flying, and if it’s really cold at the North Pole. They could care less about telling Santa Claus about being good. Santa Claus knows all about that stuff. You don’t have to tell him. And you know what? No kid ever expects Santa Claus to give them a hard time about the stuff they did that was bad. They don’t think they got away with anything, but it just isn’t the way Santa Claus works. He knows, you know, and neither of you needs to talk about it.

So, God the public figure, is a conceptual personification of man’s potential to be good, and everyone sees in Him what they feel is the best in themselves. They also fear from Him what they feel is worst in themselves. So, they decide that they made God, in their own image. And they worship what they most like about themselves, and decide that the other parts must be Satan. That makes it very convenient.

But the God the person isn’t like that. He is more than you can know, and more than you can pretend to know. He is just there. Your description is nothing but the image of God that you know. And what is the image of God with which you are most familiar? Why, you are, of course! And so, you create a tiny little God in a box, and show it to other people, so that they will know that you know God. You just shut God up in a box, by the way. Not a very reverent way to treat Him. So, I get all nervous when people ask me to tell them what God is like. Because, mostly I think he is only like me because I am the only thing I really understand. And telling you that is like telling you that I am God. Which I ain’t.

Heck, I ain’t even Santa Claus.

But I do try to act like him. On a good day, that is.

Tris

“Cabbage: A familiar kitchen-garden vegetable about as large and wise as a man’s head.” ~ Ambrose Bierce ~

15

And on that ^^^ ::: points at Tris’s post ::: I rest my case. :slight_smile:

16

I contend the opposite position and say that deity is metaphor for the self. As such, it is entirely possible to completely know deity in your lifetime, but it takes self-discipline, alot of patience, and experiencing as many things as possible.

17

Tris, why should you feel nervous? Forget the fuckwits (sorry mods) who might choose to involve themselves in this discussion.

I’m one of those “card-carrying atheists” who will challenge you every time about your theist viewpoint on the world. I DON’T - and I emphatically don’t - believe in any kind of theism (let alone Christian theism). And do you know what? They are “only” beliefs", just like this is “only” a messageboard.

I do not have to believe in the “divinity” of your particular deity in order to appreciate the wisdom of your scriptures.

18

reprise,

Well, if you did believe in God, you would have something to be nervous about. Getting your ego in the place of your faith is not a problem for you, since you cannot possibly offend, or hurt the feelings of an entity you don’t believe exists. I do believe that God exists. I think he does care about man. And I think it might piss Him off if I drove some person away from knowing Him by my attitude.

Making philosophical mistakes doesn’t make me nervous, hurting the relationships of my God and His beloved children makes me nervous. And leading the Lamb of God astray makes me nervous. For you it’s just a question of right and wrong. For me it’s a matter of life and death.

Tris

19

My Dad never would allow us as children to believe in Santa Claus. Have I missed somelthing? He didn’t tell me because of any religious
beliefs though, he told me because he was jealous of Santa. I remember when he told me I was either 4 or 5 yrs. old and we were watching Chet Huntley on the news with me telling him what I wanted
Santa to bring me for Christmas, when he finally said, Do you know who your Santa Claus is? It’s me, I’m Santa I’m the one that gets you
what you want. Well I can remember telling him after he told me that
well Daddy here’s what I want for Christmas. Years later after I am married and have children of my own, the tradition didn’t die. Even though I tried to let my children beleive in Santa, with my Dad around there was no-way. He told them there was no Santa, and would even take them and show them where their Christmas presents where hidden. Which was the same thing he done to my Mom when we were children at home. I have no regrets for him telling me the truth or telling my kids, after awhile it became a game of every year trying to hide the presents where my Dad and my girls couldn’t find them. I can say one thing though, this past Christmas was the first one without him, he passed away last Jaunuary, I’m just happy that he made those memories for me and my girls, because it really became very comical at times. Now maybe I can hit the submit button on this, this just makes the umteenth time I’ve tried to post this message…

20

For those of you who are not in the know, since nobody has seen fit to post and explicate what I was up to in the OP, when I passed through the Capital Area I was treated to dinner by Triskadecamus, whose physical and personality description I used as a real-life model for “Santa.”

And my point, more or less, is that there is usually a statement of truth underlying any myth, which is expressed in literal language in ways that appear to “disprove” the myth, but also expressed in figurative, meaning-fraught language by the myth itself. It is not to be judged by the standards one brings to literal truth but rather by whether it effectively conveys a deeper, emotional understanding of what the events described mythically “mean” to people. Being “washed in the blood of the Lamb” in a figurative sense has been a classic metaphor for evangelical Christianity – that to many modern people it suggests grossness rather than cleansing means that it has become a fairly ineffective metaphor and myth for a large group of people today.

The Lord of the Rings and Stranger in a Strange Land are attempts at modern mythmaking that resonate with people who clearly don’t believe in the reality of Frodo Baggins or V. Michael Smith but derive a sense of self-sacrificial love for the good of people in general from those works of fiction. Whether or not there was a historical Adam and Eve, Abraham and Isaac, etc., the stories about them resonate with an inner knowledge of how people really are.

Hence Tris’s statement that God really is, and is a person, implies to many nonbelievers a naive acceptance of the Great Sky Pixie of sarcastic prose – but the God in whom Tris and I believe is quite real and greater than anything which can be described in either attemptedly-literal narrative or myth, but whose nature is best suggested by the myths and metaphors of large parts of Scripture.

Reprise. are you at all familiar with the works of Tillich (very tough reading, IMHO) or of John Shelby Spong (who is much more readable and bases his theology on Tillich). Both men sincerely believe in God but reject “theism” in the sense of a belief in “a God up there” in favor of His immanence, His presence in all things – the latter being also orthodox Christian thought.