Nope. Oh, sorry, thought we were fighting ignorance.
My mommy says you’re a meanie and a fibber.
And you’re geting nothing but coal in your stocking this year!
I guess this proves you are not Cecil.
I wonder, did you read the column, or just skim it for the answer you thought was right, and then post here about it when Cecil didn’t echo your precise thoughts??
I, for one, adore this column. It’s one of my favorites by Unca Cecil.
We love you, Unca Cecil!!!
Oooh, coal! I’ve always wanted coal!
Oh no, I read the whole column. I read it every year, and post the obligatory response. This year I didn’t bother linking to my previous thread on this column.
I get it - Cecil doesn’t want to be the one to put in writing “Santa Claus is a myth”, because someone will show it to a kid and “spoil the magic”. Hey, I’m not one to go around blabbing to children just to spoil the fun. I have not informed my nephew of it, though if he gets around to asking me he will get a straight answer. Because if he’s old enough to ask, he’s old enough for the truth.
But Cecil’s column is not supposed to be for kids, and the SDMB has a lower age limit. And yeah, I think it is important that when kids get old enough to question it that they get a straight answer, not a circumlocution.
So since Cecil can’t say it, I will - Santa Claus is a myth. Enjoy your Christmas, just don’t think there really is a fat guy coming down the chimney.
But Cecil is bound by the ethical code of mythical figures - they can’t rat on each other.
I am an adult (with kids (who, in the interests of full disclosure, are not in the room as I type this, so I will state my true feelings on Santa)) and I think Cecil got it spot on in explaining Santa. Francis Pharcellus Church had it even more precise. (In this group of erudite folks, I don’t think i should explain who he is, I get the impression if a Doper doesn’t know something he takes great joy in looking it up, as he or she is a Doper because they love knowledge).
My kids (ages 6 and 8), who do still believe in the myth, know that Santa exists, but that he isn’t everywhere at once. Just today we were at the mall, seeing Santa (just passing by, they made their formal visit a few weeks ago) and my daughter whispered to me that it wasn’t the real Santa there, just one of his helpers. (She was whispering because she didn’t want to ruin it for the little kids). That, to me, is what Santa is all about. Yes, the closest thing to a real-life Santa, the 4th (?) century bishop St. Nicholas, is long dead. But we, as parents and other adults who love making kids happy, are “Santa’s helpers”. We perpetuate the myth because the world is a better place with Santa alive. We may be the ones buying the presents - they weren’t made in a factory at the North Pole. We may be the ones eating the cookies and drinking the milk, not a fat home intruder. But, if we didn’t, there wouldn’t be a Christmas, and there wouldn’t be a Santa.
So, is Santa alive? Absolutely, as long as his “helpers” keep him alive. As one of Santa’s helpers, I am proud to say that.
(As I pointed out, I write that fully aware that all Dopers know that Santa Claus the man isn’t real. But Santa the myth is indeed immortal, as long as parents exist.)
Cecil puts it beautifully and succinctly, and this is how I explain it to my children:
My first born we always told the straight truth too. The next too I got lazy and gave up fighting mass media. I never lied to them, but never disabused them of misapprehensions.
My daughter at 5 concluded that Santa wasn’t a real person by a logical deduction based on the non-existence of flying reindeer. This year at 6 she is trying to argue it might still be possible.
No atheists in foxholes and no non-believers in pre-school. Not if they are smart enough.
But the mystery - the mystery of Santa Claus will live on. Santa Lives!
Your six year old is smarter than you realize. She is applying Pascal’s Wager to Santa Claus:
1). There are two possible states of Santa Claus’ existence: Santa Claus may exist. Santa Claus may not exist.
2). Let us assume Santa Claus does not exist. Those who believe and those who don’t believe will share the same fate: They’ll get presents from their parents.
3). However, what if Santa Claus does exist. Then believers will get presents while non-believers will not.
Therefore, we can conclude that it is better to believe in Santa Claus.
Santa gives presents to children based on their naughtiness, not their disbelief in him. Any mythological person who would punish people for not believing in him is a real asshole. 
[ul]
[li]When I was a kid, I realized Santa Claus wasn’t real.[/li]
[li]When I was a teenager, I realized Jesus wasn’t born on Christmas.[/li]
[li]When I was an adult, I discovered Santa Claus is real![/li][/ul]
It is a historically accepted fact that Saint Nicholas of Myra was an actual person who is patron saint of children. Furthermore, legend has it that back in the fourth century, he was credited with anonymously leaving gifts under the cover of night.
<Christmas television show narrator’s voice> *But as with all folks, good Saint Nicholas eventually passed on, but as time passed, something special happened… The charitable gift-giving spirit of ol’ Saint Nick lived on! Not just in one person, but his spirit travels all over the world every Christmas! *</Christmas television show narrator’s voice>
So apparently
[ul][*]When you become a senior citizen, you’ll discover “Jesus is the reason for the season”.[/ul]
Cecil assumes that everyone reading his column understands that Santa Claus is a myth. Cecil assumes that everyone over about 8 years old realizes that, and most kids under 8 do, too. Cecil assumes his audience/readers ARE intelligent. Or reasonably so, most of the time, sort of.
A column that asks, “Is Santa Claus real?” and answers with the one word “No” will not fill the column. And (more important) would not be interesting to ANY of his readers. Not one. A column that explores the historicity of St Nicholas, those are a dime a dozen. A column that explores the sentiment that keeps the myth alive: that seems interesting.
Plus, every so often, Cecil engages in his sense of humor. That gives us columns like this one: What’s the story on that weird medieval cult, the flatulents? Plus: do the Chinese use Chinese water torture? - The Straight Dope which includes the medieval cult of flatulents and why there’s a marijuana leaf on the Canadian flag. Also, on rare occasions, Cecil indulges in a little sentimentality. The column to which you so strenuously object every year is just that. Combines his sense of humor with his sense of warm-fuzziness. Doesn’t happen often, so we treasure it.
We are ALL Santa.
Or we can be, if we choose to.
Thanks, Cecil!
Are you kidding, he defends Santa by invoking that fairies are real. :rolleyes:
Next thing you know, we’ll be defending that Thetans are real and that we need an e-meter to make us clear.
Ya know, Irishman, I think your Body Thetans are acting up. I recommend the Thetan Hand Technique to get rid of them.
Childlike whimsy and the ability to use our imaginations without limits aren’t the same things as ignorance, especially if they are being practiced by children or recognized as being such by adults. At this pivotal moment in history, where the harsh realities of the universe met with the all too short-lived ability to imagine and make-believe that comes only with youth, Cecil managed to provide a scientifically correct answer without being the guy who throws a glass of ice water in the faces of kids youthful imaginations year after year, for generations to come. After all, who would want to be that guy?
Also it gives us this. This is a darn fine paragraph.
[quote=“ZenBeam, post:11, topic:565206”]
So apparently
[ul][li]When you become a senior citizen, you’ll discover “Jesus is the reason for the season”.[/ul][/li][/QUOTE]
You wound me sir.
When I was a kid, I believed in Santa Claus.
By the age of four I was nearly convinced that he was a myth for little kids. Then, while at a Christmas party at parents friends’ house, I was looking outside through the slot in the curtains and saw Santa Claus sneaking across the darkened front yard. He saw me, put his finger to his lips with a shushing motion, then slinked off.
I told the three other kids at the party, but he was long gone. Our monitoring of the window gave no new evidence. But I did walk all around among the towering adults for the rest of the party, waiting for the guy in the santa suit to leap out and surprise everyone. This never occurred, but I’d fallen asleep on the couch before the end of the party. On the way home I asked my mom and dad if the santa suit guy ever appeared, but they didn’t know what I was talking about.
So, what happens when a Skeptic personally experiences a space aliens abduction, or a near death experience, etc.?
Now as an adult I have two thoughts: if there is any unmonitored communication channel between human brains, even a subconscious one, even one based on body language and subtle facial expressions, it opens up the possibility of an enormous “internet” filled with living super-memes, ancient virii; evolution-shaped self-modifying code snippets living as parasites and co-evolved symbiotes in the vast processor-farm of human culture. As with bird song, co-evolution may have even provided “brain sockets” into which fairly complicated independently-thinking culturally-communicated virii can fit. If it’s possible for such a virus to usurp human perceptions and insert itself into our 3D perceptual world, evolution almost guarantees that it will have done so (perhaps starting hundreds of thousands of years ago.) This would explain much, and only requires a crude form of “telepathy,” plus a few hundred millenia of time to develop. Biocomputers, plus bio-WiFi, plus lack of security, gives petri dish of competing, fast-evolving noise patterns.
Santa Claus may have the same genuine existence as the silent independent personalities seen in “Alien Hand Syndrome.” Old Trek’s “Wolf in the Fold,” but not “Rejick Rejick REJICK!” Drink some reindeer urine, grab your besom, go march at the head of the yearly equinox parade. Will your normal personality be temporarily overwritten by something Other? OK, now instead drink some spiked eggnog and brandish your Visa card…
Second thought: FREAKING DEFINE the phrase Santa Claus!!! If two opponents are discussing “god” while unknowingly maintaining totally separate and incompatible definitions of the term, all discussions become useless tangles. Same with “Santa Claus.”
There is no existence of Santa Claus in this world. We all are Santa’s and kidding each other