I don’t think I ever really believed in Santa Claus. I believed in those presents, sure, but I didn’t believe the whole reindeer thing.
I don’t think I ever believed in god, either. I was about ten when I finally stood up to my mother and told her I wasn’t going to church again. Before that, I would bring a book or, when I was too young for that, some crayons to church so I didn’t have to be bored to tears.
I think there’s something missing in me where the faith and belief is in other people. I have tried, over the years, to believe in something, whether it was Eris or Jesus or aliens or astrology or el nino. I just can’t believe. Oh well.
I don’t think I ever really bought into the Santa thing. My parents used to take me to see Santa when I was about 5 or 6 and he had incredibly bad breath. Turned me right off.
However, the religion thing is a different story. I was a believer up until I was about 10 or so. But I had questions that people either couldn’t or wouldn’t answer, so I started looking for the answers for myself. That quest for knowledge lasted until my early twenties, by which time I had read I don’t know how much stuff on religions of all kinds. What I found out is that **all ** organized religions are nothing more than a con game, a huge, elaborate lie.
I’m still pissed at having been lied to by so many people for so many years of my early life. And I’m pissed that the lies continue and have infected the soul of our society as badly as they have.
Santa… hmm, I dunno. Six at the latest.
God… Sixteen, I think.
Reminds me of a conversation my older sister had with Mom. Sis was just a little girl then, and Mom had just told her the terrible secret of Santa…
Sis: So there’s no Santa Claus?
Mom: No.
Sis: No Easter Bunny, either?
Mom: Nope, no Easter Bunny either.
Sis: Does that mean there’s no God?
Mom: Don’t go there.
My sister’s an atheist now; and I’m not sure exactly what the hell Mom believes in. I do know that when we all went to go see Jimmy Buffett, Mom was praying to practically everything (including Jimmy Swaggart and Big Bird) and chanting the Lotus Sutra, hoping that neither Jimmy nor she would have a heart attack before we got to the concert.
I think it might be good for your own well-being to investigate this pissed-offedness a little bit. The god stuff isn’t true, but I don’t think it’s a lie. I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with being annoyed at pseudo-science or shaky ethics or intolerance. The latter two are worth all the anger you can put into them (the first is just a source of amusement to me), particularly if you can use that anger constructively. But I think it’s incorrect, and worse, self-destructive, to think that people are liars just because they believe stupid things.
For me, it was similar. My parents weren’t particularly religious, though my mother does have a spiritual belief system (which doesn’t fit into any particular organized religion.) I had a lot of exposure to Christianity, though, in school and among friends and relatives. I did believe in God but because I didn’t go to church with my family, I didn’t think I could be religious. I thought you had to be a regular church-goer who knew the bible well.
Anyway, at a difficult point in my life (I was probably 9) I prayed so hard everyday for help from God. It never came. I took it to mean God didn’t exist or that he didn’t care about me. That was that. I just let it go. Now I’m agnostic–I don’t have any answers.
As for Santa, the older kids at school kept saying there was no Santa. I asked my parents a few times without a satisfactory response. Finally I asked when I was 7 or 8 and I guess they thought it was time to fess up. Woah boy was I ever angry. I cried and threw a tantrum because I was so mad that my parents lied! I wasn’t so mad at losing the myth of Santa because the kids had been telling me for some time he isn’t real. So that part wasn’t a shock. The shock was that my parents had convincingly and continually lied to me. Funny, now, but a huge shock to me at the time.
1) How old were you when you stopped believing in God(s)?
I honestly never remember a time when I actively believed in a god. I always felt god was basically a story similar to Zues, Mt. Olympus, elves, faries and the like. I never felt like I fit in when I went to church, Sunday school and various Xtian youth groups I participated in. Everyone else seemed to believe God was as real as our cat, but I for whatever reason couldn’t. I wasn’t able to explain or really understand why I couldn’t believe, but deep down I just didn’t.
2) How old were you when you stopped believing in Santa Clause?
I’m not sure when I stopped believing in Santa either. I have a vague memory as a kid, probably around 6 or so of us kids standing by our bedroom window looking for Santa. My older brother then said that there was no Santa, and my response was something like “well duh…”. I don’t recall if my little brother or sister said anything about that or not. I just recall not being surprised.
Another memory, though I am not sure it is real, is of me hiding behind our old chair in the living room on Xmas and seeing my parents bring in presents and place them under the tree.
