Good man leaving me out of that one.
As some know, Seven is my real , legal name
Look, regardless of whether or not you think telling your kids that Santa really exists is a good idea, only a self-important jackass gets all offended that other people do it and starts crying about how they’re “LYING TO CHILDREN.” It’s obviously a harmless lie, so how is it any of your damn business? And only a complete asshole is so offended by it that she takes it upon herself to inform a roomfull of kids that their parents are liars when no one even asked a question about Santa. They were just reading a poem.
You don’t have some sort of moral duty to expose every one of the multitude of lies most parents tell to their kids. Get a fucking life.
And if you are going to start some sort of “Don’t ever lie to your kids” crusade, you could pick a better lie to target than “Some fat elf brings you presents.” Hell, my dad told me I’d had an older brother who was eaten by the boogey man. And he planted a tape recorder under my bed with a boogey man voice saying he was coming for me next . . . .
Thank goodness someone finally said it. I was starting to worry that the SDMB was broken.
Well apparently you have to enlighten the rest of us on your deeper understanding of the editorial. The version I read has absolutely nothing to do with the self-serving politicizing you wrote on here. Maybe you can do me a favor and read it again. Point out to those of us who is ignorants how you can manage to take one of the most well-known, concise, and poetic descriptions of the nature of faith and belief in the face of cold skepticism and arrogance, and turn it into a defense of your own opinion that the beauty of Christmas requires people to impose their own opinions on children and dismiss their family traditions as a “lie.”
While you’re at it, explain how the beauty of Christmas means giving a condescending tsk tsk to parents who are upset at someone else’s intrusion on their traditions. And how the magic of the season allows you to turn down your nose at the evil parents who tell their kids about Santa Claus instead of doing enough for poor, homeless, and runaway children.
Because, ignorant person than I am, I always thought that the point of the article was how the real truth is much greater than rational analysis and what can be observed and measured. I never understood the subtle nuances that suggest the real spirit of Christmas is dumping on children and then calling their parents stupid liars.
There you go. How’s that defending The Truth working out for you? This isn’t really about Santa Claus and allowing children to enjoy a story free of cynicism and skepticism. It’s really about the separation of Church and State.
Just speaking out loud, it seems somewhat hypocritical to upset children by intruding on a tradition, claim that there’s somehow something noble about that by putting the “Champion Of Rational Truth” spin on it, and then go on to say that it’s just the hyper-religious “professional bellyachers” who are going on the assault and blowing the nonsense out of proportion.
Seems a shame that the first casualties in the “war on ignorance” are always decency, consideration for others, and just plain basic common sense.
Um. Yeah. I still remember when my nursery school had to install metal detectors, the Anti-Truth Pro-Santa gang violence had gotten so out of control. We were just kids, then, so we couldn’t moan about being martyred for our beliefs on the internets. We just had to make do with the beatings and being stabbed by candy cane shivs.
You’re gonna have to remind me, Una: who exactly are the professional arguers and bellyachers, again?
That’s a strawman, because I never said that.
I don’t see how that offends you so. I’m saying that given the two options, telling the truth about what Christmas means is the best path for, ironically, letting children know about what Christmas means, as opposed to being in the Santa myth. I’m sorry if Christmas == Santa to some people, but they need to become less ignorant if they really want to know what Christmas means. Furthermore, I added this:
I said nothing about forcing children to not believe in Santa, or going out of one’s way to impose the unbelief on them. I said that “the teacher should either say nothing OR defer to the parents on matters like this”. If that’s not comprehensible to you, then there’s no point in talking.
You have badly misrepresented the words I wrote which are right here in this thread. I think in your mind you’ve added what others have said to what I’ve said rather than viewing each post independently. Maybe if you re-do your post, but instead damn me for the things I’ve actually said, you’ll have more of a point.
Another strawman. People here can read what I actually wrote:
Once again, I think you’re adding the content and meaning of other people’s posts to mine. Well, I’m not going to give you a fight like you seem to want, because what I wrote was apparently clear enough to the other hundreds who presumably read it.
Is this a strawman yet again? Evidently you don’t know much about elementary schools and the things kids do to those who don’t fit into the group opinion. Maybe you were home-schooled, or one of those Brazilian superbabies that never needed to go to school. One can cover their ears and close their eyes and pretend like kids don’t gang up on others who hold a differing opinion on stupid, pointless shit, but it still happens. In 2nd grade, I saw a kid beaten up because he insisted the planet Pluto was smaller than Mercury! If that doesn’t give one an idea of elementary class politics and mob behaviour, nothing will. A child who tries to speak out and tell other children that there is no Santa is likely to get a virtual bullseye on them. Given the hysterical reactions of some children reported in the article, that doesn’t seem like a stretch.
Who do you think? I’m one of them, certainly. I posted an opinion piece and said I wasn’t interested in a debate. However, you’ve deliberately misrepresented what I wrote so badly that in most forums you would have got a warning or caution from a Moderator, so I feel I need to clarify things since that’s not going to happen here.
No, that is the one and only part of your post that I completely skipped over, mis-read, and mis-interpreted. Mea culpa. That is exactly the conclusion everyone should take from all this nonsense.
As for the rest, I have to say I stand by my interpretation of the rest of what you wrote. I would admit it if I thought I’d conflated yours with other posts, but I don’t believe I did.
There are still moderators for this forum, and the “report this post” button still works better than an implied threat of moderator intervention.
I can and will go through a quote-by-quote explanation of what you said and how I read it and how it’s neither a misrepresentation nor a “strawman” if you want. But considering that neither of us want a debate, your follow-up clarified your opinions, and we both came to the same conclusion, it would be pointless.