Tangential spinoff of the recent thread where a teacher was fired for telling students that Santa didn’t exist:
There was considerable outrage on Facebook over the incident as well - I would guesstimate that about 75% of the several thousand commenters were opposed to the teacher and that relatively few took her side. I can’t help but think, though, that a significant number of these posters wouldn’t have a problem with someone proclaiming “God does not exist”.
It’s even more incongruous given that the existence of God is debatable whereas Santa obviously does not exist, yet people were getting upset over the latter being declared as fake but not the former.
AIUI, the major (and perhaps only) difference is because of “the innocence of children.” People were largely upset over the teacher telling students that Santa was fake, but wouldn’t be upset about adults telling adults that God doesn’t exist, because children need holiday innocence preserved but adults do not need religious innocence preserved - something to that effect.
So is that really what it’s all about? We need to preserve a myth about Santa because kids’ sensitivities need it?
(I am a Christian and believe in God’s existence, but for this thread I would particularly like to hear opinions from atheist Dopers about why Santa and God should be treated any differently from an atheistic perspective. All other Doper perspectives welcome, too, though, of course.)
I think the problem is that parents are considered to have the right to indoctrinate children as they see fit in non-academic areas. So adults telling adults about God doesn’t fall into this category.
I doubt that many of the posters would be fine with a teacher saying to a class that God does not exist. If someone did that, the shitstorm would be 20X the Santa one.
Hell, I was going to show a second grade science class pictures of prehistoric man, but my friend who taught it warned me off, because the father of one kid was a Seventh Day Adventist creationist, who threatened to sue if anyone implied that any of that evilution stuff was true. And I’m in California.
Santa is a happy, innocent myth. Believers in Santa aren’t running around with suicide vests, or voting for white nationalists, or flying planes into buildings, or going to war with believers in the tooth fairy.
Also if a teacher told a room full of kids that god didn’t exist, there would be a huge outcry. Much bigger than if they said Santa doesn’t exist.
Also apostasy is punishable in many muslim nations, so adults telling other adults that god doesn’t exist does have major ramifications.
My stepsister is a devout Christian and she’s told all her kids Santa doesn’t exist. I’m atheist and my two year old believes in Santa. My stepsister’s kids however blurt out that Santa isn’t real at every opportunity at Christmas, as they’re those kind of Christians, and I find it such a shame. Honestly, I’m half-tempted, if they break my daughter’s heart, to tell them God doesn’t exist, either.
I actually think Santa is sort of a mock lesson for kids to walk them through their eventual disbelief in god.
You’re convinced someone magical is out there. He knows everything you do. He’ll reward you if you’re good and punish you if you’re bad. Everyone around you seems to believe in him too, reinforcing that belief.
And then you realize that something you believed so hard, something you took for granted as being true, was actually a mass delusion inflicted on you by your society. And you realize you were fooled.
That’s very similar to the steps you take as a kid on your way to rejecting a belief in god after seeing it for what it is.
Funny enough, you’re actually given much more evidence that Santa exists than God does. Someone gives you those presents every year. It’s fraudulent evidence, but it makes more sense to believe it to be real than something with no evidence at all.
I’m a little surprised no one else seems to realize this, and that religious parents don’t discourage a belief in Santa from the start to prevent this pathway from forming in their child’s mind. I guess we see that even with this lesson, most kids turn out religious anyway, but certainly among at least some of the unbelieving, this lesson formed part of the cognitive toolset they used to get to where they are.
I’m against teachers telling students,young enough to believe in santa, ‘there is not santa’ and ‘there is no god.’ I don’t see a difference to debate one is ok and the other isn’t.
Belief in Santa is a harmless delusion that nobody expects a teenager still to have. Belief in god is a harmful one that people keep to adulthood and should be called out and corrected as soon as possible.
I am atheistic/agnostic Doper and do not treat the cases much differently, nor, I would guess, do the others you complain of.
I would tell an adult of my belief that God doesn’t exist, but I wouldn’t tell a child.
I would tell an adult of my belief that Santa doesn’t exist, but I wouldn’t tell a child.
[SUB][SUP][SUB](I don’t keep a scorecard of Dopers, but this and a few other recent posts have altered my blurry impression of Velocity.)[/SUB][/SUP][/SUB]
OP, is it your position that if the teacher told the class that God doesn’t exist, there would be less of a shitstorm? Because, I’m :dubious: about that.
Addressing the OP, there’s more evidence for Santa, so they aren’t exactly equivalent. But then belief in God or gods has more effect on society, so they aren’t equivalent that way either. My lack of belief in one is the same as my lack of belief in the other, or in the tooth fairy or the flying spaghetti monster. I lack belief in supernatural entities, so in that sense, they are the same.
They were upset because the teacher inserted himself into an area of parental discretion where he should not have. He acted, in SDMB terms, like a jerk.
No one was upset at the guy for not believing in Santa, or saying so to fellow adults, because it would be ridiculous to be upset about that. The analogous act to religion isn’t debating the existence of God. It would be barging into a Sunday school and telling a class of small children God was a big fat lie. Even as an atheist, I would never dream of doing something so vulgar and offensive.
That said, as Wesley Clark points out, the analogy between Santa and God is limited. Santa Claus is a sort of collective performance art that we put on for children. It’s harmless fun and I have no time for the cheerless Grinches who bitch about it. Religion is a destructive force that once served a purpose but in modern society does an incredible amount of real harm to real human beings. Belief in Santa harms no one. Belief in God harms many.
Santa is one of the most wonderful, harmless, joyous myths there is, surely to put a smile on most children and adults faces, generally it unites us all. Can’t say the same for Jesus and other god myths which causes division after division and polarizes groups against others.
The first grade teacher shouldn’t have told kids at that age about Santa not being real, he realizes in hindsight he made a mistake. Had he said this a few grades up, it wouldn’t have been any big deal.
But I do think children probably realize much earlier than most people think that adults are just playing along, or at least I think that’s how many adults went about it with their kids. Most, as far as I know don’t push Santa too hard, they let kids go at their own pace. I would guess quite a few start to figure it out in first grade, if they haven’t already, when they start talking to a larger number of other kids, and by second grade, I would think most know.
If a child still believes in Santa a few years after that age, maybe the child is mentally challenged, or the parents have perpetuated the myth for all of its worth at the expense of their mental development.
I am atheistic/agnostic Doper and do not treat the cases much differently, nor, I would guess, do the others you complain of.