Over at Volokh Conspiracy, David Bernstein writes about a British teacher who is in hot water for telling one of his nine-year old charges that Santa Claus doesn't exist. The post has spawned lots of comments about when kids learn that fact, how they figure it out, and what the right (or common, at least) age is for that discovery. It's a fun read (my favorite comment - " I think our schools should devote equal time to both the Parent theory and the Fat Jolly Guy theory of Christmas.").
All of which leads me to a little speculation. I've always considered Santa to be sort of a starter version of God, to which kids are particularly attracted. After all, Santa's existence must be accepted on faith, he performs superhuman acts (delivering all those toys all over the world i 24 hours), is omniscient ("he knows when you've been sleeping, he knows when you're awake"), maintains a list of "good" and "bad," and rewards good children and punishes the bad ones. It's a lot like the Christian conception of the sky-god who sets forth standards for behavior and punishes those who don't meet those standards, when you think about it.
One of my objections with a lot of religious folks* is that they rarely engage in a rigorous examination of their own faith. Most people, in my experience, tend to follow along in the faith of their fathers, without holding it up to critical scrutiny. Why is that? Could it be they don't want to be burned, again? Depending on the kid, the revelation that Santa is a fake and your parents were in on the sham can be shattering. Once you've gone through that once, would you want to try it again with something as important as your faith? If the kiddie version of god is a fake, what about the full-sized one? Does fear of losing faith keep people from questioning it?
I'm not sure. Maybe I'm completely wrong on this, but it is the sort of thing that pops into my head this time of year.
* I'm speaking on an intellectual level here, not moral/ethical/good person level. It's perfectly possible for a person to be a good human being and not rigorously examine their faith. I'm not slamming my religious brethren.
Wednesday, December 20, 2006
Santa and God
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2 comments:
My wife and I plan on telling our son the story of St. Nicholas and how mommies and daddies honor his bringing toys to the kids (or whatever the story actually is, I kinda need to, you know, actually bother to read it first) by giving gifts and pretending that Santa brought them.
Still gotta work on how to approach having him not spill the beans to his future classmates.
He is only 8 months old, so we have a couple of years to polish the whole thing.
I don't think my oldest son really ever believed in Santa. I think it's really hard for any kid to, especially when Santa can be at Wal Mart one minute and then a totally different-looking Santa can be right across the parking lot at Blockbuster at the same time. Kids sort of figure out the limitations of Santa (and later, the limitations of religion) on their own, I think. It's when parents start trying to force such beliefs (and hide others) that it becomes an issue.
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