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Is Santa silly?

Arran

I'm writing this as someone who doesn't celebrate Christmas in either a religious or cultural sense. From a young age I was told that Santa doesn't exist and is just a silly hoax that parents play on their kids. It never affected me in any bad way and neither was I expecting to find wrapped presents mysteriously appear on the morning of the 25th day of December. If anybody in my family received a Christmas gift then it was usually opened on the same day. A downside to this is that even from the age of 4 or 5 I went round telling kids at school "Father Christmas isn't real, it's all made up, your parents buy Christmas presents from the shops" which often resulted in me getting into trouble whenever they got upset. I once had to report to the head teacher after completely reducing a classmate to tears.

Is the concept of Santa a silly nonsense or is it part of the joys of childhood? Do you tell your own children the truth or would you prefer to go along with the cultural norm? Is pleasing one's classmates more important than knowing the truth? What about children at school who follow different religions so do not celebrate Christmas - where do they fit in?

Parents

  • @ Paull and Arran:

    So when other religions celebrate mythical events or characters we should take the same stance you have taken?  For instance:

    "Humanistic Jews view the biblical Exodus story as one of the most powerful myths of the Jewish people, a tale that relates the courage and determination of a people fleeing slavery for freedom.

    A Humanistic Passover Celebration
     Humanistic Jews question the traditional explanations of Pesakh. There is no evidence that the Exodus occurred or that the Hebrew people were in Egypt in the numbers described. The traditional Haggadah includes an anthropomorphic, active, ethnocentric God and the passive deliverance by God of the Hebrews."

    There is also the perspective that religion itself is a myth, so are you about to pooh-pooh all man-made religions too?

    http://www.eridu.co.uk/Author/myth_religion/myth_religion.html

    "It is widely presumed that myth and religion are two different things. To the extent that religion involves a whole array of non-myth elements – a moral code, a faith in a supreme being, and an obedience to the Church – this is true. However, if we focus on the primary element in religion, namely the Supreme Being (or God), then religion and myth become synonymous. Indeed, the conclusion of my life-long study of religion is that God is actually the personification of myth.

    God – the personification of myth? The idea will sound weird to modern ears, and many people will think that I am denigrating the Supreme Being. After all, the word ‘myth’, in modern linguistics, is held to be synonymous with a fiction or a lie. But this is not my definition of myth. Far from it.

    In fact, the word ‘myth’ derives from the ancient Greek word muthos, which meant simply an ‘utterance’ or a ‘traditional tale’. And these utterances, or traditional tales – usually concerning Gods and heroes – were generally considered to be true stories."

Reply

  • @ Paull and Arran:

    So when other religions celebrate mythical events or characters we should take the same stance you have taken?  For instance:

    "Humanistic Jews view the biblical Exodus story as one of the most powerful myths of the Jewish people, a tale that relates the courage and determination of a people fleeing slavery for freedom.

    A Humanistic Passover Celebration
     Humanistic Jews question the traditional explanations of Pesakh. There is no evidence that the Exodus occurred or that the Hebrew people were in Egypt in the numbers described. The traditional Haggadah includes an anthropomorphic, active, ethnocentric God and the passive deliverance by God of the Hebrews."

    There is also the perspective that religion itself is a myth, so are you about to pooh-pooh all man-made religions too?

    http://www.eridu.co.uk/Author/myth_religion/myth_religion.html

    "It is widely presumed that myth and religion are two different things. To the extent that religion involves a whole array of non-myth elements – a moral code, a faith in a supreme being, and an obedience to the Church – this is true. However, if we focus on the primary element in religion, namely the Supreme Being (or God), then religion and myth become synonymous. Indeed, the conclusion of my life-long study of religion is that God is actually the personification of myth.

    God – the personification of myth? The idea will sound weird to modern ears, and many people will think that I am denigrating the Supreme Being. After all, the word ‘myth’, in modern linguistics, is held to be synonymous with a fiction or a lie. But this is not my definition of myth. Far from it.

    In fact, the word ‘myth’ derives from the ancient Greek word muthos, which meant simply an ‘utterance’ or a ‘traditional tale’. And these utterances, or traditional tales – usually concerning Gods and heroes – were generally considered to be true stories."

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