Is Santa silly?

Unfortunately what we miss out on is the importance of lying in social dialogue. NTs use non-verbal signals to indicate that they are intentionally lying for effect, and may likewise unintentionally give away a lie when trying to deceive. Of course some NTs are very good at lying and it is hard for other NTs to spot this. Which then becomes crucial in card games.

Lying is an essential skill for an NT. Unfortunately because people on the spectrum cannot read situations properly, the capacity to lie is alien, and even if they do become disposed to lying they are less likely to be good at concealing it.

It is understandable that people on the spectrum would get very principled about lying. But it is not difficult to find a parallel NT culture with the same vulnerabilities. In the 17th century various religious sects emerged that tried to be the epitomy of honesty. These very groups became ready victims of the witch trials which, even if evidence of witchcraft was found, mostly ended up as people settling old scores and exploiting the vulnerability of people trying unrealistically to be truthful always.

Lying is something children have to learn about. It is vital for survival.

People on the spectrum are not able to do this properly, and the fact is until comparatively recent times someone on the spectrum probably wouldn't have survived childhood, or if they did it would have been as a simpleton in other people's eyes.

This debate on the morality of lying can go on for pages, but it still doesn't alter the fact that it is only people on the spectrum (and a few narrow religious sects) that are at all bothered. 

LiquidSunshine said:

My personal experience has told me not to tell the "truth". I don't really want to make enemies in this life, particularly. I don't want to see someone upset and enraged with me.

This is now entering the realm of psychology. Everybody who knows the truth basically has a choice of either telling the truth or telling a lie in order to please other people. Some people basically have the attitude of telling the truth at any price and others prefer to say things to pleases particular people or majority even if what they say is an outright lie.

One of my heroes is Galileo. Every sane person today believes that he was right and the officialdom of the time was wrong, but only a small fraction are aware that at the time very few locals came to his defence. Why? Because the majority of people in society prefer to keep their nose clean and do not want to upset their families, friends, and work colleagues or run the risk of prosecution themselves in the name of the truth.

Popular opinion and majority consensus are powerful forces. In a school where no children follow religions other than Christianity and every family celebrates Christmas complete with the Santa lie apart from 3 or 4, then children from these families will be viewed as spoilers and malcontents if they decide to tell the truth about Santa in the playground. In a school where half of the children follow a religion other than Christianity and do not celebrate Christmas then most of these people will probably find the Santa lie crazy to say the least. Eventually the truth will come out in the playground until a point is reached where it will become difficult for families who believe in the magic of Santa as a joy of childhood to perpetuate the lie. I know this from first hand experience.

There are also many British people who have ill feelings towards anybody who follows a religion other than Christianity that does not participate in the Santa lie because they think that they are helping to destroy popular culture and tradition. Schools with high proportions of children following a religion other than Christianity more often than not have abandoned the nativity play and have teachers who feel they are compelled to tell children that Santa delivering Christmas presents is basically a lie.

I don't see why one is different from another personally, just because one is older and written in a book. Even so, the crux of the matter, once it's boiled down is: whether to tell the "truth" to someone not in the know about a certain aspect of their lives, or whether not to - a question which transcends Santa, religion and on to many other topics, including ones we couldn't think of. My personal experience has told me not to tell the "truth". I don't really want to make enemies in this life, particularly. I don't want to see someone upset and enraged with me; God knows I get enough abuse as it is from various circles!

LiquidSunshine said:

I'm talking about the CONCEPT of Halal/Haram, and the different observations of it in different cultures.

This is an issue that you will have to discuss with Islamic scholars. What I am saying for the second time is that comparing what is written in religious books centuries ago - even if they do come across to you as daft - with a relatively modern cultural practice is a like versus unlike comparison. 

I'm talking about the CONCEPT of Halal/Haram, and the different observations of it in different cultures. Are you going to say that Jinnah was not a Muslim because he DID eat pork? Are you going to go from bad to worse, in that respect?

It was my position to keep a stiff upper lip. You asked earlier how the inclusions of cultures would work, and how things went in terms of multiculturalism and I gave you my opinion and personal experience. If you don't agree, fair enough.

LiquidSunshine said:

EDIT: I should add, that some of the concepts of halal/haram are provably false. Such as the idea that pigs are unclean animals, and therefore are "haram", when it's been proven scientifically that pigs are a very clean and hygenic species. So there absolutely is a comparison between the cultural views of halal/haram and Santa.

This is going from bad to worse. The Islamic prohibition of pork is written into the Qu'ran. Therefore it is not a cultural issue but a matter of religious belief. Nowhere is lying to children about Santa delivering Christmas presents written into the Bible. This makes it an innovation and a cultural issue.

and chose NOT to say anything at the time.

If you wanted to keep a stiff upper lip then that was your choice. Children who know the truth about Santa may choose to tell it even if it upsets other children.

It's crude, in the same way that representing a debate between someone who is against abortion is "pro life" and those who are against as "pro death", or those being for abortion as "pro choice" and those against as "anti choice". It does nothing to constructively help debate, and caricatures it.

why is it rude to speak the truth ? they do 'propagate the lies'

are they lies - yes

are they proagated - yes

how is that a crude representation ?

Arran, I would have taken your post more into consideration if you hadn't have made a rather crude representation of those families who observe and follow the cultural tradition of Santa as "those who continue to propagate the lies". If you'd have summed the three "positions" up in a more objective light, and given some positive character traits to those who wish to make their children happy with the Santa idea, it would look more reasonable.

The observation of halal/haram is very cultural on many instances, so you're wrong that it's a comparison of an aspect of religion versus the culture of Santa. The different interpretations of halal/haram vary from culture to culture within the Islamic world. Some Muslims, for instance, think music is haram. Others just observe halal/haram in dietary terms, and some Muslims don't observe halal/haram at all! (Believe it or not, the first president of Pakistan, Jinnah eat pork and I think even drank alcohol!)

I'm not sure why you're dismissing the imaginative and fantasy aspect of it, when the link posted earlier concludes that Santa is positive for children's imaginative thinking. It seems pretty conclusive to me, and I can honestly say that it helped my imagination. You may not buy it for yourself, but please don't dismiss it for me, as I'm aware of the impacts of Santa in my life, and I assure you, they were positive.

EDIT: I should add, that some of the concepts of halal/haram are provably false. Such as the idea that pigs are unclean animals, and therefore are "haram", when it's been proven scientifically that pigs are a very clean and hygenic species. So there absolutely is a comparison between the cultural views of halal/haram and Santa. You could argue that with the former, the parents don't know the facts, and the latter do, but that is honestly splitting hairs. The fact of the matter is, tolerance does cut both ways so what I had to say is still pertinent. I KNEW the facts when I went to school with Muslims on halal/haram, and chose NOT to say anything at the time.

quote>The Santa lie is propagated to children as being the truth by parents who fully well know that it is falsehood.

exactly but those with little wisdom cannot comprehend why this is an issue.

but all geniuses know that

"Anyone who doesn't take truth seriously in small matters cannot be trusted in large ones either." - Albert Einstein (100% undisputed number 1 genius in the entire history of the world)

LiquidSunshine said:

Arran, that's a reasonable question to bring up about the matter, but I honestly don't think it's an issue.

It is an issue. If a school is sufficiently 'multicultural' in the right way then the families of its children will fit into three categories:

1. Those who follow religions other than Christianity and do not celebrate Christmas. The so called magic of Christmas does not apply to children in these families any more than the magic of Laylat ul Qadr or Navaratri applies to children from a notionally Christian family. Most of these children who follow other religions will find the concept of large numbers of parents telling their children a blatant lie about Santa delivering them Christmas presents downright crazy to say the least. Not believing in the religious aspect of Christmas or holding the stance that Jesus was an irrelevent / fictitious person is one thing, but a blatant lie to children from their own parents in this day and age is another thing. 

2. Those who want to tell the truth about Santa to their children. These families range from devout Christians to staunch atheists but they all have a common factor in believing that Santa is a silly innovation and children should know the truth from the outset. They don't believe that Santa is part of the innocence of childhood or harmless fun. They believe it is trickery and deception.

3. Those who continue to propagate the lies about Santa to their children. These families probably constitute the majority on a national basis but not all are Christian. In fact I have encountered numerous families who are atheist to the core who celebrate Christmas (in a fun and consumerist way) and lie to their children about Santa delivering them presents because they think it's part of the joys of childhood or everybody else does it.

In such a school children from families in categories 1 and 2 will inevitably tell children from families in category 3 the truth and cause some upset in the process. People like LiquidSunshine can argue as much as they like about tolerance and respect but it could also be argued that the concept of Santa is less of a matter of religion and more of a matter of British popular culture. There are many Christians who do not embrace the Santa lie and atheists who do embrace it. Therefore comparing an aspect of a religion other than Christianity to parents lying about Santa to their children is making a like versus unlike comparison. One cannot debunk  religious beliefs without a sufficient level of theological knowledge beforehand but any man on the street with an ounce of common sense can debunk the Santa lie.

As for the comments about imagination and fantasy. I don't buy into that. I used to watch many cartoons contaning fantasy and science fiction as a child but I knew that certain aspects of them were fantasy and not to be taken as being the truth. The Santa lie is propagated to children as being the truth by parents who fully well know that it is falsehood.

"Anyone who doesn't take truth seriously in small matters cannot be trusted in large ones either." - Albert Einstein

With how many blind men have you discussed their perception of the colour blue?

Or if you've not tested this hypothesis yourself, can you cite a research paper where others have done so?

Personally I think they might have very good understanding of the colour blue. Their imaginations usually aren't in black and white.

The problem is blue is very individual. Even sighted people see blue differently, especially at the blue green transition, where you can have really heated debates. Things are not actually blue, they just reflect that part of the electro-magnetic spectrum that look blue to you.

You can assert all kinds of things to try to resolve an argument, but by themselves such assertions are not proofs.

I've had conversations with drunks mind you, that run more or less the same way.

No matter how much you tell a blind man about the colour blue they will never understand it.

Paull said:

No proof of cause and effect ? Without cause and effect nothing would exist, what more proof do you want. Saying that cause and effect does not exist is like saying mathematics does not exist.

Actually I never said Santa was a problem. I said telling lies to children about his  existence was a problem.

I didn't say cause and effect didn't exist. I said that there was no proof for cause and effect in the instance you gave. There is no proof whatsoever provided by you or anyone else on this thread that pretending Santa existed to children caused any direct or indirect harm. In fact, IntenseWorld has already shown that your assertions are incorrect, by the link provided earlier in the thread. You've neither given sufficient evidence nor a compelling theoretical possibility that the myth of Santa's existence does any harm. Indeed, it's already been proven that it hasn't. You can speculate all you like about the "poor confused mind of an innocent child", but that's all it is: speculation. But the fact of the matter is, is that the evidence doesn't support your position. The study, and the fact that most people's experiences of their childhood with Santa are positive, prove you wrong.

As for "wrong thinking", how can you be so sure they're wrong? They're telling the truth, as they see it. Surely if you herald the truth so much, it's incumbent upon you to accept it, however insulting and incorrect. Dismissing their truthful opinion as "wrong thinking" is a bit of a copout, if you have such a regard for the truth.

I'm going to finish with this discussion, as the same point is being repeated over and over again, and I think the evidence shows quite clearly that the fable of Santa's existence has no overall negative impact. Points about believing a world solely on truth being a happy world and anything else are just beliefs; they're not based on any fact. If Arran wants to get back to me on the remarks I made in response to his point about other faiths, I'll be glad to answer. It's time for me to have a pint...the substance of which, I'll decide later! I'll drink to anyone's health if they're interested.

well, I am certain without question  that it's wrong to think that telling a child lies does the child no harm, it's like saying giving a child poison does the child no harm, so in my opinion anybody who has that kind of misconception undoubtedly has wrong thinking and therefore any opinions they form are likely to be just as misconceived.

its like someone not being able to see that 1+1=2 but claims to understand equations

...when drawn into a debate some people will often call things as an opinion when offered as facts, because as they cannot see those facts they can only conclude them as an opinion.

The relationship with the parents is the most important relationship in a child's life. A child being told something that is not true by a parent can only be damaging. The reasons why is because you are taking away the ability of the childs mind to think and judge for themselves by telling them to accept a lie instead of encouraging them to trust in their own mind. This can only blur the lines between what is and what they are being told is, leading to developing negative personality traits such as uncertainty, confusion, mistrust, wrong perception, dishonestly.... No telling the child lies, and even encouraging them to work out the truth will increase the chances of that child developing more positive traits such as confidence, right perception, honestly ...

I honestly cannot see how I am making connections that are not there ? The connections are there, if only everybody else could see them as clearly.

At which point I cannot avoid coming in.

According to Paull "those with wrong thinking always end up having wrong opinions"

Please explain the connection between wrong thinking and wrong opinions.

Our understanding of science has come about from gradual revelation. Up until the early 19th century (and indeed some resisted into the 20th and beyond) people genuinely believed that fossils were left behind after Noah's Great Flood.

The curious thing is that very good fossil analysis was carried out by people with that misconception. They formed very good scientifically derived opinions around what we now know to be wrong thinking.

There are people around who think like you are doing. They make connections that just aren't there.

One of the commonest forms I encounter are people who reject the evidence of history. They hunt around until they find a mistake in an historian's thinking influenced by that historian's own times. Then they declare the historian entirely deluded or mentally incapacitated on the grounds of one misconception. Therefore, they conclude all ideas by that historian are totally unreliable. By that mechanism they then determine that history is wrong.

No proof of cause and effect ? Without cause and effect nothing would exist, what more proof do you want. Saying that cause and effect does not exist is like saying mathematics does not exist.

Actually I never said Santa was a problem. I said telling lies to children about his  existence was a problem.

It seem like an innocent story but let's not lose sight of the fact that it's indisputably a lie.

Telling something as a fact to a child when it is a lie can only lead to confusion, especially in the vulnerable and developing mind of an innocent child, the confusion being born out of factors such as the physical impossibility against the adamancy of their parents against the fact that they have no evidence or witness to such a story.

If you put one drop of poison into 10000 gallons of water then the people who drink that water will probably not get sick, but if you put another drop of poison in day after day then it's only a matter of time.

The small lie is akin to one drop of poison. This lie in particular is repeated over and over again during the months leading up to christmas and over a period of several years of the childs life... like adding more and more poison. If the lie was told once and then left at that the effect would be minimal, but it's not, it's repeated over and over and over.

Ps people are entitle to their own opinions, but those with wrong thinking inevitably always have wrong opinions.

Cause and effect IS a fallacy when there's no proof of it. For all the talk of "truth", "logic" and "proof" I've yet to see one piece of evidence to prove what a problem Santa is; not heresay, speculation and utopian thinking of a "paradise of truth" which also has no evidence whatsoever to support the claim that it leads everyone to having "happy lives

P.S., Paull, if someone were to tell you what they thought was the "honest" truth, and provide an opinion of yourself that was insulting, would you feel enriched and happy over that? That's what I meant in my previous remark, when people seem to enjoy telling other people what the "truth" is, but hate it when they themselves are told the "truth" by other people.

Not being able to see that one lie leads to another is the reason why society is failing. A seed can make a tree and that tree can make a forest. If you stop the seed from growing then the forest will not grow, therefore to plant the seed of a lie is not a trivial thing.

To tell a child that something is true when it is not true is planting the seed of a lie.

Cause and effect is not a fallacy.

If anyone wants their child to grow up wise then they will bring them up with truth.

If pointing that out means one is 'hell bent' on the truth then it's a blessing. If only everyone else in society was hell bent on the truth we would all be living in happiness.