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The New Comic Thread for Friday, December 24th
Didgeridoo
Flighty DameRegistered User regular
Flighty DameRegistered User regular
"Dropping the Science"
Didgeridoo on
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And I've got to say, even though I am not a person of faith, I find that tactic and the people who take it to be completely douche-tastic
Religious people are much more forceful in converting their kids to their beliefs by far.
Edit: Wait, do you mean they tell their kids that Santa is real then reveal it as a lie just to make a point? Because yeah, that is fucked up.
Yes, that's what I mean! Not, as Ulises suggests, that they just straight-up tell the kid that they don't believe in X and present reasons why not. It's when they present it as truth and later reveal it to be a falsehood all for the sake of encouraging 'skeptical thinking' that I have a problem with it.
Of course I have people close to me who have done this, so my opinion is probably biased.
also gay atheist
@Bryceforvice on Twitter Facebook
I think they mentioned a few years ago that they let themselves get into this argument once a year as a kind of christmas present to one another
http://www.audioentropy.com/
Not me. I found out in a pretty easy to take way.
I was hunting for candy in the top shelves when I was a kid and found Donkey Kong Country 2 hiding in the cupboard where my mom usually kept her "secret" candy stash. A couple of weeks later "Santa" got me Donkey Kong Country 2. I didn't really care at the time because I realized it meant my parents were willing to spend hundreds of dollars to impress me and also because I had Donkey Cong Country 2, who cares what's real?
snowy footprints between the tree and the fireplace
sneaking upstairs to hide more presents in my room while I was opening the ones under the treee
http://www.audioentropy.com/
in my life there was already the Santa precedent of Made-Up Proxies for Parental Gifts (MUPPG)
dat's my take on the thing
kpop appreciation station i also like to tweet some
just kinda "oh, huh. Oh well I still get presents right?"
http://www.audioentropy.com/
i had started to suspect some things, and then started to ask other people (like my older cousins) about it
so i had figured it out by the time i was like, 5?
something like that
buuuuuuuut i never, ever let on that i knew because my fear was if they knew i knew
i'd get less presents
wouldn't that have the opposite of the desired effect?
Mike's faces are good faces.
Me: "Okay, mom, I'm almost 30. Is Santa Claus real or not?"
Mom: *sly grin* "What do you think?"
ARGH!
Also...a good friend of mine who is very conservative, was raised with the Santa story as just that. He "believed" in Santa, in as far as his parents got him stuff every year in the 'spirit' of Santa Claus. He claims that teaching kids to believe in Santa, the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny, et al, simply undermines faith in Jesus later in life. The argument is, as a child, you are taught about Santa, Jesus, and all the others. As you grow up, you learn that Santa, and all the others, are just children's stories and myths, so why wouldn't you think the same about Jesus?
I don't know I agree with him, but I don't know I can disagree with him, either. We both agree, though, it's not a hard and fast rule, but an interesting point nonetheless.
my parents kept the santa thing up until I was like eighteen
my two older siblings were both in their twenties
nobody believed
but santa still delivered those gifts
then one year they finally came out and said "yeah we're done getting up at 6:00 in the morning to lay out santa's gifts"
"How could you lie to me?" I said in the most hurt and withering voice a 6 year old could manage. Apparently the guilt damn near killed my mother.
Already decided I will be telling my kids right from the start there's no Santa, but that some kids believe and you shouldn't be the one to tell them the truth, it's for their parents to decide.
However the bogeyman is real and he will eat you if you don't eat your vegetables and clean your rooms.
STEAM
i found the attempt to get me to believe in God a lot less believable than the attempt to get me to believe in Santa
as has been said earlier in this thread, at least Santa was (so I was being told) having a physically measurable effect on my life leaving evidence of his presence
or rather
presents as his evidence?
ho ho
but whereas God was something that didn't seemingly do anything but I was just supposed to believe in because uh... because... because people have always said he did? and a book says so, i guess.
i never bought it
I never really understood that.
As I got older, I actually found it far more comforting to see the world as essentially ambivalent to my existence, that there is no greater existent force out there making me miserable, it's just a bunch of shit that happens, and that if I can move past it there's nothing really impeding me from trying to better my life.
And that it's not worth seeking meaning as to "why" terrible things kept happening to me, beyond the direct logical causality that could be observed and possibly linked to my own choices.
Far more comforting than to believe there is some kind of capricious, alien entity out there with an unknowable mindset manipulating my life for some mad purpose beyond my mortal comprehension.
How theists find that comforting, I do not understand on an emotional level.
nothin' wrong with that
Damnit, I exchange gifts with the people I like because I want to increase their enjoyment of life if I am so able. Of course, I'm not so I always give strong alcohol.
It could just mean that you were on the naughty list every year.
man why you gotta hate on a little fun