DangerousTalk

As an atheist, I have no problem informing people that their imaginary friend is… well, imaginary. But it seems that many of my fellow atheists get all bent out of shape when the imaginary friend happens to be Santa Claus.

Yesterday, I published an Examiner article about a news anchor who told the obvious truth about old St. Nick toward the end of her 9pm news broadcast (9:45pm to be exact). I defended anchor Robin Robinson and to my surprise, atheists went ape-shit.

I had fellow atheists tell me that I am taking away people’s happiness, that I am angry at Santa, that I must not have ever experienced Santa, that I hate children, and I even had a few people threat to beat me up. Now, it isn’t the death threats I typically get from Christians mind you, but that is pretty extreme coming from atheists. The funny thing is that all these responses resemble typical responses Christians give when I inform them that God is imaginary.

To me this all boils down to control. This is something I often talk about in terms of Star Wars to my Jedi friends, but I will have to just get to the basics of it here. People can control themselves, but you can’t control the world. If you want to lie to your kids about Santa Claus, that’s on you. It seems that some atheists believe that lying to their kids about Santa Claus will help their kids to think critically and to learn to discover the truth for themselves. That’s cool, but I see it as undermining my trust to my children.

What you can’t do however is to force the entire world to support your lie. Religions do that. Christians get all bent out of shape whenever anyone says anything that doesn’t support their worldview. They have to control the flow of knowledge and information to protect their lie. I had one of my fellow atheists tell me that if I came to his house and told his kids that there was no Santa, I would be in trouble. Like with Christians, I told him that I didn’t have to come to his doorstep, I was already inside his house. The internet is a wonderful thing.

Parents tell their kids about God and kids believe it because they trust their parents, their religious leaders, and their community. But when just one atheist is out there no believing it becomes a threat to them. The same is true with Santa. It just takes one kid watching the news at 9:45pm and it is all over. My point here is that you can’t protect your kids from learning that Santa is a myth by trying to censoring the entire world just like religious believers can’t protect their belief in God by censoring the entire world.

Related articles

• News anchor apologizes for ‘Santa’ comments (examiner.com)

Filed under: atheism, censorship, Media, Parenting, Religion