It makes the most sense to me to not teach kids anything made up... no Tooth Fairy, no Easter Bunny, no Santa Clause.

Reality is still good without them, and life is hard enough without believing things that aren't realistic.

I think his point is that any manipulation through a fabrication designed to create fear is abuse. This would not include the tooth fairy and probably not Santa Claus either, but would include religions which feature a tormented afterlife or omniscient deity. This guy's not real great at making his point. I don't see it as sift-worthy.

I would avoid "child abuse" because it has connotations.

Any philosophy is just your view of things and you stamp that onto your children, and religion is an easy target right now so obviously people will say "abuse". But they're just stamping their own philosophy onto their children. Then you could also call people out for teaching children to "be kind to one another" etc.

Teaching ANY kind of philosophy to children (be kind to others, father christmas, tooth fairy, be generous, etc.) could also be construed as abuse in that case. In the end you'd have to teach your child nothing at all.

>> ^jonny:
So you reject the concept of the Abrahamic God based on a lack of evidence. Well, that's not really saying much. I do too. I find it disturbing, though, that most atheists extend that rejection to the notion of any kind of divine existence, based on little more than "guilt by association".


You reject the Abrahamic God for lack of evidence, but don't understand why atheists reject any kind of "divine existence"? Seriously? Are you really in the "there must be SOMETHING out there" camp?

You can't prove you feel love for your mother, but I don't need that proof to know she exists. I can see her. You speak of beauty of a painting as if a subjective opinion of something is in itself a thing. You may think the painting is beautiful, and others may think otherwise, but you can ALL see it exists. You can see it. You can touch it. It lights on fire, and has mass. All EVIDENCE that the painting is real. The Tooth Fairy is beautiful. Is that evidence that she exists, or, that our brains have developed the ability to subjectively perceive beauty?

There is also a chance what you wrote just went right over my head.

Thank god the Tooth Fairy is still serving 5 to 10 for that armed robbery.

thats religious pre-conditioning, Santa and the rest of the bunch e.g. tooth fairies, elfs etc. supposed to teach us how to believe in things that don't exist. even worse, teaching us how not to face the facts of life. I think it's stupid, harmful and should be banned all together. oh, yeah, and I fucking hate xmas

Haha, like you have to convince people that he's capable of changing his mind. I'm not surprised people treat him like something special, if you compare him to Bush. But does anyone believe he is messiah-like? I think not. He's a politician! It would be insanity to ever believe everything one of them had to say 100%. You'd be better off believing in the tooth fairy...

And seeing as the only option is one of two, then yes congratulations people, you picked the lesser of the two evils!

Pffft

I guess I should answer my own question.

I had an experience somewhat like that of SDGundamX, in which I was a believer, but now am not.

I was raised as the type of Christian who believes in Jesus as much as Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy, but even after my belief in the latter two was rescinded by my mother, the belief in Jesus persisted. Looking back, I find it odd that the way I learned about Jesus and Santa was equal, yet it was easy for my mother to throw away one, but never let go of the other.

So I spent the greater part of youth pretending to believe in Jesus, even though the actual thought of his reality never crossed my mind, except when my mother warned me about the rapture, then promptly forgot to tell me she was going to the grocery store early one Saturday morning. I woke to find the only other person in the house had "vanished," and I thought I was doomed to hell for eternity.

When I was 17, I went to a revival with my church youth group, mainly because it was in Florida and I wanted to see the ocean and hot girls in skimpy bikinis. Little did I realize that by the end of the trip, I'd be "born again." I never did get to see girls in skimpy bikinis. What a shame.

For the next three years I went to church eight times a week, not realizing for a second that it was mainly for the unity and peer acceptance.

The interesting part of my conversion was when I decided to become a preacher. I realized one day that I had never really read the Bible much, and that was the vital first step in preaching to people. Obviously you can't preach the word without reading it, right?

So I read the entire Bible in a few months. And you know what? It changed me. But not like I expected.

It's funny to tell people the reason I lost my faith was because I read the Bible, but it's true.

I read the stories that made no sense, and I read the stories that were just plain disgusting. And it bothered me. It bothered me because a holy book should be holier than this, and it bothered me because my faith was being tested.

As I was walking through a bookstore one day I noticed a philosophy book by Descartes, and I picked it up. The first part said that anything you believe is only a reflection of what you've been taught, so in the spirit of "Cogito ergo sum," everybody should start to doubt everything they've ever been taught, and start over on their own.

So I did that.

I started by analyzing the aspects of Christianity that didn't seem right to me.

I stopped believing in hell because it didn't make sense for a loving god to create a place to send people who simply didn't believe in him.

I stopped believing in prayer, because God's will precludes any need for it.

And little by little, I lost all my faith in god.

Through the past eight years I've changed my mind a lot, going through all types of beliefs, and I don't think I'll ever have a concrete idea of anything beyond the physical realm. But that's okay, because I know why I see the world in this light, and I've realized that nobody really needs to know everything, anyway. There could be a god, but there are so many questions relating to the identity and traits of said being that, it's impossible to understand the concept in an objective way.

So yeah, that was long-winded.

So I guess my answer is:

No, but how the hell would I know?

In the US, the tooth fairy leaves teeth and takes money.

In Soviet Union, Tooth Fairy takes tooth says is good for whole country. Never paid.

^omg, that tooth fairy doesn't do that just here? I have to tell Amber. She's so organised/responsible and is disgusted when the tooth fairy is late. Every single time! (Gave $5.00 last time) lol

The tooth fairy is chronically late in our family. When she eventually gets around to our house she leaves the money for the tooth plus interest for over due days.

Im curious how much cash the Tooth Fairy is leaving for a tooth these days. In my day it was fifty cents.

Good points all. I'll write more soon.

In reply to this comment by BicycleRepairMan:
Yes I do see a problem with that, I dont blame John McCain for the crusades and I dont blame Cat Stevens for 9/11, but that was not my point, I merely pointed out to you that being an atheist towards the christian god doesnt guarantee a reasonable viewpoint on any other subject. The problem with the "atheist communists" was not that they were too fond of skeptical and critical thinking, these regimes were not beacons of reasonableness, infact they were just the opposite, any critical voice was quelled and expelled or imprisoned or killed.

I am an atheist because I am skeptical by nature, and I want the same skepticism to apply to all ideas, whether its Islam, Christianity, communism or any ideas that I agree with. My biggest problem with religious "faith" is that people who profess it are getting away with outright idiotic statements and actions, simply because its faith. when McCain or Bush or some politician exclaims that "God talks to them" it is to me as absurd as saying that the tooth fairy is to blame for the high oil prices. Yet they get away with it as if it was a completely normal thing to say for a grown man.

They should be met with contempt and ridicule for such statements, not because of the crusades or 9/11, but simply because the statements themselves are ridiculous. There is enough bullshit as it is, and if we dont add an equal opportunity bullshit filter, bullshit is gonna sift through the holes, and we are raising the next generations of people lying to themselves and eachother. Right now there is a 6-lane highway tunnel through the bullshit filter, and that hole is called faith, where ridiculous ideas can march freely without questions, and when we allow that tunnel to be there, anything goes. That means you can have the means and knowhow it takes to design a nuclear bomb, and still believe you get the 72 virgins in paradise, because whatever else youve learned about the world, you've been taught from you were born not to question certain types of claims.

In reply to this comment by quantumushroom:
I understand what you're saying. Do you see anything wrong with lumping all religious peoples with fanatics and rapture nuts?


In reply to this comment by BicycleRepairMan:
Dont forget the atheist crusaders that killed thousands of true muslims, or the hundreds of unbaptised, un-christian suicide bomber atheists that kills true believers in iraq every day. Goddamn atheist scum!

In reply to this comment by quantumushroom:
No, Henning. Atheistic communists alone are responsible for 100 million murdered worldwide.

Similar to XTC's earlier efforts: "Dear Santa," "Dear Tooth Fairy," and "Dear Easter Bunny" but they finally got it right with "Dear God." Well done, lads.