This post reminded me of a recent question posed by a friend of mine after I sent her a copy of Richard Dawkins’ famous letter to his daughter Juliet. She is aware that my wife and I are proponents of critical thinking and was interested to know how we handled concepts such as Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy with our children. This was my response:“I think the point of Dawkins writing the letter to his daughter when she was 10 is that she was old enough at that point to understand, for example, that there is no Santa Claus. Children at ages below that are hard wired (for good survival reasons) to instinctively believe whatever they are told by their parents. I see no harm in our kids believing in these things before they learn to critically evaluate things for themselves. I would be interested to know whether Dawkins feels there is any harm in children being led to believe in non-religious traditions such as the tooth fairy, easter bunny and Santa. My guess is that he would not have any objection to these traditions as long as a point came in the kids’ lives where they learned that belief in anything without evidence (such as religion) is really no different than their belief in the tooth fairy during their tender years.”
Stephen,A nice article. It’s good to see an article about ‘Christmas without Christ’. Though, to tell you the truth, I’d rather see an article about ‘Christmas without Turkey’, as millions of turkeys are ruthlessly killed for our pleasure on a holiday about love.
This is the website of philosopher Stephen Law. Stephen is the editor of the Royal Institute of Philosophy Journal THINK. He has published several books and is senior lecturer in philosophy at Heythrop College, University of London. For school talks and media email Stephen: Think at RoyalInstitutePhilosophy.org.
This post reminded me of a recent question posed by a friend of mine after I sent her a copy of Richard Dawkins’ famous letter to his daughter Juliet. She is aware that my wife and I are proponents of critical thinking and was interested to know how we handled concepts such as Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy with our children. This was my response:“I think the point of Dawkins writing the letter to his daughter when she was 10 is that she was old enough at that point to understand, for example, that there is no Santa Claus. Children at ages below that are hard wired (for good survival reasons) to instinctively believe whatever they are told by their parents. I see no harm in our kids believing in these things before they learn to critically evaluate things for themselves. I would be interested to know whether Dawkins feels there is any harm in children being led to believe in non-religious traditions such as the tooth fairy, easter bunny and Santa. My guess is that he would not have any objection to these traditions as long as a point came in the kids’ lives where they learned that belief in anything without evidence (such as religion) is really no different than their belief in the tooth fairy during their tender years.”
Stephen,A nice article. It’s good to see an article about ‘Christmas without Christ’. Though, to tell you the truth, I’d rather see an article about ‘Christmas without Turkey’, as millions of turkeys are ruthlessly killed for our pleasure on a holiday about love.