{"id":694,"date":"2008-12-24T11:23:00","date_gmt":"2008-12-24T11:23:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/believingbullshit\/2008\/12\/24\/lying-about-santa\/"},"modified":"2008-12-24T11:23:00","modified_gmt":"2008-12-24T11:23:00","slug":"lying-about-santa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/believingbullshit\/2008\/12\/24\/lying-about-santa\/","title":{"rendered":"Lying about Santa"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a>
[Repeat of an earlier post – as it’s especially relevant tonight]<\/p>\n

Suppose I visit the wife and seven year old daughter of a colleague who has recently died. Now it turns out that the wife is a Christian, and she has told her daughter that her Daddy is now living in heaven with God and the angels. This is very comforting belief for both the wife and the little girl. Daddy hasn\u2019t gone for ever. He\u2019s merely moved to somewhere very nice, somewhere that they too will go in the end.<\/p>\n

Now I am an atheist. I don\u2019t believe in God or in any sort of after-life. Suppose that this little girl asks me whether I believe in heaven. What do I say? Do I tell her the truth or do I lie?<\/p>\n

Of course, if you happen to believe in God and the angels, you can tell comfortably tell her the truth about what you believe. But if, like me, you don\u2019t believe in any of that, you find yourself facing a dilemma. Do you lie?<\/p>\n

I would avoid telling her the truth if I could, perhaps by changing the subject. But I don\u2019t think I could lie. I don\u2019t think I could tell her I believed in God and heaven when I don\u2019t. Even if the result of my not lying is that it shakes her own confidence in her belief.<\/p>\n

Which at first sight is very odd, because if she were to ask me whether I believed in Santa and the elves living at the North Pole, I\u2019ll happily lie. In fact, I\u2019ll go out of my way to embellish the fib \u2013 by helping her put out Santa\u2019s mince pie and Rudolph\u2019s carrot at bedtime, and then leaving bite-marks in the mince pie and gnawing the carrot once she\u2019s gone to bed.<\/p>\n

But if she asks me whether I believe in God and Heaven, I would find it very difficult to tell her what I consider to be a fib. Despite the fact that this little girl derives an extraordinary amount of comfort, and even some happiness, from that lie. Far more, in fact, than she derives from the fib about Santa and the Elves.<\/p>\n

Doesn\u2019t that make me a hypocrite? Aren\u2019t I operating with a blatant double standard? I\u2019ll go out of my way to lie about Santa and the Elves. Yet I turn into Mr Principle when it comes to lying about God and the angels.<\/p>\n

Well, may be not. As children grow up, we create illusory worlds for them to inhabit: little bubbles of deceit. One of these bubbles of belief is about goblins and fairies, another is about Santa and Rudolph. These bubbles soon pop, of course, We can\u2019t sustain them into adult life. But, while they last, they are charming fantasies.<\/p>\n

The trouble with the religious bubble, from the point of view of most atheists, is that it doesn\u2019t always pop. Many of us continue to inhabit it throughout our entire lives. And it can dramatically shape our lives, sometimes for better, sometimes for worse.<\/p>\n

Six arguments for lying to children<\/span><\/p>\n

1. Educational fibbing. My daughter and I often tell each other fibs. I say, \u201cDid you know that there are fairies living under our garden shed?\u201d To which she responds, but Daddy, why can\u2019t we see them?\u201d To which I answer, \u201cThey only come out at night.\u201d To which she says \u201cBut then how do you know they are there?\u201d and so on. The more we play this sort of game, the better she gets at figuring out when she\u2019s being lied to.<\/p>\n

Lying games are good way of showing children that, armed with nothing more than their own power of reason, they can often figure out what\u2019s true for themselves.<\/p>\n

Educational fibbing games can help them develop some intellectual and emotional maturity. They won\u2019t be afraid to think or ask a question. It gives them a course in self-defence that will come in very handy when they are confronted by the corporate, religious and other psychological manipulators and snake-oil salesmen later on.<\/p>\n

If we want our children to grow into good truth-detectors, these are the sort of skills we need then to acquire.<\/p>\n

2. It makes them happy.<\/p>\n

3. Gives them an appreciation of what it\u2019s like to be a true believer. Even after the bubble of belief has burst, the memory of what it was like to inhabit it \u2013 to really believe – lingers on. The adult who never knew that is perhaps kind of missing out.<\/p>\n

4. And we can vicariously enjoy their pleasure. Having children around who believe in Santa transforms Christmas \u2013 you can half inhabit their kitsch fantasy world for a few days.<\/p>\n

5. Useful for controlling behaviour. \u201cHe\u2019s making a list, he\u2019s checking it twice, he\u2019s going to find out who’s naughty and nice\u201d. Santa is watching what you are doing even when Mummy and Daddy are not.<\/p>\n

6. \u201cProtecting\u201d them from potentially upsetting or damaging truths.<\/p>\n

Three arguments against lying to children<\/span><\/p>\n

1. They will learn not to trust you. Crying wolf \u2013 won\u2019t believe you when it really matters.<\/p>\n

2. We are teaching them that lying is acceptable.<\/p>\n

3. We can instill false beliefs that may hurt them later in life.<\/p>\n

NB I merely present these arguments – I don’t necessarily endorse them. And, incidentally, some of the lies we tell we don\u2019t ourselves properly register as lies:<\/p>\n

\u2022 \u201cYou can be anything you want to be!\u201d (cobblers, of course)
\u2022 \u201cLooks don\u2019t matter!” (perhaps they shouldn’t, but they do)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[Repeat of an earlier post – as it’s especially relevant tonight] Suppose I visit the wife and seven year old daughter of a colleague who has recently died. Now it turns out that the wife is a Christian, and she has told her daughter that her Daddy is now living in heaven with God and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-694","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/believingbullshit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/694","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/believingbullshit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/believingbullshit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/believingbullshit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/believingbullshit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=694"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/believingbullshit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/694\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/believingbullshit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=694"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/believingbullshit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=694"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/believingbullshit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=694"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}