Santa V God

[Paladin]

That brings up an important point Thomas. The arguments for the existence of god are much more complex and intricate than are the arguments for Santa. People of faith are much more invested in keeping the idea of God going while the investment for Santa is much less. Retailers are the priesthood of Santa while the majority of the earth's population must of necessity and psychological hard wiring keep the God thing going.

[Alex P]

As many have said, there is obviously no reality behind Santa claus the man on his sledge that flys around the entire world in a 24 hour period with his red nosed reindeer and drops presents in chimneys... That is man made... ("But so is god!!!") Well, to a degree it is or can be... But, there is no way at current to be 100% sure EITHER way that there is no God. And if with care, time openess and logic you look into -everything- I think the evidence begins to side in the corner of intelligent designer.

[Tao_Equus]

Originally Posted by wil

This is the other thing that amazes me at the Atheist viewpoint. Why are you so orthodox? Why are you so dogamatic and literal??

I believe the book to be metaphysical, metaphorical, analogical, parabolical, and you believe in the Great Flood? The people of the time blamed G!d for their ills as they couldn't, wouldn't take personal responsibility or accept that in nature things happenned. Just as G!d did not direct the hurricanes at New Orleans to rid the world of the unethical behaviour in the french quarter, G!d does not 'allow' pedophiles. Why must we blame?

What is next on the atheist agenda, wipe out Grimm Fairy tales? Gulliver's Travel's, Homer and the Odessy?

Wil,

With respect, both in the post quoted and your previous one you completely fail to get the point. I am not talking about me or my perspective. I am talking about the mind of a 5, 6 or 7 year old child. By failing to take this into account you completely miss the real cause and effects of the myths peddled to a vulnerable group. To dismiss peer pressure on a child is your choice, but in my opinion a foolish one.

Tao

[Tao_Equus]

Originally Posted by Thomas

Nope.

You have to look at the argument for the existence of Santa Claus,
You have to look at the argument for the existence of God.
And weigh up both.

Since you can probably disprove Santa Claus, but since you cannot disprove God, then there's your answer.

Thomas

I can safely dismiss God for lack of evidence of his existence and substantial evidence that man has created the various myths that they use to support it. These combined give me somewhere close to 99% certainty that God is a fiction. Would you bet your life on a 99/1 rank outsider?

Tao

[Tao_Equus]

Originally Posted by Paladin

That brings up an important point Thomas. The arguments for the existence of god are much more complex and intricate than are the arguments for Santa. People of faith are much more invested in keeping the idea of God going while the investment for Santa is much less. Retailers are the priesthood of Santa while the majority of the earth's population must of necessity and psychological hard wiring keep the God thing going.

And dont forget the Religion Inc. corporations that call themselves Churches.

Tao

[wil]

Originally Posted by Tao_Equus

Wil,

With respect, both in the post quoted and your previous one you completely fail to get the point. I am not talking about me or my perspective. I am talking about the mind of a 5, 6 or 7 year old child. By failing to take this into account you completely miss the real cause and effects of the myths peddled to a vulnerable group. To dismiss peer pressure on a child is your choice, but in my opinion a foolish one.

Tao

I'll be speaking at length to this with my fifteen year olds and report back to you. My son's response in first grade when the older kids said Santa didn't exist was, "I can prove there is a Santa Claus, there is no way my dad would buy all those gifts, are you kiddin?" As reported by the teacher and verified by my son to us.

Like I said, we all still believe. They were more than happy to stand downtown last December ringing the bell for the Salvation Army wearing a red and white hat. He was more than happy to dress up has Santa and hand out pinewood derby car kits to Cub Scouts, all those kids knew it was John, just as John knew it was me. They differentiate between a red suit and the spirit of giving....if we just give them a chance.

[Operacast]

Originally Posted by wil

Now Thomas, what do you call a Christian who agrees that one can disprove the existence of G!d, an Atheist.

Well, I'm a general theist who agrees that the existence of God is theoretically disprovable. Now, does that make me really an atheist instead of a theist even though I emphatically believe myself a theist? Aren't you yourself flirting with a certain degree of condescension here when you imply that someone is ultimately different from what s/he claims to be?

Respectfully,

Operacast

[wil]

Originally Posted by Operacast

Well, I'm a general theist who agrees that the existence of God is theoretically disprovable. Now, does that make me really an atheist instead of a theist even though I emphatically believe myself a theist? Aren't you yourself flirting with a certain degree of condescension here when you imply that someone is ultimately different from what s/he claims to be?

Respectfully,

Operacast

Namaste Operacast,

Your viewpoint is intriguing, I currently see a difference with what I said and your 'theoretical' (potential?) proof there is no G!d vs. proof. How could one be a theist if G!d were able to be disproved in their mind? I need help on that one, I can't wrap my mind around it. Not intending any condescending tone.

[Dondi]

During this conversation, all I could of was this Calvin and Hobbes strip that went down like this:

Calvin: This whole Santa Claus thing just doesn't make sense. Why all the secrecy? Why all the mystery? If the guy exists, why doesn't he ever show himself and prove it? And if he doesn't exist, what's the meaning of all this?

Hobbes: I dunno ... isn't this a religious holiday?

Calvin: Yeah, but actually, I've got the same questions about God.

[wil]

Originally Posted by Dondi

If the guy exists, why doesn't he ever show himself and prove it? And if he doesn't exist, what's the meaning of all this?...Yeah, but actually, I've got the same questions about God.

Namaste Dondi,

What is the classic answer to this?

Something about the faith, about belief, about personal growth. That if someone does something for you (proof positive) then you don't achieve anything yourself from the experience...

[Dondi]

What is the veil behind Santa Claus? Your parents, of course. When you found out such was the case, were you upset? Perhaps you were initially disappointed. But then you only really shifted your list from Santa to them, so you didn't really lose out, did you? You might have even looked past their playful deceit and come to appreciate that they are the source, a much closer source than you thought.

Maybe God is playing Santa also?

[Operacast]

Originally Posted by wil

Namaste Operacast,

Your viewpoint is intriguing, I currently see a difference with what I said and your 'theoretical' (potential?) proof there is no G!d vs. proof. How could one be a theist if G!d were able to be disproved in their mind? I need help on that one, I can't wrap my mind around it. Not intending any condescending tone.

Actually, I don't really know of anyone else who arrived at belief the way I did. It's possible a few others have, but I don't know of any offhand, personally. This is a rather extensive account, and I hope it doesn't derail this thread. But you've asked an honest question and it deserves an honest answer.

I began as an agnostic and a compulsive reader. There were times in my life I almost never had a book out of my hand. I'd read anything/everything. Simply in devouring whatever literature, fiction, poetry, drama, history, philosophy, etc., I could, I became interested -- strictly as a hobby -- in political/social/cultural history through the ages. I also became an admirer of Stephen Jay Gould and extremely curious about the social/cultural implications of evolution for our own species. Not so much the cultural impact of the idea of evolution but the mechanics of evolution itself as it had evidently impacted on our own species across the eons. Again and again, it seemed to me that the kinds of crisis pressures that Gould writes about, involving the mechanics of quick, discrete changes in various species rather than the (up-to-then) traditional "gradualism" model scientifically understood and accepted in the wake of writings by Darwin and Wallace, could be seen in humanity's cultural history alongside its biological history. Isn't it artificial and misleading to separate cultural trends from biological instinct? We're all still animals, after all.

Socialization seems the key to what has made homo sapiens survive so long, IMO. And socialization depends on ever more intricate social/cultural structures that help knit the human community together: first villages, then towns, then counties, then states, then countries, then alliances -- until one has the virtual global village we have today. The glue that keeps any social harmony/socialization in play in the midst of such huge structures is some modicum of consideration for the "other" -- seeing oneself in the "other" -- affirming codependent responsibility for each other. Empathy, in other words. After all, the smaller -- psychologically -- the global village is, the more the sufferings of others will eventually impact on oneself. This means that any cultural breakthrough that more greatly sensitizes everyone's consciousness of the call to empathy for/with all others constitutes likewise a step forward in our behavioral evolution, similar to the crisis pressures that are outlined in Gould that precipitate discrete changes in a number of various other species.

So I became fascinated with any historic breakthroughs throughout human history that helped spark discrete and increased awareness of and consciousness for the human claims of individuals outside oneself. These seemed part and parcel of our natural evolution and might even indicate something intrinsic in nature itself. Imagine my frustration when I ascertained that no great breakthroughs in human/cultural ethics/empathy seemed tied to any innovating agnostics or atheists. Sure, there were plenty of courageous and generous social reformers who were both throughout history. But in their ethics, powerful and altruistic as they sometimes were, they never applied an original ethical insight, instead applying -- with fervor, yes -- culturally familiar, if neglected, insights from previous "ethicists".

Such was not always the case with similarly countercultural "ethics reformers" among the believers. Some of those would instead introduce radically new ideas compelling their brethren to reconceive from scratch what the obligations of being a thriving and decent and caring human being really were. This is no random pattern, it seems. It reappears throughout the written record, and one must suppose it typifies much of unwritten human history before that as well.

Even more culturally uncanny is the fact that these radically countercultural reformers frequently buck the prevailing conception of deity of the time as well, so they're not accidental theists out of any "follow-the-leader" psychology of the time. Instead, being as countercultural in their brand of theism as in their ethics, they risk their own necks intimating a gut understanding of a deity radically different from -- and frequently more tolerant than -- the one their contemporary peers imagine. Such breakthroughs are thus coming from innovators who are dual innovators, innovators both in their countercultural brand of theism and in their countercultural brand of social ethics. The impression left is of an entire -- and altogether new -- outlook covering both areas and informed by one and the same revelation.

As an erstwhile agnostic, it was disappointing to me to find that the most genuine innovative skeptics who were culturally/socially broadminded and caring were either innovators, for their time, in their individual way of nonbelief, or innovators, for their time, in their individual way of empathic social ethics. Never innovators in both. In fact, the earliest known skeptical philosophy of all is a pure and unequivocal atheism first found in ancient India ca. 600 B.C.E.: Lokayata. Lokayata, frustratingly, is indeed a socially and culturally innovative "ethical" philosophy as well as the first known innovative philosophy of total unbelief; but "ethically", it's a philosophy calling on each individual to look out only for oneself and pro-actively ignore one's neighbor!

Taking stock of all these patterns, I've provisionally concluded that a visceral awareness of deity may be key to the essential evolutionary social/cultural breakthroughs that continually help us to continue to thrive together as a species who must look out for each other and not just oneself if we are to survive in the long term at all. The closer we look out for each other, the more we progress and thrive. The more we neglect such ethical demands, the more we may put all of ourselves at peril throughout the globe.

The human equivalent of the crisis pressures Gould outlines that precipitate discrete steps forward for a species may be the countercultural insights of the Buddhas, the Christs, etc., who have turned whole cultures around time after time throughout time. If so, personal countercultural insights into deity may be inseparable from human evolution, no matter the occasional risk of personal suffering to the individual who is actually courageous and altruistic enough to introduce such new ideas to her/his peers in the first place. This makes all the more horrible and inexcusable the behavior of some later followers who will sometimes pervert such enlightened teachings into a stick used for assaulting their "enemies". At the same time, the initial and consistent cultural success of the original innovators in "mainstreaming" their broadminded ethical innovations would seem to suggest the distinct probability that some form of deity, at least, is perfectly real.

This is a long way to get to your question, yes. But the answer to your question is that if there were to be found, at any point either in the ancient past or in the present or in the future, an entirely countercultural figure who would introduce from scratch a radical unprecedented form of atheism within an entirely pious and isolated community, like, say, within a hitherto theocratic culture on an isolated island out in the Pacific, and who did so in the same breath with an equally radical and unimaginable kind of altruistic ethics of a sort none of us can yet conceive of, and if that brand of combined atheism and radical altruism took root throughout that isolated community with total success and was entirely "mainstreamed" as a result, then I would see reason to suppose that a visceral engagement with deity is not essential to our successful social/cultural development after all. Hence, the supposition that some form of deity is probably real as well could also be scrapped. But after a lifetime of reading, I've yet to find such an innovator. If I do, I'd accept a return to my previous skepticism. But there doesn't seem to be any such figure (so far:-).

Cheers,

Operacast

[wil]

Namaste Operacast,

er, WOW!

Now Tao will have to be the final say in this regard but imho your post in no way was a tangent to this thread (or what I'm considering to be a sister thread which is simultaneosly being run on the adjacent track) but actually provides some insight that I could never do as I don't have the research that you do.

So if I may summarize with my own brand of interpretation please provide your comments on it.

a. you are a believer
b. you see the possibility of what you believe in being mythological
c. it doesn't matter to you because you see any number of benefits over time from this mythological belief.

ie the ends in this case justify the means.

Which is entirely opposite of the problems with belief positted in this and its sister thread.

yes, no, maybe so?

[Tao_Equus]

Hi Operacast and thanks for an interesting post.

The one thing that jumps out at me in the post is you fail to address the causes of change in the socio/political community. As I see it there are only 3. 1.Internal dissatisfaction that leads to populist uprising or revolution. This one would be the most likely to produce a sustained paradigm shift if the revolution is successful. 2. Foreign invasion and the imposition of a new set of beliefs. Which usually produce an underground resistance to that aim. The 3rd and rarest is the imposition of a new set of beliefs such as those imposed by Constantine with the Christianity that was to become Catholicism or Vladimir with Russian Orthodoxy, (both replaced pagan Gods).

The truth is that from pre-history to this day man has never had an atheist culture. There are very good reasons why. That all involve an ignorance of the real causes of natural phenomena and the imposition of structured or ritualised reinforcements of the power structures in every society. To say that God exists because atheism has never worked is a false premise. Atheism has of yet had no opportunity to exist as held belief structure. A combination of lack of education and a false education, which suited the establishment, has seen to that. In essence, to remove the vested interest and the power politics of historical changes in the analysis of belief changes is impossible. They are one and the same. To my mind yet further proof that God has nothing to do with it. At every juncture belief change has walked hand in hand with political change. They are two sides of the same coin.

Tao

[Paladin]

Operacast,

A well thought out and articulate argument but I must disagree on several points since the main thrust would seem more an argumentum ad populum approach to belief in a deity.
Sure the main cultural meme has been ripe for moving the locus of control outside the human race but that doesn't mean that ethical behavior arises only in response to that idea.
If the main concern would be cooperation then we might be able to show how cooperation is inherently in the individuals best interest.
I still hang on the the model Clare Graves lined out back in the 70's because it works so well in discussions leaning in this direction.
It also seems that you would have us believe that the innovators like Buddha and Christ have had a hand in orchestrating the spread of their insights in the last few thousand years and while we know thats far fetched there are those who believe it to be so. The study of ethics didn't rise from religion as much as reason but the close knit relationship it has to morals leads me to believe they have evolved together.
As the Human race evolves we may see changes in the predominating value meme promoting ethics, compassion, cooperation, without the baggage of religious trappings hung there by millions of those who have come after the innovators, those who have had the "peak experience" eventually eschewed by the followers ( as described by Maslow).