When I was three, my folks took me to see Santa. They told me he was the real, one-and-only, original Santa (because I asked if he was). When I sat on his lap, I saw a fake beard.
By the time Easter rolled around, all of the childhood lies we tell our kids about the tooth fairy, Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny (which never really made sense to me why a bunny would run around hiding colored eggs until later on when I realized Christians had stolen most of the pagan festivals for their religious holidays) and so on and so forth had been rationally debunked by my three year-old self. I wasn't that disappointed, do be honest, because the lie hadn't been told often enough. But I did wonder why my parents, who told me to never tell lies and beat me if I did (spanking today is considered beating, right?), would lie to me.
Magical thinking is fine for fantasy and imagination, but it's not so great for a child to be lied to - ESPECIALLY by their parents. Being lied to by your parents undermines parental authority. When is it okay to lie? A child does it most of the time out of fear of punishment for telling the truth. So when will the parents be punished for not telling the truth? The answer is never. When the parents aren't punished for telling lies, it tells the kid that punishment for lying is arbitrary. If some lies are punished and others aren't, it means a kid is more apt to lie in the hope that the telling of the lie won't lead to punishment. Further, the lie is repeated and the older and sadly wiser kid is often told to participate in the lie or get punished for destroying the childhood of others. So when they're told they'll be punished for NOT lying about the existence of non-existent creatures, the message is muddied even more.
But worse than that is the hit to the self esteem of the child. No one likes being the butt of a joke. But being told Santa Claus is real and being misled to believe it is much like a huge practical joke being perpetrated on those least-equipped to discover the truth and who certainly won't be laughing along when they do. That kind of resentment can adversely affect a person in many ways. All for the sake of what? Childhood?
"Sorry, Timmy, the being we told you about and in whom you believed as real for your entire life is, in fact, a myth perpetuated by greedy merchants who want to sell their products so they can make a profit for the year. Welcome to adulthood."
No wonder Lassie kept finding Timmy down a well...
One wonders how many people have trust (and other) issues because their parents - aided and abetted by a mostly willing society - kept them thinking Santa was real for far too long. Now, toss in the rampant consumerism associated with the holiday and you have a recipe for disaster. After all, it's one thing to be told by your parents why you won't be getting the present of your dreams. It's quite another to never know why Santa didn't get you what you wanted. Kids quickly learn that if being good isn't properly rewarded, then there's no real point to it. They grow up to become some pretty obnoxious people.
Another thing to consider, for those of you who are of a religious bend, is to think of the symbology involved here. We have a myriad of God-like symbols out there - most of which involve a white-bearded man. Much like Santa Claus. God separates who's naughty and who's nice. So does Santa Claus. God rewards the good and punishes the bad. And so does the Great Bearded Red One.
The trouble here is that the kid is being told an imaginary creature is real every year. They can even be "seen" (as happened with me) if you go to a mall or department store between Thanksgiving and Christmas. This reenforces the reality of the myth. Television, movies and other media reenforce the myth, bringing in other creatures we're a lot less likely to see in real life like the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy. They're on television or in songs and such, but they're NOT REAL.
At the same time, we take our kids to Church and tell them the exact same things about God's existence as we do Santa and the Tooth Fairy. We don't see God in real life until we're dead (at least according to your mythology), but like the Easter Bunny and Tooth Fairy, He's portrayed in pictures and even movies (He apparently looks like George Burns or Morgan Freemen today) and like Santa, kids are encouraged to talk to Him.
THEN you come along and tell your kid that Santa (who we can supposedly see in real life) is just a guy dressed up in a fat suit and the Easter Bunny (who we can't ever see in real life) and Tooth Fairy (who we also never see in real life) are lies, too. But after all that you tell your kids they're supposed to keep believing a God whose existence is even harder to prove to them.
And you expect your kids to keep believing in your God?
Let's replay that conversation:
Timmy: "Santa isn't real?
You: "I'm sorry, Timmy, no. He's not."
Timmy: "What about the Easter Bunny and tooth fairy?"
You: "They're not real either. It's all just us parents doing it."
Timmy: "What about God?"
You: "Oh, God's real. I believe it so you have to believe it."
Timmy ( upset and wondering where the closest well to jump in is): "But you said the exact same thing about Santa, and the tooth fairy and they're not real. So God must not be real, either."
Kid logic. This is why Timmy's an atheist today and doesn't send Mother's day or Father's day cards.
Here's a little factoid that may or may not be relevant: Back in the 1800's and early 1900's, Santa Claus was not that big of a deal. The giving of gifts during Christmas (and the need to create a mythological figure to do the delivering of said gifts) wasn't popularized until the late 1800's. (Another minor factoid: The celebration of Christmas itself was banned repeatedly in the United States from time to time in several places for various reasons.) Ever since the early part of the 20th century, when Santa rose as a major mythological figure, memberships in many churches have gone into decline. One could say that the Information Age is most responsible for this decline and they'd probably be right. Yet I can't help but wonder how much of that decline is directly due to lying to children about Santa and other unreal creatures. One can't deny that childhood traumas and resentments carry over into adulthood and if you look at the time-line, it may have had more of an impact than people think it would.
Despite the obvious advantages of kids possibly rejecting invisible sky-friend religions due to the lies told to them about childhood figures, I don't advocate lying to your kids. I understand some reasons to lie - after all, they're young and don't understand some things like finances - but tactful, reasonable honesty is always the best answer. If they ask, tell them the truth. If they're mistaken, correct them. Treat their learning about the world with respect, instead of a wink, a grin and a pleasant lie that will always, eventually, blow up in both of your faces.
Showing posts with label mythology. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mythology. Show all posts
Sunday, December 25, 2011
Saturday, August 27, 2011
Why the Bible Ain't Tellin' Me So
The other day I read what I consider to be the best deconstruction of the entire foundation of Christian Faith by hard and fast science I have ever read.
The article, entitled "Evolution threatens Christianity", by Paula Kirby appeared in the Washington Post on Aug 24, 2011. In it, she pointed out several reasons why Christians are afraid of evolution in a no-nonsense, dispassionate, straight-forward and iron-clad manner. Like a round-world advocate in a flat-earth society, she proved beyond any doubt that the entire foundation of Christianity was not just flawed, but outright impossible.
She pointed out that science has these things called facts and that facts, no matter how hard they are to ignore (and no matter how many people choose to ignore them) can not be disproved. She even went into why a theory to a scientist (which is what a scientist would correctly call Darwinism, Mutation and other proven - but not all encompassing in and of themselves - forces influencing Evolution) is not something that is "theoretical". A layman may look at a theory as something which is untested and unexamined, like a plan yet to be implemented. To a scientist, that's called a hypothesis. When a scientist talks about a theory, that's something which is proven, has observable, repeatable data and has been subjected to intensive peer review for flaws, errors or inconsistencies. It doesn't have to be all encompassing, however. It only has to describe one aspect of a known fact in such a way that the aspect is described scientifically and is not refutable or able to be disproved.
To describe a scientific theory versus a layman's concept of a theory, Ms. Kirby used her own methods, which, I feel were a touch high-brow. So I'll provide my own way of explaining the difference.
We all know bridges exist. We see them every day. We cross over them. We go under them. They are a fact. A Bridge is defined as a structure creating a span between two or more points across which travel between those two or more points is comfortably possible. This way we all know what a bridge is defined as.
A theory of a bridge isn't so much what the bridge is made of, but the design of the bridge itself - why the bridge stays standing. In some cases it's a suspension bridge - the weight of the bridge being redirected by cables or ropes to a strong supporting area. In other cases it's a rope bridge, either planked or unplanked, which is little more than a couple of ropes stretched over a chasm, river or other obstruction. There are truss bridges, and flat bridges and arch bridges. All of them are bridges, as described, but each stays standing by a different Theory - or reason it's stays standing instead of collapsing. No single Theory describes every bridge - every reason that bridge stays standing. But each one can describe an aspect of what we have defined as a "Bridge".
The same goes for Evolution. We know it happens. We see it in the fossil record. We even see it happening in real time We have reasons explaining why it happens. Scientists call these reasons "Theories". No single theory explains everything we see happening in Evolution, but like with bridges and the reason they stay standing, it takes a number of theories (or reasons) to explain every reason evolution happens. Like trusses, suspension, arch and other theories explaining the ways bridges stand, Darwinism (Survival of the fittest or natural selection), mutation (random changes in genetic code to create a new attribute - whether advantageous or not) and other lesser-known theories all explain a part of why evolution happens. Using the term "theory" is scientifically correct, but to the layman makes it sound like there is some uncertainty about it. There isn't.
Getting back to the article, Ms. Kirby points all of this out in a more high-brow manner, but makes the same case. But she leaves out some background about Christianity which, I think, would have made a more eye-popping, "Holy crap!" case for most people.
First of all, there are those who take the Bible literally. That is, they say it explains and describes everything exactly as it happened. Then there are those who say it's apocryphal. It's a collection of parables intending us to lead a better life provided you follow the teachings of Jesus. But no matter how you slice it, there is one point of convergence for Christians and Christians in particular.
It's pretty clear, whether you believe in the literal interpretation or are a member of of the apocryphal crowd that the only reason the Old Testament exists is to set up the coming of the Christ - the Redeemer. But there's something else that's glossed over: The reason we need a redeemer in the first place. That reason is Original Sin.
All Christians believe that no man born of woman is sin-free. They are conceived in original sin, and are tainted with the sins of their fathers and their father's father and their father's father's father ad infinitum. In short, we're all born sinners. Why's that? Because of the fall of Adam and Eve - who both lived in "innocence" until the infamous Apple incident (which makes me wonder about Steve Jobs, the snake and Jobs' choice of logo, but that's another blog), after which they realized they were naked, and got busy. That was Original Sin. We needed the Redeemer to redeem Mankind from the taint of Original Sin arising from the Fall of Man. That Redeemer was Christ, and that is why Christians are called Christians: "Followers of Christ".
This is the foundation upon which ALL versions of Christianity stand. It is the bedrock upon which all Christian faith is built.
So we have the fact of evolution. It's undeniable. It's proven. Like gravity, you may want to ignore it, but like gravity, it's going to affect you even if you try to ignore it or deny it. And we have Christian faith built entirely on the foundation of Original Sin and the need for a Redeemer from that Sin.
Now, to quote Ms. Kirby's article:
Way back when, my first blog post was "The Simple Truth". It tried to explain the reason we have a spiritual side, the need for expressing spirituality, and a "better" way of addressing that need. Christianity is merely one way of addressing the need to express spirituality.
Christianity has taken on the aura of sacred over the years simply because it's been around for so long, but the fact is, it hasn't. It's changed many times, often radically. The First Church was Catholicism, and even that has changed quite a bit since the time of the founding of the papacy in Rome. (At first, priests were allowed to marry, and they had female priests - both allowances abolished by later popes). The schism that broke the Catholics was Martin Luther, creating the Protestant Church (The Lutheran Church was the first Protestant Church), which itself underwent multiple schisms as each society tried to reconcile the word of the Bible with the way they expressed their spirituality. But no matter how different their rituals were, or their administrative practices, or their costumes or their songs, they all had one thing in common: Belief in Christ as the Redeemer of Man for Original Sin.
The bottom line is Christianity can be disproved. The need to address one's spiritual side (assuming, of course, there IS a spiritual side - or any sort of afterlife) remains. Evolution isn't going to do it, nor will Christianity (and, by inference, all of the major religions since all major religions rely on biblical accounts of creation as part of the foundation of their mythology, though not to the extent Christians do). But with yet another major religion destroyed at the very root of its dogma, how many more will we have to go through before we stop putting our faith in gods and devils and start doing the work necessary to make our lives, and the lives of our kids and their kids and their kid's kids ad infinitum better?
The time will come when the Bible, the Torah and the Koran will be seen as nothing more than a mash-up of impossibilities, thoroughly discredited as paths of any kind of "enlightenment" and spiritual dead ends simply because they rely on invisible sky friends, and a strong, powerful central religious "government" which control their believers very thoughts. Science will prove them wrong about everything. When you have proof, faith is the casualty, and faith in impossible, disproved things will no longer be acceptable.
But with the utterly factual deconstruction of the foundation of Christianity, it's obvious that people will have to find better reasons to be nice to one another than because it's "What Jesus Would Do".
The article, entitled "Evolution threatens Christianity", by Paula Kirby appeared in the Washington Post on Aug 24, 2011. In it, she pointed out several reasons why Christians are afraid of evolution in a no-nonsense, dispassionate, straight-forward and iron-clad manner. Like a round-world advocate in a flat-earth society, she proved beyond any doubt that the entire foundation of Christianity was not just flawed, but outright impossible.
She pointed out that science has these things called facts and that facts, no matter how hard they are to ignore (and no matter how many people choose to ignore them) can not be disproved. She even went into why a theory to a scientist (which is what a scientist would correctly call Darwinism, Mutation and other proven - but not all encompassing in and of themselves - forces influencing Evolution) is not something that is "theoretical". A layman may look at a theory as something which is untested and unexamined, like a plan yet to be implemented. To a scientist, that's called a hypothesis. When a scientist talks about a theory, that's something which is proven, has observable, repeatable data and has been subjected to intensive peer review for flaws, errors or inconsistencies. It doesn't have to be all encompassing, however. It only has to describe one aspect of a known fact in such a way that the aspect is described scientifically and is not refutable or able to be disproved.
To describe a scientific theory versus a layman's concept of a theory, Ms. Kirby used her own methods, which, I feel were a touch high-brow. So I'll provide my own way of explaining the difference.
We all know bridges exist. We see them every day. We cross over them. We go under them. They are a fact. A Bridge is defined as a structure creating a span between two or more points across which travel between those two or more points is comfortably possible. This way we all know what a bridge is defined as.
A theory of a bridge isn't so much what the bridge is made of, but the design of the bridge itself - why the bridge stays standing. In some cases it's a suspension bridge - the weight of the bridge being redirected by cables or ropes to a strong supporting area. In other cases it's a rope bridge, either planked or unplanked, which is little more than a couple of ropes stretched over a chasm, river or other obstruction. There are truss bridges, and flat bridges and arch bridges. All of them are bridges, as described, but each stays standing by a different Theory - or reason it's stays standing instead of collapsing. No single Theory describes every bridge - every reason that bridge stays standing. But each one can describe an aspect of what we have defined as a "Bridge".
The same goes for Evolution. We know it happens. We see it in the fossil record. We even see it happening in real time We have reasons explaining why it happens. Scientists call these reasons "Theories". No single theory explains everything we see happening in Evolution, but like with bridges and the reason they stay standing, it takes a number of theories (or reasons) to explain every reason evolution happens. Like trusses, suspension, arch and other theories explaining the ways bridges stand, Darwinism (Survival of the fittest or natural selection), mutation (random changes in genetic code to create a new attribute - whether advantageous or not) and other lesser-known theories all explain a part of why evolution happens. Using the term "theory" is scientifically correct, but to the layman makes it sound like there is some uncertainty about it. There isn't.
Getting back to the article, Ms. Kirby points all of this out in a more high-brow manner, but makes the same case. But she leaves out some background about Christianity which, I think, would have made a more eye-popping, "Holy crap!" case for most people.
First of all, there are those who take the Bible literally. That is, they say it explains and describes everything exactly as it happened. Then there are those who say it's apocryphal. It's a collection of parables intending us to lead a better life provided you follow the teachings of Jesus. But no matter how you slice it, there is one point of convergence for Christians and Christians in particular.
It's pretty clear, whether you believe in the literal interpretation or are a member of of the apocryphal crowd that the only reason the Old Testament exists is to set up the coming of the Christ - the Redeemer. But there's something else that's glossed over: The reason we need a redeemer in the first place. That reason is Original Sin.
All Christians believe that no man born of woman is sin-free. They are conceived in original sin, and are tainted with the sins of their fathers and their father's father and their father's father's father ad infinitum. In short, we're all born sinners. Why's that? Because of the fall of Adam and Eve - who both lived in "innocence" until the infamous Apple incident (which makes me wonder about Steve Jobs, the snake and Jobs' choice of logo, but that's another blog), after which they realized they were naked, and got busy. That was Original Sin. We needed the Redeemer to redeem Mankind from the taint of Original Sin arising from the Fall of Man. That Redeemer was Christ, and that is why Christians are called Christians: "Followers of Christ".
This is the foundation upon which ALL versions of Christianity stand. It is the bedrock upon which all Christian faith is built.
So we have the fact of evolution. It's undeniable. It's proven. Like gravity, you may want to ignore it, but like gravity, it's going to affect you even if you try to ignore it or deny it. And we have Christian faith built entirely on the foundation of Original Sin and the need for a Redeemer from that Sin.
Now, to quote Ms. Kirby's article:
Thus falls Christianity.
"Evolution poses a further threat to Christianity, though, a threat that goes to the very heart of Christian teaching. Evolution means that the creation accounts in the first two chapters of Genesis are wrong. That's not how humans came into being, nor the cattle, nor the creeping things, nor the beasts of the earth, nor the fowl of the air. Evolution could not have produced a single mother and father of all future humans, so there was no Adam and no Eve. No Adam and Eve: no fall. No fall: no need for redemption. No need for redemption: no need for a redeemer. No need for a redeemer: no need for the crucifixion or the resurrection, and no need to believe in that redeemer in order to gain eternal life. And not the slightest reason to believe in eternal life in the first place. "
Way back when, my first blog post was "The Simple Truth". It tried to explain the reason we have a spiritual side, the need for expressing spirituality, and a "better" way of addressing that need. Christianity is merely one way of addressing the need to express spirituality.
Christianity has taken on the aura of sacred over the years simply because it's been around for so long, but the fact is, it hasn't. It's changed many times, often radically. The First Church was Catholicism, and even that has changed quite a bit since the time of the founding of the papacy in Rome. (At first, priests were allowed to marry, and they had female priests - both allowances abolished by later popes). The schism that broke the Catholics was Martin Luther, creating the Protestant Church (The Lutheran Church was the first Protestant Church), which itself underwent multiple schisms as each society tried to reconcile the word of the Bible with the way they expressed their spirituality. But no matter how different their rituals were, or their administrative practices, or their costumes or their songs, they all had one thing in common: Belief in Christ as the Redeemer of Man for Original Sin.
The bottom line is Christianity can be disproved. The need to address one's spiritual side (assuming, of course, there IS a spiritual side - or any sort of afterlife) remains. Evolution isn't going to do it, nor will Christianity (and, by inference, all of the major religions since all major religions rely on biblical accounts of creation as part of the foundation of their mythology, though not to the extent Christians do). But with yet another major religion destroyed at the very root of its dogma, how many more will we have to go through before we stop putting our faith in gods and devils and start doing the work necessary to make our lives, and the lives of our kids and their kids and their kid's kids ad infinitum better?
The time will come when the Bible, the Torah and the Koran will be seen as nothing more than a mash-up of impossibilities, thoroughly discredited as paths of any kind of "enlightenment" and spiritual dead ends simply because they rely on invisible sky friends, and a strong, powerful central religious "government" which control their believers very thoughts. Science will prove them wrong about everything. When you have proof, faith is the casualty, and faith in impossible, disproved things will no longer be acceptable.
But with the utterly factual deconstruction of the foundation of Christianity, it's obvious that people will have to find better reasons to be nice to one another than because it's "What Jesus Would Do".
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