AS1: Atheists and Holidays, Part 1

In the inaugural episode, David and Thomas give personal introductions, objectives for the show, and then discuss the first topic:  atheists and Santa Claus.

4 thoughts on “AS1: Atheists and Holidays, Part 1”

  1. I’d love to join your Facebook page, but alas, I can’t. I’m not out to my parents as an Atheist, and they’re on Facebook. Do you have a G+ page? My parents don’t use G+, so I’m out as an Atheist in that forum.

  2. Nice first episode man. As for Santa + kids, I think Tom got it right, its wondering if a non-believing kid will upset some other believer causing some sort of social melee. If the kid is old enough, I think the approach of getting them to understand others may believe things they don’t can be a real growth moment for them, though I’m not sure teaching kids to try to break said beliefs is a good idea, getting them to understand that sometimes they have to hold their tongue is a good thing. As a summer day program councilor one year, I had a kid come up to me, just out the blue “did you know my mom and dad believe in Santa” I just asked, why do you think that, this tiny kid said “they like to make to believe for me, so its ok if I pretend too!” some kids can be quite clever.

  3. Great episode. I like the dialog and look forward to more episodes. I’m listening to episode two right now and will be catching up today.

  4. I just found your show and was listening to past episodes. I’m enjoying then and you’ve done a great job so far. I am an atheist parent of teens. Looking back, I’m just not sure Santa’s something you need to really worry about. My husband and I never lied to our kids, we never perpetrated the myth in our home, but we did share the stories and acquaint them with the folklore.

    Neither of my kids ever believed in Santa anymore than they believed in Winnie-the-Pooh, but both were infinitely willing to pretend Santa was real. They never burst anyone else’s bubble or got us into trouble with other parents. Small children just don’t live with the same rules of reality that the rest of us do. They can walk in and out of fantasy worlds with ease because they’re still learning the difference between fantasy and reality. I doubt it ever hurts a small child to play the Santa game. The only way I can think that it would a harm a child might be if the parents didn’t allow the child to outgrow it naturally.

    The God thing has presented my kids with a lot more problems than Santa…kids are asked to continue believing God is real long after they’ve lost their natural credulity. We’ve had lots of wonderful family holidays without pretending Santa was real and we’ve never really had any problems.

    I think everyday parenting is more far important than Santa Claus when it comes to teaching critical thinking, so parents should do what feels right to them. Just don’t carry it on past the point when they start really questioning it. My teens know I’m fallible but trustworthy, which was one of my goals all along, but I don’t think how we handled Santa Claus had as much to do that as how we parented them on a day to day basis.

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