@cicerone imposter,
This reminds me of an incident from when I was five years old. My older sister, Carol, who was fourteen, told me that the Tooth Fairy was, in fact, mom. I was young, but I remember my response. All thought stopped, and I stood there thinking about whether it was possible that it was my mom. In our house, you put your tooth in a glass of water and then put the glass on the kitchen window sill. In the morning, the tooth was gone, and there was a dime at the bottom of the glass. Took me about ten seconds to determine that it could easily be done by mom. So, I went to her and asked if there was really a Tooth Fairy or if she was the one taking the tooth and putting the dime in the glass. She didn’t answer right away, and she had a strange look on her face. I’d seen the look before. Something was up; she was hiding something.
Without looking at me, she finally said, “Did somebody tell you that there wasn’t a Tooth Fairy?”
I said, “Yeah, Carol told me it was you.”
“Well she’s wrong,” she said. “Now go tell her I want her.”
I went outside and found Carol and told her that mom wanted her. A little later, Carol came to me and said that she was kidding about mom being the Tooth Fairy. I noticed that she was quite subdued, her eyes downcast. It was obvious that she had been yelled at . . . or hit. I realized right then that there was no Tooth Fairy.
And then I found out about the Easter Bunny, and then Santa Claus. On the up side, I learned to not believe everything I was told--not even if it was my mother who told me. Funny thing is that, even after all that, it still took a lot of years before I decided I was being lied to about the existence of the biblical god. I attribute this lag in the application of critical thinking skills when it came to the Almighty to the fact that, unlike the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus, the adults were really playing this one to a tee. Every Sunday since the day I was born, lots and lots of people filled churches, sang songs, and talked to God, and all while holding their sacred book. And even if you stayed home instead of going to church, there were religious programs all morning on most of the TV stations. There was no escape!
But like I said, the upside is that I learned that, despite who it is that tells you something is true, or how many people believe it, it just might turn out to be bullshit. So, even if the Pope--especially if the Pope--tells you something, think twice, if not three times.
Proving to yourself that Santa Claus doesn’t exist is easy once you reach a certain age. The logistics alone is proof that something doesn’t add up. Even assuming that his sleigh gets better than 250,000 miles per rum-pum-pum-pum, we know that it would have to be the size of Texas to accommodate the number of presents it would have to carry. And then there’s the issue of what kind of engine it would take just to get it off the ground, to say nothing of propelling it to every household, what with the stop and go aspect of such a widespread delivery route.
Proving that the god doesn’t exist is a little trickier. It’s gifts are not physical. And if you ask for something and don’t get it, the default position of believers is that you must have fallen short of the god’s favor, and are therefore unworthy of having your need filled.
