Am I the only one?
Posted on: June 20, 2009 - 7:11pm
Offline
Am I the only one?
Growing up in a free thinking household, I never realized that adults believed in creationism. I thought you stopped believing in that when you stopped believing in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. Didn’t anyone ever tell them it’s just a story?
My parents allowed me to believe in Santa and the Easter Bunny because it's such a fun part of childhood. I'm raising my son the same way. Christmas is just Santa day.
He was in a Baptist pre-K (hard to find cheap daycare that isn't religious in Dallas) and the teacher told him there wasn't a Santa. She was a mean old bat and I just told him that she was never good enough for Santa to bring her anything.
- Login to post comments
Welcome to the forum!
I don't think you're the only one; I'm positive that there are many others who would do the same.
However, if/when I have kids in the future, I will probably not encourage them to think that Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, and others are real. It would just feel wrong to me; I suppose I would be lieing to them. On the other hand, we would definitely celebrate Christmas. This is a holiday that has far escaped the clutches of Christianity, transcended many beliefs and cultures, and become known as a time of love and happiness.
Our revels now are ended. These our actors, | As I foretold you, were all spirits, and | Are melted into air, into thin air; | And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, | The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, | The solemn temples, the great globe itself, - Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, | And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, | Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff | As dreams are made on, and our little life | Is rounded with a sleep. - Shakespeare
What I find especially annoying is that the religious sophisticates who whine that they aren't creationists are so unwilling to challenge the creationists. Why aren't they outraged?
I remember arguing with one of them over at FRDB, and while he defended evolution, he refused to challenge fundie theology. He claimed that it was a matter of science, not theology. However, creationism is rooted in fundie theology, and his approach was like trying to rid a lawn of dandelions by plucking all the dandelion flowers. The rest of the dandelion plants still remain, and may produce even more dandelion flowers.
Many here have had it far worse. Some probably are too young to make waves in their households.
But there is no need to feel alone. Even today I run into similar stories to the same thoughts I had as a kid. I would suggest reading "Infidel" By Ayaan Hirsi Ali. In that book she describes being a young kid, walking in on her Grandmother praying to Allah and thinking to herself, "Who is she talking to, we are the only people in the room"
Admittedly it wasn't until my mid 20s that I slowly gave up on belief. Bu the doubts, just like Ali had as a kid, were always there, but living in a theistic household in a theistic society, being social animals and young spounges, we don't understand at that age, that we really are and can be autonomous.
That kind of questioning is quickly squashed by believing parents. Consider yourself lucky. But never feel alone.
"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
Check out my poetry here on Rational Responders Like my poetry thread on Facebook under Brian James Rational Poet, @Brianrrs37 on Twitter and my blog at www.brianjamesrationalpoet.blog
"you know a lot of people think dandelions are weeds. but then i think, 'who the hell said tulips are so nice?'"--peter griffin
"I have never felt comfortable around people who talk about their feelings for Jesus, or any other deity for that matter, because they are usually none too bright. . . . Or maybe 'stupid' is a better way of saying it; but I have never seen much point in getting heavy with either stupid people or Jesus freaks, just as long as they don't bother me. In a world as weird and cruel as this one we have made for ourselves, I figure anybody who can find peace and personal happiness without ripping off somebody else deserves to be left alone. They will not inherit the earth, but then neither will I. . . . And I have learned to live, as it were, with the idea that I will never find peace and happiness, either. But as long as I know there's a pretty good chance I can get my hands on either one of them every once in a while, I do the best I can between high spots."
--Hunter S. Thompson
I think I was in my late teens before it really hit me that some people believe in creationism.
Welcome!
Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.
When I was young and even into my teens, I knew a few adults that believed in creationism but I just thought they were just pretending. I thought they were saying it like you tell a child Santa is real (I looked real young so I was used to being treated much younger than I was). There was that one guy but he was sort of nuts.
Not until I moved to Dallas when I was 29 did I realize so many relatively sane people believed in creationism.
My parents brought me up not believing in anything...when I got to grade school, I was like, "Santa Who?".
“Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid.”
I was brought up Jehovah's Witness, i always new it was Bull even when i was a kid. I think the reason my experience lead me to become aware of TheCrazies so early is because i was brought up in a cult where The vast mojority of adults really do believe and i mean BELIEVE like real crazy believers, and in doing so come off looking like cartoon characters, even to a 7 year old demanding justifiable explanaitions for the story of Noah and Job. The problem was when i phsically left (14yrs old) the religion and my house and entered the real world i was somehow expecting the hole world to be rational athiest. As if Joho's were the only insane group on the planet because it was all i was aware of. Wishfull thinking i guess, you can imagine my surprise as i began to research, and found most of the world is crazy.
My father was raised not believing in Santa but it was more like they weren't allowed to believe in Santa and they were Methodist. His family was also sort of cold, never said I love you, talking wasn't allowed at the dinner table... stuff like that. I think he decided he had missed out on so much as a child, he wanted to allow his kids to have it even if he was/is an atheist (He was Unitarian-atheist when he married my mother 55 years ago). And I think I always knew Santa was a myth but it sure was fun.
But then I’m the girl that stopped going to Brownies after my first day because they were shocked that I didn't know who Jesus was... When I got home I asked my mother and she said “Well you know the stories I read you at night? Jesus is in some of them.” Only problem was she forgot to point out that there was a difference between the Christian, Greek and Roman myths and I walked away thinking these people (the women in Brownies) are crazy, they think there are gods living on Mount Olympus.
.” Only problem was she forgot to point out that there was a difference between the Christian, Greek and Roman myths and I walked away thinking these people (the women in Brownies) are crazy, they think there are gods living on Mount Olympus.
They are as crazy as believing in gods on mount olympus, i see no difference in the belief in Zeus, or the belief in Jesus, ones just more excepted and modern, both characters are still mythological, and their is no evidence to their existence, or divinity.
While my parents were (and still are christian) the rule was that science was right and religion filled in the gaps that sciences couldn't, or could not yet fill. This upbringing is probably similar to your's. So no you're not alone!
believe in things like Noah's Ark. They made us kids weepingly watch the movie of Noah and his family of impossibly skilled wildlife wranglers setting off
on a most unlikely circumnavigation.
The part that got us crying hardest was when the Noah's were sitting down to tea and you could hear the screams and clawings as their
neighbours scrabbled at the outside of the boat as the rain poured down. Noah settled the family by saying "It's god's will".
It was then I realised that given a chance I would try to kill god. Perfectly irrational I know now...
Another high point was watching the movie "The Rapture" at the local Brethren Temple. I think I was about 7. Mum had a habit of leaving her cardigan
hanging on the back of her chair and her shoes under it and for some years if I couldn't find her after school I was convinced the rapture had come.
Ummmm. Yeah - so some people do believe in god and you're a lucky chap your parents did not.
"Experiments are the only means of knowledge at our disposal. The rest is poetry, imagination." Max Planck
I would never, EVER lie to my children because I think its cute or fun. When I have children, they will be told immediately, whenever they ask, that Santa Claus is a story adults tell children out of tradition.
That won't stop us, however, from doing the silly rituals in a tounge-and-cheek fashion--because they are fun--but at no point will I mislead them into thinking they're real. For the same reason that I will not mislead them into thinking celebrating Christmas is about celebrating the birth of the mythical son of a god to a virgin.
I envy you. I would have been so much more emotionally sane had I not been infected with religious superstition. It was extra baggage for an already troubled mind.