Talk:Santa Claus

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recent large addition

Using "It has been suggested" to start several paragraphs in a row is rather poor style, surely since there are references these could say "so and so says..."? ħuman 20:16, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Santa versus God

Actually, there is more evidence too young children of Santa than of God to adults. Toys actually do appair as predicted, which is reasonable evidence from a child's perspective; this can't really be said of God. Also, children accept Santa as a fact of life rather than trying to keep faith in him, and usually abandon the belief when they learn otherwise (e.g., parental confession or catching parents hiding toys). In contrast, many adults will try to believe in God despite contrary evidence and feel guilty for any doubt they might have. All things consider, belief in Santa by children is actually more rational than belief in God by adults.

Honestly, for evidence for religious belief (which I have no problem with) is subjective. It is all about perception of the world or what we perceive to be; an event in someone's life my be evidence for someone (Ex. Surviving a plane crash) or something not occurring could be taken as evidence for a divine being (Ex. Not going somewhere you want to find out something bad has happened there). To me it is all about perception.--Rationalzombie94 (talk) 03:49, 20 December 2015 (UTC)

There is a mountain of evidence for religious belief. At least, there is a mountain of evidence which shows that religious belief exists.

What is lacking is any good evidence supporting the the ideas upon which religious belief is based.--Bob^{"Life is short and (insert adjective)"} 13:10, 20 December 2015 (UTC)

Some dare call it

Conspiracy.--Thedoctor80 (talk) 18:04, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

The point at which a child stops believing in Santa Claus

... is the year it starts being given clothes for Christmas. 212.85.6.26 (talk) 18:56, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Teh funz

This is an okay article, but it's more fun than main space, kn'a'm saying? MESSIAH OF DOOM ^{Raining blood, from a lacerated sky} 13:22, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

Coca Cola

I'd like to ask if it is worth mentioning the belief that Santa Claus's depiction of wearing red and white was popularized by Coca-Cola's usage of him in advertising. I am not an expert on the subject and do not know if it is true or not (what articles I have read say that Santa was depicted in such a manner in other places before Coke began using him in the 1930s), but I see it mentioned frequently when discussing his origins, so perhaps it is something to mention? 76.67.134.226 (talk) 03:30, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

Agreed. Do you think it's worth to be added?. Panzerfaust (talk) 14:20, 1 December 2018 (UTC)

I am frequently amazed

I am frequently amazed that adults assume that children are innocent. Adults were children once, but they seem to frequently have a level of intellectual dishonesty about what actually happens in childhood when they have children of their own, resulting in moral panics.[1] Bongolian (talk) 04:50, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

Should the lead section be rewritten without sarcasm in case kids don't notice it?

I fear that kids might read this article and not pick up on the sarcasm, and be convinced that Santa Claus is real. Shouldn't RationalWiki not censor the truth about Santa Claus from kids, since RationaWiki is based on truth and facts? Félix An (talk) 01:37, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

Ditto. Hydronium hydroxide (talk) 02:37, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

"But I thought this was supposed to be RATIONALWiki!" Drink! --Goatspeed. _{Fossil evidence of my evolution}CircularRasoning^{See what I'm planning} 02:45, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

Hydronium hydroxide (talk) 02:51, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

User:CircularReasoning, even Wikipedia, Britannica and (for goodness sakes) Conservapedia state that Santa Claus is merely a legendary character. I think that would be clearer to kids rather than the sarcastic way it is written right now. I'm not doing this to be anti-Christmas, but I think that kids believing in Santa has huge psychological impacts when they find out it isn't real, as was the case for me. Félix An (talk) 12:17, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

I don't have a very strong opinion on this article, but a couple of thoughts. A) Kids are far more likely to stumble on the Wikipedia link (first Google result for me) then the Rationalwiki article. B) There was no reference to a famous February 1991 Spy magazine article that became a big 1990s copypasta Internet email/Usenet chain thingy, so after finding an actual decent retrospective reference to it, I added it. PanGalacticGargleBlaster (talk) 14:09, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

(ec)the age kids cotton to there being no santa is probably way before they are likely to find their way to rationalwiki or to keep thier attention if they get here by accident. if they are old enough to google santa, then wikipedia will be their first port of call. i doubt this will shatter any young childs belief in santa though as 'legendary' isnt going be to be understood as 'not real' to their young minds. and along with all the other people talking like santa is real that a child will be exposed to, on the off chance hey make here we'll be just one more place keeping up the charade.

any child that doesnt figure it out themselves by a certain age is either wilfully refusing to accept the truth that their friends will likely be laughing at them for their belief, or they are so sheltered that those around them are able to hide anything that might ruin it for the child or contradict evidence they have fabricated to keep it alive past the point its adorable and healthy to a point where its disturbing they still believe and a form of child abuse to encourage. if they have internet access, it aint going to be the second case

if your child is going to traumatised by the seemingly contradictary information provided by us and by wikipedia, then your child is too young to be on the internet unsupervised or you should be concerned about why the truth of about santa should be unusually traumatic at all

and our target audience is old enough know we are not serious when suggesting santa is anything more than a fantasy for kids AMassiveGay (talk) 14:16, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

It's actually pretty funny that someone would actually think that a reader could be confused by the intro.Bob^{"Life is short and (insert adjective)"} 16:12, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

I spent a goodly part of my childhood being annoyed at adults who tried to 'protect' me from things that I already knew. Parents, it seems, engage in wilful ignorance of what childhood was actually like. Bongolian (talk) 19:48, 11 June 2021 (UTC)