Friday, Dec. 24, 2004 - 5:46 p.m.

Faith No More

or

How Disillusionment with Santa Claus Leads to Atheism.

Tiny tots with their eyes all aglow will find it hard to sleep tonight.

I grew up worshiping Santa Claus as my chief God. My family was ostensibly Christian, but Jesus was always a distant second, some boring guy in the desert 2000 years ago with little if any relevance to my whiz-bang late 20th Century childhood. While Jesus promised deliverance, Santa actually delivered! Salvation seemed far away and abstract, but here were toys I could see and touch, a close encounter of the second kind, both evidence of a brush with magic as well as something to bring me enjoyment here and now.

As kids, December 24th was our high holy day. The anticipation, the decorations, the music, and the sugar were enough to drive me nearly to ecstatic convulsions. Christmas Day itself was pretty dull by 10 a.m. after the presents were all opened, and the 26th was positively depressing as withdrawal set in.

How is Santa a God? Santa only does manual labor one night a year. For the other 364, he judges you. You are being watched. This guy is immortal and omniscient, and on Christmas Eve, he has to be nearly omnipresent to go down all those chimneys in one night. He knows if you're asleep. He makes a list and checks it twice. I mean, even Saint Peter doesn't check his list twice. Now that's thorough. So be good for goodness sake. Yet, here lies the contradiction. If the sake of goodness were sufficient to motivate good behavior, why the need to reward the good kids with presents? Jesus Christ!

Culling the naughty from the nice, Santa's punishment could be as cruel as his rewards were kind. You would get a lump of coal in your stocking. Yet no kid I knew ever got the coal. It gradually became clear to me that Christmas gifts were an entitlement rather than a privilege, and the coal was just an empty threat to enforce exhortations to hold in your pouting and crying.

Santa's miracles were a wonder to behold. He even gave a little girl a whole house in A Miracle on 34th Street. He was a messiah and sometimes even a superhero, like in the short film, Snow, where Santa has a secret identity as a blind janitor or something, and then transforms into Santa and finds these evil cocaine dealers and uses his magical powers to totally kick their asses. Hell, he even has a secluded base at the North Pole, just like Superman.

As I grew older, I began to catch on that it wasn't cool to believe in Santa anymore. Yet one day, I think in 7th or 8th grade, a friend of mine revealed that unlike all his peers, he still believed in Santa Claus. It wasn't because he was the last to find out; he was familiar with all the arguments for disbelief, yet his belief persisted. At first, I teased him, but my ridicule turned to awe. I wanted that kind of connection to a realm of wonder too. I decided to experiment with faith that year: I tried as hard as I could to believe. Suppressing all doubts, I wanted to see if my belief could create my reality. I even painted a picture of Santa on his sleigh to focus my intention, and I propped the picture against the fireplace hoping that Santa would see it and recognize it as a demonstration of my faith.

On Christmas morning, gifts were waiting beneath the tree, some from my parents, and others from Santa, just like every year. I couldn't help noticing that both sets of gifts bore the same wrapping paper, identical nametags, and the same handwriting on the nametags. The evidence was not supportive of my hypothesis, that my belief could make Santa real. Perhaps I just didn't believe hard enough, maybe the wrapping was just to test my faith, but it just didn't seem likely. I continued to believe in the official God for several more years, but it was just a matter of time before I saw the undeniable parallels between Christianity and this experience with Santa. I eventually rejected God and Christ and the Bible as just another fairy story. I grew to cherish doubt as a tool that didn't necessarily reveal truth, but could dependably unmask falsehood.

Despite the shock and lingering resentment, I have come around to thinking that inculcating this belief in Santa in children only to rupture it later is beneficial for the children in the long run. It teaches kids the valuable lesson that adults can and will lie to you, and arouses a healthy skepticism, perhaps inducing them to wonder about what else they may have been deceived. Children's belief in Santa models religious faith within safer parameters, enabling these kids to build up a healthy resistance to the real thing, like a live-virus vaccine, or a homeopathic dose, if you will. Adult religions are, counterintuitively, even more preposterous than the ones created for children, so they all fall like dominos once critical examination begins.

America's favorite pastime is lying to children (even the American and Canadian military have gotten in on the act.) And not just about Santa Claus-- there's also the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy, similar supernatural beings who also have a knack for breaking and entering, and whose sole mission is to give you cool crap. Of the three, the Tooth Fairy is the only one who operates on a quid pro quo basis. Kids get the message that it is their role to receive, receive, and receive some more. Parents get some kind of cheap thrill out of the deception, despite the lack of challenge. A Christmas song on the radio also clued me in to the possibility that parents might also exploit their kid's naivety as a way of vicariously living in a pure, wholesome virtual reality that is otherwise lost to them in the cruel and cynical adult world.

I concede it's not consistent to have an abiding faith in the non-existence of a deity, so I guess I'm technically an agnostic, but for all practical purposes I'm an atheist. To me it's a matter of what I think is likely to be true. Sure, I could always be mistaken. Despite all the thought I've devoted to the subject, maybe I've missed something, and maybe there really is a patriarchal overlord of the universe with intelligence and a personality who created everything intentionally like a Swiss watchmaker, who intervenes in human affairs to help people win sporting events and Academy Awards, and who despite omnipotent power, wants lowly humans to worship Him for some reason, and flies into jealous rages when He doesn't get His way. But I'll believe that when pigs can fly. Or reindeer.

I Gotta Have Faith

But you know what? My smugness has gradually worn off, and I have come to envy the faithful. I can do without the clearly delusional aspects of their beliefs, but I could really use the comfort and encouragement. I wish I could say that I feel saved as an unbeliever, but the sad truth that my life as an atheist has often felt empty, confused, lonely, and fearful.

What I think I've been missing is a sense of hope. Of course, I think hope is about as unhealthy as worry: both are getting lost in fantasies about the future, to the detriment of the present. But the hope I'm looking for isn't one that's tied to desirable outcomes in the future, but rather a feeling of security that somehow everything will be alright no matter what happens. Perhaps faith is the word.

So lately I've been swallowing my pride and trying to cultivate that kind of faith. I've just come to realize that I am not able to function without it. It's not easy, since there's no supernatural hoopla I'm inclined to believe in. Is it possible to have faith without a belief system? For lack of a better idea, I'm just trying to have faith in faith itself. Which is tricky, because with faith, there is no "try".

In my efforts to stop worrying, I’ve even taken to using God as a convenient metaphor, though I wish to be perfectly clear that I in no way believe in any kind of deity, nor am I likely to revert to religion in the future. That bridge is really, really burnt, and not even Alan Rickman materializing in front of me could change that. I’m trying to live the wisdom of the Serenity Prayer, to do my part to control the factors I can control, and to say, “fuck it,” to the factors outside of my control. Only the gray areas still cause me consternation. Not my will but Thine. Sometimes I chalk it up to "the will of Allah" cause I like the way it sounds more anti-American.

(For a cheap gag, try singing “Santa Claus is Coming to Town” with all the regular lyrics, but change the chorus to “Santa Claus is Sleeping Around”.)

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