I call it, The Santa Claus Paradox

My kid believes in Santa, Elf on the Shelf, the Tooth Fairy, and the Easter Bunny. To some extent, he believes in god. His relationship with each is pretty interesting.

To be honest, I am pretty sure I screwed up the Tooth Fairy thing. One night I was tired and fell asleep before I planted the money and tried to do a quick “plant”. He was suspicious and started an FBI like forensic analysis of the Tooth Fairy’s handwriting and concluded I was full of shit.

Sort of did the same with the Elf. He said “Buddy’s” drawings and handwriting looked a lot like mine.

Again, busted.

You will be relieved to hear Santa and the Easter Bunny are safe for now.

Now, I have never raised him with religion, never have taken him to church. His God knowledge is from friends at school and some stuff his mom told him (she is a recent convert to Islam). Our custody agreement prohibits her from giving religious education or “indoctrination”.

He currently hates God. He was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes this past December and cannot believe a god would torture a child with diabetes (his words). Without the back-story of Christianity he is free to question, reason and disagree without the fear of eternal damnation. I am completely confident he will reason out of that belief and have a firm foundation of reason and knowledge.

I listen, help him reason through his conversation but am determined he needs to figure this one out.

So, much like Santa and the Easter Bunny–in which he believes in with all his heart–someday the truth will come out. When it does, he will like most of us continue to enjoy the holidays in the spirit of family and community. He has a niece and a nephew that he can pass on the Elf tradition and hide eggs for.

I have always likened belief in religion very much like the belief in Santa. The major difference being, once you find out Santa isn’t real, Christmas continues. You still get gifts and a wonderful seasonal holiday.

Tell a Christian you’ve reasoned your way out of god/religion and you’re going to hell. Where all the most interesting people probably are anyway

PS – I know some of you in this community don’t celebrate Christmas or other Pagan holidays. Good for you. I won’t debate that with you. Christmas is fun and so is Easter and I will use any excuse to cook a HUDGE meal for my family. We don’t say grace, but we do express gratitiude.