I live in the Southern USA and have just returned from my wife’s family reunion. Most of them claim to be deeply religious (flavor: Church of Christ) and are also quite conservative. My wife and I do just fine with my atheism and her low level religiosity, but for obvious reasons, mainly the incessant hassling we would both get, we do not divulge my status to her family and most of our friends.
After dinner on Saturday at the reunion, people were discussing Santa and specifically the age at which their kids found out about Santa or stopped believing that he was real. My sister in law Joan mentioned her eldest son, Dean who is very bright and perceptive (see below).
Joan said, “Dean got it about Santa when he was 5. He said to me, ‘Mom, Santa is just like God.’ I put a stop to that right away,” she continued. “I said, ‘No, Dean they are not. Santa is not real!’”
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Alembe' .....
Keep an eye on that young Dean ....... there may come a day when he'll need your help.
But he is good for 5....
Watchman,
I wish it were so, though I doubt it. “Young” Dean is now 49. He had 20 years of church-based school and college education to banish such wayward thoughts, he and his wife now teach in a church school and his family and social life are all church-centered. Even though he teaches chemistry and physics, and otherwise has a logical brain, there is a Trump-sized wall between his science and his religion. Thus for him to accept the non-existence of God would require him to refute essentially his identity, life, family and philosophy.
However, if I were ever to discuss atheism with any family member, he would probably be the one that I would choose.
Damn .....
but that's depressing .......such early promise.......thwarted.
But like somebody said...."Religion poisons everything"