Wonderful question Wayne!

I remember when my dad told me there was no Santa in 2nd grade, how excited I was to know the secret that only the big kids and adults new.

He made me promise to not tell any kids younger than me.

So I ran down the street to Jimmy Olson's house, who lived 2 doors down and was a year older than me to tell him that I knew.

He was like "no kidding, I've known that for a long time you little baby"

But like you said, some kids didn't find out until later and kids at school would make fun of them.

Frank Aquilina at our school still believed in Santa Clause in 4th grade. The only reason that an almost 66 year old man would possibly remember such an obscure thing is because some of the kids made fun of him for believing in Santa.

His parents were from Malta and sort of backwards,  so I don't know if that had anything to do with it. 

Frank passed away some years back, I think but can you imagine if, at our 50 year reunion, everybody remembered him for still believing in Santa Clause in the 4th grade.

We have 3 grand kids and when my wife was telling me that they stilled believed in Santa in the 4th grade, she hated it when I told her the Frank Aquilina stories.

I never even brought it up to my daughter and son in law though. To me, there are 1,000 more important things about raising children than when you tell them about Santa or if you like to enhance their fun as young children with a make believe character.

If we asked Frank Aquilina what he thought.............the response might be different (-:

its not just santa ... there are several topics like this.  the tooth fairy, or even going to heaven.  

we often pass on stories for several reasons.  

you better be good or santa won't bring you any presents.  this is basic behavior control.  

or maybe it is also a matter of tradition.  its fun, and we like the stories/ traditions.

what is more important... to teach kids what is true? or to spread ideas that might occasionally be useful for some other purpose?

when grandma passes away, we tell our kids that grandma is in a better place.  maybe that is not true.  but at least it might bring comfort to some people.  there is no evidence that beliefs in an afterlife are true.  but it might be useful.

or when people believe in astrology, or tarrot cards, those things may be vague and not true,  but some people find meaning in them.  

is there anything wrong with society having its "myths" that they pass on?  

Whoa nelly bear, you’re equating Santa with religion and God is 2 different things even if they both provide those who believe with incentive to be good.

There are almost no adults that raise their children to believe in God that don’t also believe most of the same things.

When my dad told me about there being no Santa in 2nd or maybe it was first grade, I don’t think that I thought.......maybe Jesus is made up too?

That’s when I found out about the Easter Bunny and Tooth Fairy too, like you mentioned.

Of course I was going to Catholic school and had 5 younger siblings and had to keep my awesome adult secret to myself......which I did.

Considering all the trouble that I got into until a few years out of high school, if there was a Santa he would have delivered lots of stockings full of coal to metmike growing up.

With regards to religion growing up, I believed in God but can’t ever remember thinking that I better be good in order to get to heaven when I die.

Most kids can’t relate to their behavior  today that will pay dividends in.......60-70+ years. At least not me.

Especially when you can go to confession and have all your sins forgiven any time that you want.

Do all the crimes, as long as you make sure to ask for forgiveness before you die. Seriously, I remember thinking that many hundreds of times growing up.

Santa, on the other hand means behaving RIGHT NOW or suffer almost immediate consequences.

I’m not sure how effective that is either. I wonder how many parents actually decided to not buy presents for their kid because he was bad?

And then on Christmas, when the other good kids got presents, told the bad kid......sorry Junior, Santa is punishing you for being bad.....that’s why you got nothing.

That might cause the bad kid to have psychological damage and worsen his behavior!!

Hi Mike

When you said you got in all kinds of trouble until you were out of high school

That struck a cord with me as I was also that kid. Always in trouble with the teachers in high school. I did not do anything that was unlawful on week ends, didn't even go to the local gravel pit and drink beer. I thought girls and a movie/dance hall were much more interesting.

The story of Santa is much bigger than pretty packages. Its a chance to find that special person. Its a chance to turn over a new leaf in your life or as simple as do a good deed for a sick neighbor. Santa is about second chances, and the good guys winning for a change. Santa is about a poor kid with no clothes or heat finding a home or a old unhealthy adult just finding 1 meal and a place to sleep for the night. There are Christmas miracles out there.

What a wonderful interpretation of the Christmas spirit mcfarm!!

More than worthy of the "Post of the week" 

this is always a fun topic in a philosophy class.  whether it is santa claus, or religion, or ghosts.  why do people pass on beliefs in  something that has no solid evidence?  

i have a friend who believes in ghosts.  maybe it is because of a personal experience.   but there is No evidence that he can provide to get everyone to believe in ghosts.  maybe he was smoking something questionable that night.  i don't think he is schizophrenic.  but who knows.  

you might be convinced that something is true.  you may even teach your kids about that belief.  but evidence is another matter altogether.  

so the question... why do we pass on certain ideas to our kids?  

sure i took my kids to church.  it is useful to teach a kid that they should have some compassion and understanding for others.  it is useful to teach kids to forgive you sibling if they offend you.  

no, i do not take the bible literally.  but there are some wonderful teachings there to pass on to our kids. 

here is an interesting thing for you to do.  

buy a copy of the jefferson bible.  very interesting story behind that book.  

200 years before computers.  thomas jefferson did cut and paste.  clip out all the things he likes in the bible, and put them together into his own version of the bible.  and he left out things that he thought were not important.  

we all do this mentally,  but he actually did this for real .   he was honest enough to say... ABC etc, i will leave out because i am not big on these ideas.  fascinating.  

Fascinating in several realms bear.

I know several people that are convinced of spirits and ghosts. 

I would be totally convinced that fortune tellers are complete bunk.........except for 2, 100% authentic experiences.

I'll spare the details of the first one that could have been explained from an extremely low odds coincidence but not the 2nd one.

My wife has always strongly believed in psychics and fortune tellers. As the scientist, I've always been extremely skeptical and pretty much a non believer.

Right after we got married, in 1985, she wanted to go to a fortune teller/psychic that a friend of her's claimed was the best around in a tiny town in KY, around 40 miles south of here.

OK, I agreed and was determined to prove to her that this older lady, Mrs. Utley was completely full of crap. I was not going to give this lady any clue's to use to trick me into thinking she was reading my mind or seeing my past/future. 

The first thing we had to do was cover our lips with lipstick, then make a distinct imprint on a paper towel for her.  Then she looked at our hands and started telling us things.

She already knew me because I had been a tv celebrity as chief meteorologist for WEHT for 3 years.

She looked at my hands and noticed the thick calluses on the palms and made a joke.."is that from holding the weather pointer?"  I was a power lifter and body builder and it was from lifting heavy weights. This was intentionally really funny by her but had nothing to do with the things she said next.

She said that she saw 2 sets of 2 D's of important people very close to me/in my life.  In fact, she insisted that they were twins but couldn't make out exactly what the relationship was between them and me.

My wife's name is Debbie, so it's possible she was using that.......however when I was going to college and shortly after that, living in Ann Arbor MI, I had 2 serious girl friends.

One was Debbie, who had a twin named Diane.

The other was Diana, who had a twin, Donna.

What would be the odds of her, at random  saying something that matched up  perfectly with that astronomically low odds fact? Again, I was being skeptical and NOT believing anything that she said and NOT giving her anything to go by. I said zero about those girls to her. 

She said 2 other things that I remember, that I used afterwards as evidence to my wife that she was clueless. 

She said that I was going to have another career that was totally different than anything I could imagine. Man, did I ever argue with her on that one. I went to college to get a degree in atmospheric and oceanic science and my chosen career was tv meteorology. 

I was 100% convinced that for the rest of my life I was going to be a tv meteorologist and told her she was dead wrong.  But she insisted that its something that I didn't even know exists. Afterwards, because Mrs. Utley vehemently insisted that SHE was right about my career change and that I didn't know my future, it was my proof that she was full of doo doo.

However, her mentioning the 2 double D's gave me pause and made me admit that she must have an ability to see certain items, even if she missed on most of them. 

So 8 years later, I parted ways with the tv station for good,  after learning about trading commodities based on weather(which I did the research on for a couple years after finding out what it was for the first time in my life in the drought of 1988) and that's what I've been doing since then.

It wasn't until around 15 years later, that I suddenly remembered. Hey.........Mrs. Utley predicted this back in 1985. Holy Cow, how could she have possibly known and vehemently stuck to her guns in insisting that she was right?????

She also said something interesting near the end of the session, that I didn't appreciate at the time. She scolded me. "Don't you go cheating on this sweet woman!!!"

What she was saying is that I was going to be inclined to cheat on my wife, as I took it. That was another thing that I knew would never happen.........and in that case, I was right.

However, like with her not being able to connect the double D's, I think she saw something real but didn't connect it exactly.

For the 1.5 years before meeting my wife, after I moved here, I had women throwing themselves at me......the tv celebrity, competitive bodybuilder. I had 2 dozen flings, often 1 night stands, which I'm totally ashamed of because I had horrible morals and let it go to my head........both of them actually. 

I believe that Mrs. Utley was able to see my history and not know if it was my future or not, because she thought the double D's might be the future too..........when they were actually the past(I didn't confirm it because I was trying to keep from giving her positive cues).

So the bottom line is that this lady was no fraud. She had a gift that I can't explain with science or my understanding of how she could have possibly known the things that she did.

My wife, by the way insisted that Mrs. Utley nailed every detail of her life(that I just chocked up to my wife being gullible at the time) and tried to convince her that it wasn't so.

Anyways, we went to a couple of other fortune tellers after that and they really were frauds in my opinion.

The 2nd one came to our house and insisted that my mind was too powerful for her to  get any readings from. I took that to mean that she wasn't able to trick me, like the others there, with subtle questions to lead her to say things that sounded good. 

Regardless, Mrs. Utley had a true gift that can't be explained with anything that I understand.

Maybe its related to how some people (including me) after studying certain situations can suddenly have this, almost magical discernment/understanding that seemed so elusive previous to us but after meditating and in some cases, that involves prayer for many people........ suddenly, it just seems so clear, while most others are completely oblivious to it, including our previous self before the discernment was acquired.

Applying this principle into a less understood realm could completely explain Mrs. Utley.

And exactly how would science be able to observe/measure, verify and explain this?

It wouldn't with our current understanding of the physical laws of the universe...that we can see/observe and explain. 

Animals  can "see" the invisible(to us) magnetic field of the earth and travel thousands of miles like their ancestors to get away from the cold Winters.

How do dumb animals  know when its going to get cold and the food from growing plants is going away and when/where to  migrate to and when its safe to return every year?

Of course we figured out what was going on and can measure the magnetic field with the advancement of science but there must be a realm or realms that we still don't understand which might explain Mrs. Utley.