Spreading the Good News like a complete nimrod...

2

Comments

  • mr cheesy wrote: »

    Why isn't it? I've had small children, I saw no need to actively tell them lies.

    What's wrong with saying to them "this is a nice story about Christmas.."?

    Something like what we did. We didn't encourage Santa stories, but didn't tell them that he didn't exist. And yes, some presents were from Santa.

    I don't think they had a problem with the fact that Santa didn't exist. They got that we hadn't lied to them, we had merely accepted a story that others told.

    There is a place for arguing that Santa does exist - historically, St Nicholas was real. Most of the traditions are valid traditions with good historical reason. So maybe we need to teach them about these traditions - of giving to the poor, of giving because we can - and connect these to the stories we have of Santa.
  • Excuse me, what is the charity this woman works for? What does it do?
  • The Mary Bass Charity: "TO FURTHER THE RELIGIOUS AND OTHER CHARITABLE WORK OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND (INCLUDING THE FURTHERANCE OF THE AIMS OF THE CHRISTIAN STEWARDSHIP MOVEMENTS) WITHIN THE AREA OF BENEFIT. THE AREA OF BENEFIT BEING SEVEN SPECIFIED PARISHES IN THE FORMER LOCAL AUTHORITY AREA OF SOUTH HOLLAND IN LINCOLNSHIRE" (sorry for capitals, blame the Charity Commission website).
  • Doc TorDoc Tor Admin
    edited December 2018
    Blimey. I haven't seen such a concentration of capital letters since I last looked in on the Mark Betts thread...
  • It was "copy and paste".
  • The Mary Bass Charity: "TO FURTHER THE RELIGIOUS AND OTHER CHARITABLE WORK OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND .

    And she doesn't believe that there is or ever was a St Nicholas?

    I have to leave this thread now, because I have no idea how to type or verbalise what is going on in my head. It is like "kdsljf; sdhpurei jxk;cjhsfp asrteqwbv" only masses of it.

  • It's not a coincidence that the emergence of the modern Santa Claus in the Anglosphere correlates with a rise in skepticism and unbelief in our culture. Indeed, @SusanDoris was obviously told that Santa Claus did not exist before she was ripe, and look what happened? She became a heretic and an unbeliever.

    @KarlLB You obviously enjoyed the Christmas thing as a child. Would it not have been equally enjoyable as a celebration of Festivus? I can remember being filled with a sense of wonder and pleasure following a leaf down a rain-swollen drain, or staring at the night sky, of excitement and joy playing with the basset hound next door, of wonder and fear the first time I saw a snake in the back yard.

    At Christmas, I was ruthless and mercenary, and found out about the Santa thing by hearing my father swear and my mother laugh when he fell over whatever I had used to trip Santa up.
  • Just to add a little irony, anyone like to guess the dedication of the parish church in Spalding?
  • LydaLyda Shipmate
    Hee hee. Snigger.
  • MrsRacada wrote: »
    The Mary Bass Charity: "TO FURTHER THE RELIGIOUS AND OTHER CHARITABLE WORK OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND .

    And that includes traumatising children does it?

    Oh, yes, it does. But usually less publically.
  • MrsRacada wrote: »
    The Mary Bass Charity: "TO FURTHER THE RELIGIOUS AND OTHER CHARITABLE WORK OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND .

    And that includes traumatising children does it?

    Oh, yes, it does. But usually less publically.

    Can you name an organisation which has not been shown to have harboured or somehow missed the abuse of some children in recent decades? Child abuse has turned out to have been going on in the social care system, in schools, at the BBC, in sports coaching....where wasn't it?

    Do you think "traumatising children" is somehow the deliberate intent of the church, but the BBC what, they are not guilty of the failure to protect?
  • mr cheesymr cheesy Shipmate
    edited December 2018
    MrsRacada wrote: »
    MrsRacada wrote: »
    The Mary Bass Charity: "TO FURTHER THE RELIGIOUS AND OTHER CHARITABLE WORK OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND .

    And that includes traumatising children does it?

    Oh, yes, it does. But usually less publically.

    Can you name an organisation which has not been shown to have harboured or somehow missed the abuse of some children in recent decades? Child abuse has turned out to have been going on in the social care system, in schools, at the BBC, in sports coaching....where wasn't it?

    Do you think "traumatising children" is somehow the deliberate intent of the church, but the BBC what, they are not guilty of the failure to protect?

    I took this to mean that the church tells children things that are potentially traumatising - such as teaching on hell, sex etc - rather than that the church was a unique outlet for sexual abuse.
  • mr cheesy wrote: »
    I took this to mean that the church tells children things that are potentially traumatising - such as teaching on hell, sex etc - rather than that the church was a unique outlet for sexual abuse.

    Okay, so school doesn't? School doesn't teach them about genocide? Parents never tell children anything "potentially traumatising" - I asked mine what a communist was once, I can assure you I was not comforted by the response, and it was a perfectly honest and realistic answer.

    I did take the comment to be a jibe about abuse, but if your interpretation is the correct one, I would still like to know how the church deserves to be specifically called out. Discovering reality is traumatic!

    Incidentally, do you know of a church that provides children with "teaching on hell" and does not ever mention heaven? If you do it is a very long way from the mainstream.
  • Ok. So where has anyone claimed that the church is uniquely traumatising for children?
  • MrsRacada wrote: »
    mr cheesy wrote: »
    I took this to mean that the church tells children things that are potentially traumatising - such as teaching on hell, sex etc - rather than that the church was a unique outlet for sexual abuse.

    Okay, so school doesn't? School doesn't teach them about genocide? Parents never tell children anything "potentially traumatising" - I asked mine what a communist was once, I can assure you I was not comforted by the response, and it was a perfectly honest and realistic answer.

    I did take the comment to be a jibe about abuse, but if your interpretation is the correct one, I would still like to know how the church deserves to be specifically called out. Discovering reality is traumatic!

    Incidentally, do you know of a church that provides children with "teaching on hell" and does not ever mention heaven? If you do it is a very long way from the mainstream.

    Hell is traumatising even if you're also talking about heaven. Especially if you're spinning the line that everyone outside the Church is going there. Gran, who died last week. Their friends at school. Them, if they can't quite believe this stuff...
  • KarlLB wrote: »
    Hell is traumatising even if you're also talking about heaven. Especially if you're spinning the line that everyone outside the Church is going there. Gran, who died last week. Their friends at school. Them, if they can't quite believe this stuff...

    Do you know how traumatising atheism is when you are a child with a disability and in the name of "natural selection" atheists are denying your right to life, and encouraging others to do the same ? Compared to a church that actually does not bate for your blood because it disapproves of people killing people?

    Maybe you only have your own very biased perspective on this, and incidentally you have not addressed my point - about actual real life genocide?

  • I think atheists can also be scary - I don't see anyone saying that this is a mutually exclusive thing.
  • It was a general but not exclusive. The church has a history of traumatising children. As do many other organisations.

    And this traumatising is abuse, including sexual, but also by ignoring them, patronising them.

    And no, it isn't the deliberate intent of the church. It is somethign that happens with passive acceptance far too often.
  • PigletPiglet All Saints Host, Circus Host
    KarlLB wrote: »
    ... Hell is traumatising even if you're also talking about heaven. Especially if you're spinning the line that everyone outside the Church is going there ...
    When I was very young, listening to the sermons of a particularly fire-and-brimstone variety of Baptist minister, I thought that even people from other branches of the Church were heading south ... :cold_sweat:

    I'm glad to say I realised the error of my ways.
  • BroJamesBroJames Purgatory Host, 8th Day Host
    KarlLB wrote: »
    lilbuddha wrote: »
    KarlLB wrote: »
    The whole thing plays straight into Humanists' suspicions and distrust of faith schools.
    But it wasn't a faith school, surely this is the point. It would have been equally as valid to walk in and say God doesn't exist.

    TBH it being a faith school might have explained what this individual was even doing there.
    In England (I don’t know about the rest of the UK) the law is that the majority of assemblies - just over half - should be broadly Christian in character, unless the school obtains special dispensation from its Local Authority. Quite a few schools are happy to get trusted visitors to deliver this.
  • BroJames wrote: »
    KarlLB wrote: »
    lilbuddha wrote: »
    KarlLB wrote: »
    The whole thing plays straight into Humanists' suspicions and distrust of faith schools.
    But it wasn't a faith school, surely this is the point. It would have been equally as valid to walk in and say God doesn't exist.

    TBH it being a faith school might have explained what this individual was even doing there.
    In England (I don’t know about the rest of the UK) the law is that the majority of assemblies - just over half - should be broadly Christian in character, unless the school obtains special dispensation from its Local Authority. Quite a few schools are happy to get trusted visitors to deliver this.

    Actually what's required is a daily act of collective worship which should be mainly Christian in character. Any guesses as to what proportion of schools meet this criteria? :smiley:

    Scotland doesn't have such a requirement.
  • Has anyone on here (who has children), never told the story of Santa?

    Me. Possibly. Depending on what you mean by that. I have certainly told both my children that none of the 'Santas' they have seen or will see have any of the properties ascribed to 'Santa' - that they are men, dressed up as 'Santa'. So I haven't told the story of the chappie who comes down chimneys leaving things in stockings hung over the mantel - but I have told them that 'Santa' has his roots in the example of St Nicholas, who is the patron saint of children and whose life is celebrated by the church on a day quite near Christmas day. This seemed to satisfy them.
  • I should add that myself and my sister were always aware that Santa was not 'real', but discouraged from disclosing this to other children. For myself (and you can call me a shit, I don't care) the knowledge that I was in possession of information that most other children my own age were not, more than compensated...
  • EnochEnoch Shipmate
    Tangent Alert
    @KarlLB Going back to your OP, 'wankpuffin' I get, but why 'Nimrod' in the title? What have you got against him? As far as I'm aware, all anyone knows of him was that he was a mighty hunter.
  • Enoch wrote: »
    Tangent Alert
    @KarlLB Going back to your OP, 'wankpuffin' I get, but why 'Nimrod' in the title? What have you got against him? As far as I'm aware, all anyone knows of him was that he was a mighty hunter.

    No idea why, but I have seen it so used and it rolled off the keyboard.
  • stetson wrote: »
    KarlLB wrote: »
    stetson wrote: »
    Just to play Devil's Advocate for a sec, but how much right do the parents REALLY have to complain here? I have nothing much against telling kids about Santa, if that's what turns your crank, but if you ARE going to impart fake information to children, you are sort of running the risk that their discovery of the truth is not going to take place according to your prefered timetable.

    Except it's so much the norm that young children believe in Father Christmas and so much a thing generally understood that you do not go around doing this; figuring it out is a right of passage, pretty much that it marks you out as an utter pillock if you do.

    Well, I dunno. If a politician goes on the radio and says "Anyone who believes in this government's economic predictions might as well believe in Santa Claus as well, because they're both myths", is he guilty of ruining the rite-of-passage for children? Because chances are pretty good that some kids who believe in Santa might hear that.

    Or would hearing that be PART of the rite-of-passage, whereas directly stating it to children ruins the rite-of-passage?


    Well as Jesus is a myth, what's the problem again?
  • 1 - Some people are motivated by fear and an inappropriate sense of superiority towards all others. People who are driven by these motivations can be seen doing it in every religion and also holding non-religious world views, they tend to use their world-view, regardless of what it is, to justify their personal fear and elitism. These people can be called "bullies.

    2 - Some people find it is distressing that those people exist, and react to encounters with them accordingly. Since the people described in the first point above are bullies, it makes perfect sense to me that some people find their existence distressing. I am not worried about this distress, because it is what motivates people to be anti-bullies, and I believe we need as many as them as we can get.

    This post is just my opinion :).
  • Trip lightly over the rough and tumble Mrs R and you will find yourself dancing. If you fall, pick yourself up and begin again. Some jeer, some applaud. Let them.
  • la vie en rougela vie en rouge Circus Host, 8th Day Host
    Coming to this rather late, but Jack Chick had an extraordinary tract where a child grew up to be a psychotic murderer as a result of the shock of learning that Santa Claus was a lie, and his resultant assumption that God must be a lie as well.

    Moral of the tale: never lie to your kids about Santa. They will grow up to be psychopaths. Granted, if that were true, you would rather expect there to be considerably more psychopaths around the place...
  • there are :cold_sweat:
  • @Curiosity killed : I believed that the modern red-suited Santa was invented by Coca-Cola until a few weeks ago. But it isn't true, as proved by my copy of "Backtrack", the historical railway magazine. For on the back cover it has an advert by the London & North Western Railway showing Santa sitting in the dining car and being served Christmas pudding. The LNWR ceased to exist in 1922 but I think this picture is probably earlier, just before WW1.

    I would have agreed until a friend posted pictures of St Nicholas on 6th December in his Bishops robes. Guess which colour predominates! (I hope that is public post). Some are definitely pre-Coca Cola.

  • Just to add a little irony, anyone like to guess the dedication of the parish church in Spalding?

    Are you saying that the church's patron owns a red-nosed reindeer called Rudolph?! :smile:

    You'd think it would be easy for an adult to know how to avoid upsetting kids over Santa Claus, whatever their own personal belief on the subject is (as in telling or not telling kids about Santy).

    You just think to yourself: a) is this something that is necessary to be said at this place and time, regardless of the consequences; b) is it my place to say it; c) why am I willing to risk upsetting other people's kids just for my own satisfaction, whether out of consideration for my own conscience, or a sub-conscious desire to be a dick?

    The myths of the original St Nicholas offer plenty of stuff if you want to ground Santa in a more historical reality; and what comes after can be left to the parents and the home tradition. So if parents have either told their kids about Santa being real or not, there's still something there to work with.
  • The stupid thing is that this speaker, in their Advent talk, didn't have to mention Santa/St. Nick at all. But no, they were determined to "smash the Christmas myth" and "tell the true story" in a crass and shocking way. As I've said above, this might well have been good fun and thought-provoking in a teens church group - but not at a Primary School Assembly.
  • KarlLB wrote: »
    Enoch wrote: »
    Tangent Alert
    @KarlLB Going back to your OP, 'wankpuffin' I get, but why 'Nimrod' in the title? What have you got against him? As far as I'm aware, all anyone knows of him was that he was a mighty hunter.

    No idea why, but I have seen it so used and it rolled off the keyboard.
    I had the vague idea that it meant stupid, fool or some such mild epithet but wasn't sure about the actual meaning.
    According the the Book of Wikipedia:
    In modern American English, the term is often used sarcastically to mean a dimwitted or a stupid person, a usage first recorded in 1932 and popularized by the Looney Tunes cartoon characters Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck, who both sarcastically refer to the hunter Elmer Fudd as "nimrod",[37][38] as an ironic connection between "mighty hunter" and "poor little Nimrod", i.e. Fudd.
    Though I'd hardly call the epithet usage common, I'd bet that most thinking of the mighty hunter are those who went to school with him.
  • Simon Toad wrote: »
    Trip lightly over the rough and tumble Mrs R and you will find yourself dancing. If you fall, pick yourself up and begin again. Some jeer, some applaud. Let them.

    I am not upset, just sharing some thoughts, but thank you.
  • anoesis wrote: »
    I should add that myself and my sister were always aware that Santa was not 'real', but discouraged from disclosing this to other children. For myself (and you can call me a shit, I don't care) the knowledge that I was in possession of information that most other children my own age were not, more than compensated...

    I think that is actually how it is supposed to work, that is where everyone over about three ends up - but see, this woman was not playing the game - she told them all - that spoilt it.
  • Mark BettsMark Betts Shipmate
    edited December 2018
    There seems to be an assumption, even here(!), that Santa Clause is total 100% fiction, but I would contest that. The original "Father Christmas" was an English fictional character, but somehow some of the legends about St Nicholas (which we don't know are 100% false) became intermingled with the tradition - after the Reformation, protestants didn't like Saints. Certainly there was such a person as St Nicholas, although we don't know very much about him other than he was a Bishop from Asia Minor.

    Anyway, so there is some mystery as to the truth behind the legends of St Nicholas, and therefore Father Christmas - now, rather than coldly dismiss it all as not worth knowing, why can't we be excited about the legends and the "not knowing for sure" - it can all be mixed in with Christmas and enrich the occasion rather than contradict it.

    It is known that St Nicholas was a very rich man because his parents died when he was young and left him a lot of money. He was also a very kind man and had a reputation for helping the poor and giving secret gifts to people who needed it. From that, we can see what inspired Charles Dickins' "A Christmas Carol."

    https://www.whychristmas.com/customs/fatherchristmas.shtml

    There are two things which can totally wreck Christmas:
    1. Evangelical Atheists
    2. Puritanism

    Ho-ho-ho MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

    NB. It sounds like option 1 reared it's ugly head in the story concerned.
  • Mark Betts wrote: »

    There are two things which can totally wreck Christmas:
    1. Evangelical Atheists
    2. Puritanism

    You forgot the grown ups forgetting to buy the batteries!

  • Mark BettsMark Betts Shipmate
    edited December 2018
    I just found out that the Mary Base charity is "...To further the religious and other charitable work of the Church of England (including the furtherance of the aims of the Christian Stewardship Movements) within the area of benefit..."

    Who would have guessed that? (It must mean it's my option 2)

    Mary Bass Charity
  • Martin54 wrote: »
    stetson wrote: »
    KarlLB wrote: »
    stetson wrote: »
    Just to play Devil's Advocate for a sec, but how much right do the parents REALLY have to complain here? I have nothing much against telling kids about Santa, if that's what turns your crank, but if you ARE going to impart fake information to children, you are sort of running the risk that their discovery of the truth is not going to take place according to your prefered timetable.

    Except it's so much the norm that young children believe in Father Christmas and so much a thing generally understood that you do not go around doing this; figuring it out is a right of passage, pretty much that it marks you out as an utter pillock if you do.

    Well, I dunno. If a politician goes on the radio and says "Anyone who believes in this government's economic predictions might as well believe in Santa Claus as well, because they're both myths", is he guilty of ruining the rite-of-passage for children? Because chances are pretty good that some kids who believe in Santa might hear that.

    Or would hearing that be PART of the rite-of-passage, whereas directly stating it to children ruins the rite-of-passage?


    Well as Jesus is a myth, what's the problem again?

    Excuse me? Wait it's Martin54 - no, forget it...
  • Since Nimrod was a hunter, he probably would have used more stealth.
  • EnochEnoch Shipmate
    @Mark Betts whether or not St Nicholas existed, or how true the stories are that are attributed to him isn't really relevant to this. As far as I'm aware, it's never been suggested that he lived in the Arctic, had a grotto, was assisted by elves or travelled through the air on a sleigh pulled by reindeer. Excusing Father Christmas because he might perhaps derive from St Nicholas, who lived in what's now Turkey, doesn't wash.
  • Enoch wrote: »
    @Mark Betts whether or not St Nicholas existed, or how true the stories are that are attributed to him isn't really relevant to this. As far as I'm aware, it's never been suggested that he lived in the Arctic, had a grotto, was assisted by elves or travelled through the air on a sleigh pulled by reindeer. Excusing Father Christmas because he might perhaps derive from St Nicholas, who lived in what's now Turkey, doesn't wash.

    I was under the impression that this woman also told them that St Nicholas never existed, and does not now either.
  • Mark BettsMark Betts Shipmate
    edited December 2018
    Enoch wrote: »
    @Mark Betts whether or not St Nicholas existed, or how true the stories are that are attributed to him isn't really relevant to this. As far as I'm aware, it's never been suggested that he lived in the Arctic, had a grotto, was assisted by elves or travelled through the air on a sleigh pulled by reindeer.....

    This is the children's' fairy-tale/bedtime story part. I can't see the harm for children - you might as well ban all fairy stories - it is verging on the Puritan side (option 2 for wrecking Christmas).

    Supposing you were reading "Snow White and the Seven Dwarves" to a four-year-old, you wouldn't say, "Now I want you to be clear that this story is entirely fictional, and has no basis in historical reality or scientific enquiry," would you?
  • Martin54Martin54 Shipmate
    edited December 2018
    Mark Betts wrote: »
    Martin54 wrote: »
    stetson wrote: »
    KarlLB wrote: »
    stetson wrote: »
    Just to play Devil's Advocate for a sec, but how much right do the parents REALLY have to complain here? I have nothing much against telling kids about Santa, if that's what turns your crank, but if you ARE going to impart fake information to children, you are sort of running the risk that their discovery of the truth is not going to take place according to your prefered timetable.

    Except it's so much the norm that young children believe in Father Christmas and so much a thing generally understood that you do not go around doing this; figuring it out is a right of passage, pretty much that it marks you out as an utter pillock if you do.

    Well, I dunno. If a politician goes on the radio and says "Anyone who believes in this government's economic predictions might as well believe in Santa Claus as well, because they're both myths", is he guilty of ruining the rite-of-passage for children? Because chances are pretty good that some kids who believe in Santa might hear that.

    Or would hearing that be PART of the rite-of-passage, whereas directly stating it to children ruins the rite-of-passage?


    Well as Jesus is a myth, what's the problem again?

    Excuse me? Wait it's Martin54 - no, forget it...

    You mean Jesus isn't mythic because I say it? Or I'm just toying with Mary Bass' fanatical illogic?
  • Mark BettsMark Betts Shipmate
    edited December 2018
    Martin54 wrote: »
    Mark Betts wrote: »
    Martin54 wrote: »
    Well as Jesus is a myth, what's the problem again?

    Excuse me? Wait it's Martin54 - no, forget it...

    You mean Jesus isn't mythic because I say it? Or I'm just toying with Mary Bass' fanatical illogic?


    There are two 3 things which can totally wreck Christmas:
    1. Evangelical Atheists
    2. Puritanism
    3. Martin54-ism (intellectual gobbledygook)

    Ho-ho-ho MERRY CHRISTMAS!!



  • Martin54Martin54 Shipmate
    edited December 2018
    You flatter me. Or you don't understand. Jesus is [a] myth. THE myth.
  • Martin54 wrote: »
    You flatter me. Or you don't understand. Jesus is [a] myth. THE myth.

    “Glad tidings of great joy I bring
    To you and all mankind.”

    Ho-ho-ho MERRY CHRISTMAS!!
  • No, not a ho-ho-hoax. Myth.
This discussion has been closed.