Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: bj229r on December 25, 2010, 12:45:35 AM
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Little girl asks this of a newspaper editor at the New York Sun:
We take pleasure in answering at once and thus prominently the communication below, expressing at the same time our great gratification that its faithful author is numbered among the friends of The Sun:
Dear Editor,
I am 8 years old.
Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus. Papa says, "If you see it in The Sun, it's so." Please tell me the truth: Is there a Santa Claus?
Virginia O'Hanlon
115 W. 95th St.
Virginia, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except (what) they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men's or children's, are little. In this great universe of ours man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect, as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.
Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus. It would be as dreary as if there were no Virginias. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.
Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies! You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas Eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if they did not see Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that's no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.
You may tear apart the baby's rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived, could tear apart. Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, Virginia, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.
No Santa Claus! Thank God! he lives, and he lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay, ten times ten thousand years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.
Pity, they just don't write like that anymore, getting a little misty. (That was from 1897)
http://www.jsonline.com/news/opinion/112398129.html
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Back then writing and reading were bigger than television today. If we did not have motion pictures writing would still be as beautiful. Alas not as many people go to newspapers or journals for entertainment, so writing today is very dry and factual. You can always find an inspiring book though.
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My son just turned 5 years old. One day he will ask me whether Santa lives. My answer will be "is in all of our hearts."
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:aok Great find. Made this Christmas that much better.
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I'm not going to lie to my kids. Unless my future woman makes me. :uhoh
Nice article though. :aok
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Let's list the fallacies!
- Argument from Insignificance: "All minds, Virginia, whether they be men's or children's, are little"
- Missaplication of a Dichotomy: Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus.
- Non Sequitur: Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies!
- Appeal to Emotion: Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus.
- Appeal to Pride: It would be as dreary as if there were no Virginias.
Sick, vile, twisted lies* to human beings yet incapable of formal logic.
-Penguin
*Incredibly well masked and formulated, though
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Penguin wow you beat me to it. There are a few more but point well made.
But worthless from a morality is relative view point.
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Childhood should be filled with magic, not analysis involving words like non sequitur.
It's not a mark of intelligence to make everything in life scientific, it's just incredibly dull. Especially to a child.
Without magic you make human existence entirely mechanical and even more futile.
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Childhood should be filled with magic, not analysis involving words like non sequitur.
It's not a mark of intelligence to make everything in life scientific, it's just incredibly dull. Especially to a child.
Without magic you make human existence entirely mechanical and even more futile.
I might be more religious today if it wasn't for that my dreams were crushed when I found out that Santa Claus was a great big elaborate fairy tale.
I actually remember the day, and the details so vividly. What a traumatic day that was.
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Seriously? Ya big wuss! I caught my parents filling our stockings with treats one year when I was quite young. I stealthed back upstairs without telling them. I remember laughing to myself about it and deciding to let them think I believed it for a few more years.
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Seriously? Ya big wuss! I caught my parents filling our stockings with treats one year when I was quite young. I stealthed back upstairs without telling them. I remember laughing to myself about it and deciding to let them think I believed it for a few more years.
I found out when I was in 3rd grade. A couple of my friends at school told me that Santa Claus wasn't real and I didn't believe them. After making an bellybutton out of myself basically telling them they were wrong and that it wasn't my parents, I went home and told my parents of the blasphemy that occurred that day at school. My parents broke the bad news to me that Santa was in fact fake, and that I had been lied to. I was pretty upset about it, cuz I also found out about five minutes later on my own that the Easter Bunny and Tooth Fairy weren't real either. :cry
Such an elaborate lie to go to the lengths of taking bites of cookie and drinking milk, and even hauling in reindeer poop into the front lawn to trick your kids into thinking there is a Santa Claus. Gheesh the whole thing just irritates me! :mad:
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I found out when I was in 3rd grade. A couple of my friends at school told me that Santa Claus wasn't real and I didn't believe them. After making a sweetie out of myself basically telling them they were wrong and that it wasn't my parents, I went home and told my parents of the blasphemy that occurred that day at school. My parents broke the bad news to me that Santa was in fact fake, and that I had been lied to. I was pretty upset about it, cuz I also found out about five minutes later on my own that the Easter Bunny and Tooth Fairy weren't real either. :cry
Such an elaborate lie to go to the lengths of taking bites of cookie and drinking milk, and even hauling in reindeer poop into the front lawn to trick your kids into thinking there is a Santa Claus. Gheesh the whole thing just irritates me! :mad:
Written like a man who has no children.
I think my oldest son (7 y.o.) is starting to get wise to the whole Santa thing and I honestly don't think he gives a crap that we've deceived him so long as he gets new toys. He's cares very little about where they came from.
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Geuss it's a matter of perspective. If I look back on my childhood now I apreciate the 'lies' that gave me so much excitment and fun. Through out history the center of family life revolved around story telling. The old man who could spin a tall tale out of the air would always be the favorite entertainer of the children. It's a trick but it is great fun. Like telling your kids that when the ice cream van plays the music it means it is out of ice cream. When they work it out they should find it funny or grow a sense of humour.
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Geuss it's a matter of perspective. If I look back on my childhood now I apreciate the 'lies' that gave me so much excitment and fun. Through out history the center of family life revolved around story telling. The old man who could spin a tall tale out of the air would always be the favorite entertainer of the children. It's a trick but it is great fun. Like telling your kids that when the ice cream van plays the music it means it is out of ice cream. When they work it out they should find it funny or grow a sense of humour.
Not every one experiences life the same way .. That's the problem I see. You were lied to and have no problem with it. I was lied to and do have a problem with it. It did not add any magic to my childhood that overcame the lie. Maybe you got more magic than me.?
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Written like a man who has no children.
I think my oldest son (7 y.o.) is starting to get wise to the whole Santa thing and I honestly don't think he gives a crap that we've deceived him so long as he gets new toys. He's cares very little about where they came from.
Ill get this thread locked im sure but here goes...
Written like a man that lies to his children.
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Not every one experiences life the same way .. That's the problem I see. You were lied to and have no problem with it. I was lied to and do have a problem with it. It did not add any magic to my childhood that overcame the lie. Maybe you got more magic than me.?
Perhaps. I don't actualy remember a time when I truly did believe in father christmas I just remember finding proof. But that is beside the point I think.
Let he who has never lied once in his whole life cast the first stone on his parents for lying about santa.
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Written like a man who has no children.
Maybe I will see it differently once I have kids and have the opportunity to trick them into believing a fairy tale.
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Ill get this thread locked im sure but here goes...
Written like a man that lies to his children.
Yes sir, we've told my son there is a Santa, and I believe he's well adjusted enough to not give a crap whether we "lied" to him or not. Like I said, he just wants the toys.
I think you said it best FireDrgn, it's all about life experience. I'm not mad at my Mommy and Daddy for for the whole Santa thing because it's a positive memory filled with that magic batfink spoke of. I just want my kids to get the same.
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Perhaps. I don't actualy remember a time when I truly did believe in father christmas I just remember finding proof. But that is beside the point I think.
Let he who has never lied once in his whole life cast the first stone on his parents for lying about santa.
but you would only lie to me about santa right. I can believe you about other stuff right?
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When I was 10 I ductaped the fireplace closed so no pedophiles could perform a breaking and entry.
I was a little weird, but I'm normal now. <evil laugh> :noid
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I saw the other perspective growing up. My dad dressed up as Santa every year and gave out presents. I saw the smiles. Even as a young child I remember thinking what the heck do we need Santa for.
I guess it was a way to give the poor kids presents without any embarrassment. We never went to the rich kids houses to hand out presents. Touchy subject I guess.
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I feel sorry for some of the posters in this thread, and the fact that they don't understand why I feel sorry for them is the very reason I do.....
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I wasn't upset as much about the lie as I was about the fact that my oldest brother knew that is wasn't true and never told me.
I felt betrayed. but what is a 7 year old brother supposed to do when parents tell him to keep lying.
Penguin said it best.
I will remove myself from the group that lies when I know what the truth is. I can create way more magic by teaching the truth to my kids and giving the skill to reason beyond some feel good lie.
This is where we are supposed to all go watch how the grinch stole xmas to feel better.
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My nephew is 4 and I showed him my video of me shooting santa over a7 this year....santa then augured and dissapeared so i said i shot santa....he said shoot him again lmao...
But I told him santa was fine and just switched countries....
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Gawd what a buncha....can't say that word. No wonder our country is so messed up, buncha mamby pamby adult jackwagons pining away over the horrible injustice of Santa Claus foisted upon them as children.....tissue?
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:lol
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but you would only lie to me about santa right. I can believe you about other stuff right?
I know what you're saying, learning our parents are only human is part of growing up and humans can't be trusted, any of them.
Specific cases like Grizz talks about are probably rare. The act of actualy faking the cookie and poop may be a step too far and an example of parents trying to keep up the act when the child is trying to grow up and is old enough to feel cheated by the deception. (Forgive me grizz for the assumptions, just looking at what you presented.) I understand your grievence with the methods you parents took to lie to you is more the issue than 'telling kids fairy tales' in general.
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Reading this reminded me of the engineer's perspective of Santa:
There are approximately two billion children (persons under 18) in the world.
However, since Santa does not visit children of Muslim, Hindu, Jewish or Buddhist (except maybe in Japan) religions, this reduces the workload for Christmas night to 15% of the total, or 378 million (according to the population reference bureau).
At an average (census) rate of 3.5 children per household, that comes to 108 million homes, presuming there is at least one good child in each. Santa has about 31 hours of Christmas to work with, thanks to the different time zones and the rotation of the earth, assuming east to west (which seems logical). This works out to 967.7 visits per second.
This is to say that for each Christian household with a good child,Santa has around 1/1000th of a second to park the sleigh, hop out, jump down the chimney, fill the stocking, distribute the remaining presents under the tree, eat whatever snacks have been left for him, get back up the chimney,jump into the sleigh and get onto the next house.
Assuming that each of these 108 million stops is evenly distributed around the earth (which, of course, we know to be false, but will accept for the purposes of our calculations), we are now talking about 0.78 miles per household; a total trip of 75.5 million miles, not counting bathroom stops or breaks.
This means Santa's sleigh is moving at 650 miles per second -- 3,000 times the speed of sound. For purposes of comparison, the fastest man-made vehicle, the Ulysses space probe, moves at a poky 27.4 miles per second, and a conventional reindeer can run (at best) 15 miles per hour.
The payload of the sleigh adds another interesting element. Assuming that each child gets nothing more than a medium sized LEGO set (two pounds), the sleigh is carrying over 500 thousand tons, not counting Santa himself. On land, a conventional reindeer can pull no more than 300 pounds. Even granting that the "flying" reindeer can pull 10 times the normal amount, the job can't be done with eight or even nine of them -- Santa would need 360,000 of them. This increases the payload, not counting the weight of the sleigh, another 54,000 tons, or roughly seven times the weight of the Queen Elizabeth (the ship, not the monarch).
600,000 tons traveling at 650 miles per second creates enormous air resistance - this would heat up the reindeer in the same fashion as a spacecraft reentering the earth's atmosphere. The lead pair of reindeer would adsorb 14.3 quintillion joules of energy per second each. In short, they would burst into flames almost instantaneously, exposing the reindeer behind them and creating deafening sonic booms in their wake.
The entire reindeer team would be vaporized within 4.26 thousandths of a second, or right about the time Santa reached the fifth house on his trip.
Not that it matters, however, since Santa, as a result of accelerating from a dead stop to 650 mps in .001 seconds, would be subjected to acceleration forces of 17,000 g's. A 250 pound Santa (which seems ludicrously slim) would be pinned to the back of the sleigh by 4,315,015 pounds of force, instantly crushing his bones and organs and reducing him to a quivering blob of pink goo.
Therefore, if Santa did exist, he's dead now. Merry Christmas!
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I found out there was no santa, when i got no presents on xmas as a kid. I perhaps got presents 2 or 3 times when I was growing up. xmas however was magical for us, grandma making cookies, nothing compares waking up to the smell of them. I would wake up every 25th to see if I got a present and there was none. but every xmas morning I had some nice chocolate and plenty of home made bread and cookies. xmas presents mean nothing to me, I mean seriously, I will buy my kids (now in their 20's) presents, but I expect none and normally get none. but what I love is them coming over and me cooking dinner and we sit around and shoot the breeze like always. that's worth more to me than any present i may get.
xmas is such a commercialized thing now a days, that most people forget that it's not santa or presents that makes xmas, but family.
merry xmas guys,
semp
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Gawd what a buncha....can't say that word. No wonder our country is so messed up, buncha mamby pamby adult jackwagons pining away over the horrible injustice of Santa Claus foisted upon them as children.....tissue?
You watching Geico commercials again? Our country is messed up because a few people wont lie about Santa Clause. Certianly we are not the majority. How can the we be the reason the Country is so messed up?
You realize that its some stranger that tells your kid the truth right?????? If that dont tug at your heart strings whats the point.
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I don't see the harm and I do realise that Santa is a Boogyman and I use him as such to illicit good behaviour from my children from November onwards.
Sure, the kids gonna be mad when he's 7 or 8 and realises the ruse but I would rather have 8 years of my kid believing in kindness and magic in the world than 8 years knowing the opposite.
You raise your kid your way, I'll raise mine my way and we'll stay outta each others way. Arguing about this is beyond.
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No wonder our country is so messed up, buncha mamby pamby adult jackwagons pining away over the horrible injustice of Santa Claus foisted upon them as children.....tissue?
+1 for Lee Emry. :salute
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I know what you're saying, learning our parents are only human is part of growing up and humans can't be trusted, any of them.
Specific cases like Grizz talks about are probably rare. The act of actualy faking the cookie and poop may be a step too far and an example of parents trying to keep up the act when the child is trying to grow up and is old enough to feel cheated by the deception. (Forgive me grizz for the assumptions, just looking at what you presented.) I understand your grievence with the methods you parents took to lie to you is more the issue than 'telling kids fairy tales' in general.
I lied about the reindeer poop, and I am pretending to be more passionate about this than I really am. :D
I'll just do whatever my future wife tells me to do.
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I lied about the reindeer poop, and I am pretending to be more passionate about this than I really am. :D
I'll just do whatever my future wife tells me to do.
What happens when (trust me, it WILL) she tells ya to stop flying that girly K4 and turn the stupid computer off, and dp more important stuff with your spare time, like go to the arts and crafts show? :D
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I hear a lecture about teaching future generations coming on.
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What happens when (trust me, it WILL) she tells ya to stop flying that girly K4 and turn the stupid computer off, and dp more important stuff with your spare time, like go to the arts and crafts show? :D
Gotta draw the line somewhere..."ok ok i'll tell em' there's a santa but there's no way in hell i'm givin up ma taters" :D
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I'll just do whatever my future wife tells me to do.
wise move :)
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My three sons (6, 9, and 11) all take the "Santa" thing in stride. I think they've figured it out.
They also know that I do not earn a lot, therefore Christmas presents are not abundant. We live on a farm in Eastern Oregon. My children are raised with the encouragement to use their imagination at play. They are raised knowing there are those with FAR LESS to live on, let alone what they get for Christmas. They are constantly reminded by us parents that it is important to be giving & helpful any time of the year, not just on holidays.
In recent years, I've pretty well come to the conclusion that's what the Almighty expects us to put on our resume' before heading "upstairs."
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and dp more important stuff [/snip]
:eek:
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:eek:
LOL you caught that too!
(http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2008/07/26/article-1038833-0214D76100000578-447_468x286.jpg)
Your wife, she likes sport, eh? Hint hint, nudge nudge, say no more, SAY NO MORE!!!
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say no more! :rofl
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Here in Finland it's a common habit for Santa to visit families on Christmas Eve. I guess it must be due to distances that he does the chimney thing over there...
I can't remember my first three Christmases, but when I was four there were Santa masks made out of cardboard and cotton wool for sale in a local food market and so my parents bought one. In the evening of December 24th the family waited and waited until finally my mother went to the hall to see what was going on. There was this four year old little Santa in his cardboard mask, dressed in ma's lamb furcoat, unpacking his sled too heavy to be pulled into the living room...
So I can from experience assure that Santa indeed does exist. I have seen him so many times during the last four decades winking his eye at me in the mirror. His outfit has varied throughout the years, the cardboard mask has given way to a more natural look Yes, darling, you're right. He was indeed wearing a mask. It's so cold outside that his face could freeze without one during his long journey...
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I wasn't upset as much about the lie as I was about the fact that my oldest brother knew that is wasn't true and never told me.
I felt betrayed. but what is a 7 year old brother supposed to do when parents tell him to keep lying.
Penguin said it best.
I will remove myself from the group that lies when I know what the truth is. I can create way more magic by teaching the truth to my kids and giving the skill to reason beyond some feel good lie.
This is where we are supposed to all go watch how the grinch stole xmas to feel better.
I'm your exact position right now. My parents say that they will go crazy on me if I 'ruin' his childhood. How is telling him the truth 'ruining' it? They were so good at it, that it took me until sixth grade, when I simply asked my mom directly. It's really twisted.
For those who'd buckle under the pressure, think of this; would you love a woman who insists that fairytales are more important than honesty- to your own flesh and blood?
-Penguin
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For those who'd buckle under the pressure, think of this; would you love a woman who insists that fairytales are more important than honesty- to your own flesh and blood
-Penguin
Women can't be reasoned with when it comes to things like this, CMON PENGUIN!!! :lol
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Argument from lack of possibility of debate? There's a new one.
-Penguin