Santa Clause?

[TagliatelliMonster]

Miracle is just something that is thought to be impossible. Magic is the art or practice of using charms, spells, or rituals to attempt to produce supernatural effects or control events in nature. Miracle could be done without magic.

Miracles and magic both are events that require the suspension or violation of natural law.

Aka, the impossible happening anyway.

 

[Dao Hao Now]

Did you teach your kids to believe in Santa? Why or why not? My sister told her kids the truth and that Santa was a lie and wrong because it teaches the belief in magic. My other two sisters taught their kids to believe.

I wouldn’t say I taught my kid (along with nieces that were slightly older) to believe in Santa, but I did play along and encourage it.

Magical thinking in children is a natural, unavoidable and essential stage of cognitive development.
As they age, they (usually) gain cognitive skills and begin to question and judge their experiences against the stories they heard.

Coming to the conclusion that Santa didn’t exist was a watershed moment for me in recognizing that the world is full of characters (including gods) that had no basis in reality.

I must admit, I’m to this day still often amazed that many if not most people don’t fully let go of the magical thinking as they mature and go through life.

 

[Bear Wild]

Miracle is just something that is thought to be impossible. Magic is the art or practice of using charms, spells, or rituals to attempt to produce supernatural effects or control events in nature. Miracle could be done without magic.

The idea that magic is supernatural is a product of a culture with transcendental thinking characteristic of much our Christian western perspective. Magic in an immanentist society is natural and there is no supernatural and this includes all numinous beings. In the immanentist view using charms, spells or rituals is to connect with entities within the natural world.

www.annalsfondazioneluigieinaudi.it/images/LV/2021-1-014-sahlins.pdf

 

[The Hammer]

Dern parents are liars! All of them!

As they should be

 

[We Never Know]

The idea that magic is supernatural is a product of a culture with transcendental thinking characteristic of much our Christian western perspective. Magic in an immanentist society is natural and there is no supernatural and this includes all numinous beings. In the immanentist view using charms, spells or rituals is to connect with entities within the natural world.

www.annalsfondazioneluigieinaudi.it/images/LV/2021-1-014-sahlins.pdf

Change of subject but do you hunt with a crossbow?

 

[Bear Wild]

Change of subject but do you hunt with a crossbow?

No longbow.

 

[We Never Know]

No longbow.

Your name made me ask lol.
They are good bows IMO

 

[Bear Wild]

Your name made me ask lol.
They are good bows IMO

My favorite is one made of yew from a bow maker in British Columbia.

 

[The Hammer]

No longbow.

Teach me!

 

[1213]

Miracles and magic both are events that require the suspension or violation of natural law.

Ok, then I think no miracles actually happen. Even the "miracles" Jesus did, don't violate any law, if one has the right laws and understands them correctly.

 

[1213]

Charms and incantations are generally regarded as spurious, and stage magic is acknowledged even by practitioners to be simple trickery.
Real magic, as proposed by religious mythology, has no proposed or understood mechanism. Whether it involves "some work done" or not can't be determined.

By what I know, the real magic has similar practices, charms, spells, or rituals, which are used to cause something.

 

[Valjean]

By what I know, the real magic has similar practices, charms, spells, or rituals, which are used to cause something.

Which are used unsuccessfully to cause something, hence, fake magic.
The religious believe in real magic, real effect without mechanism.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Ok, then I think no miracles actually happen. Even the "miracles" Jesus did, don't violate any law, if one has the right laws and understands them correctly.

Resurecting the dead, turning water into wine, making the blind see with but a touch of the hand, walking on water...

These are things that require the violation / suspension of natural law.

 

[Heyo]

I disagree with that. In magic there is some work done to cause certain effect, at least it is attempted to use for example charms, spells, or rituals to cause effect.

And miracle is also effect that has some sort of work. For example one could ask God to do something that would look miraculous to non-believer. In that case God is the one doing the miracle and God can be seen as the mechanism. But, that doesn't include charms, spells, or rituals, which is why it is not the same as magic.

Didn't your god allegedly spoke the world into being? That was a spell.
Didn't your god allegedly create Adam (and Eve) from clay? That was a golem spell.
Didn't the Israelites put signs on their doors to avoid gods curse to kill the first born? Worked like a charm.
Didn't Joshua command the people to perform a complicated ritual to bring the walls of Jericho down?

 

[1213]

Didn't your god allegedly spoke the world into being? That was a spell.

By what I know: "A spell is a series of words that has magical powers. If you're under a spell , then what you do is out of your control — your thoughts and actions are dictated by the spell . Spell can refer to the magic words you say, or it can describe being under the influence of those words". I don't think we have any good reason to think God used magical words. Or do you think "let" "there" "be" "light" are magical words?

Didn't the Israelites put signs on their doors to avoid gods curse to kill the first born? Worked like a charm.

The signs were not magical. If they would be, all signs would then be magical, and I think it would be ludicrous to think so.

Didn't Joshua command the people to perform a complicated ritual to bring the walls of Jericho down?

Ritual? Why do you call it ritual? Is walking to a store also a ritual?

 

[1213]

Resurecting the dead, turning water into wine, making the blind see with but a touch of the hand, walking on water...

These are things that require the violation / suspension of natural law.

Or your natural law is not correct.

 

[Viker]

Did you teach your kids to believe in Santa? Why or why not? My sister told her kids the truth and that Santa was a lie and wrong because it teaches the belief in magic. My other two sisters taught their kids to believe.

I don't have any kids. But I probably wouldn't. They would have picked up on it culturally. I would have told them about Krampus and Perchta. It'd be a great way to extend the preferred Halloween season. In the middle of the two major holidays I would tell them about the Angry Zombie Turkey.

 

[Heyo]

I don't think we have any good reason to think God used magical words. Or do you think "let" "there" "be" "light" are magical words?

Only if they work.

 

[URAVIP2ME]

Only if they work.

Not by magic, but by powerful words, not only in the past, but in the coming future the ' sword-like executional words from Jesus' mouth ' will destroy the wicked - Isaiah 11:3-4; Revelation 19:14-15 - and those words will work.
Deliberately telling lies as truth (Santa) is a wicked lie.

 

[We Never Know]

Did you teach your kids to believe in Santa? Why or why not? My sister told her kids the truth and that Santa was a lie and wrong because it teaches the belief in magic. My other two sisters taught their kids to believe.