Santa who?
About 15 years ago, I was asked to be on a morning Philadelphia TV talk show. It was a last-minute deal - the Yale child psychiatrist had bailed out, so they called me.
I was to debate some fundamentalist who had launched an attack on Barney the dinosaur. Now, there are lots of reasons not to like Barney - that stupid song comes to mind - but this guy was claiming that Barney was a tool of the devil, designed specifically to lead children to Hell, by getting them to engage their imaginations. "Imagination and fantasy leads young minds away from the Lord,'' he said.
Debating this guy was like shooting fish in a barrel. I pointed out that part of being made in the image of God was the ability to imagine and to create and to play. During a commercial break, I leaned over to him and said, "I bet Christmas is a real blast at your house.'' He looked at me and said, "Oh, we don't let our kids or grandkids believe in Santa Claus. Jesus is the reason for the season.''
The TV host went white. "Don't bring up that no-Santa stuff when we come back from commercial,'' he said. "We'll get killed with phone calls.'' We stuck with the dinosaur and the show was over quickly.
Since when does faith in God take the magic out of life? Not on my watch.
I was to debate some fundamentalist who had launched an attack on Barney the dinosaur. Now, there are lots of reasons not to like Barney - that stupid song comes to mind - but this guy was claiming that Barney was a tool of the devil, designed specifically to lead children to Hell, by getting them to engage their imaginations. "Imagination and fantasy leads young minds away from the Lord,'' he said.
Debating this guy was like shooting fish in a barrel. I pointed out that part of being made in the image of God was the ability to imagine and to create and to play. During a commercial break, I leaned over to him and said, "I bet Christmas is a real blast at your house.'' He looked at me and said, "Oh, we don't let our kids or grandkids believe in Santa Claus. Jesus is the reason for the season.''
The TV host went white. "Don't bring up that no-Santa stuff when we come back from commercial,'' he said. "We'll get killed with phone calls.'' We stuck with the dinosaur and the show was over quickly.
Since when does faith in God take the magic out of life? Not on my watch.
posted by Michael Riley at 11:20 AM
3 Comments:
I'm not at all sure how the first four paragraphs you wrote have anything to do with the question that you asked in your last paragraph. That said, without God, there is no life, much less any magic.
sayeth you..the atheists beliece otherwise..
or believe..
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