The (Atheist) Argument From Santa
Is faith in God no different than faith in Santa Claus?
December, 2022
The last few weeks of the year bring holidays, and holidays bring traditions. Christmas is far and away the dominant holiday of the "holiday season." Here in the USA, this part of the year inspires colorful lights, family gatherings, familiar songs…and critics of faith making silly arguments. An especially common tactic among less-informed skeptics is to compare God, or Jesus, to Santa Claus.
The Santa Claus argument, simply phrased, says, "I don't believe in God for the same reasons I don't believe in Santa Claus". Both are—per the critic—myths into which parents indoctrinate their children to control their behavior. This is established before the children can rationally decide such issues for themselves. Neither God nor Santa is supported by evidence, so says the skeptic. The critic often suggests that evidence contradicting Santa, or God, is excused away by appealing to magic or miracles. The skeptic's conclusion is that once people grow up and learn to think for themselves, they'll reject Santa, and should reject God as well.
A general response is that God is supported by evidence, experience, and logic in ways that Santa Claus clearly is not. Just because someone says that they're the same doesn't make it so. More specifically, the argument fails on multiple levels.
The first notable aspect of the "Santa Claus" argument is intent. It's frequently used as a joke, or to bait Christians into angry responses. It's popular with less sophisticated thinkers only because it's tricky to respond to. This is not due to merit, but because it's multiple fallacious claims combined using a common theme. Since it's sourced in an irrational mindset, those who use it are not as likely to respond to reason. It's a cheap pseudo-answer to a complex question, easy to parrot during a discussion, and better used as a thought exercise than anything else. Answering it requires handling each faulty premise.
First, Santa Claus has always been known as a work of fiction. Adults have never sincerely believed in Santa's existence. Yet many people have died for professing their belief in God. It's historically undeniable that people who knew and talked to Jesus Christ were willing to die rather than give up their belief that He was God. They weren't motivated to change behaviors, but to save souls!
That parents teach these ideas to children is irrelevant. Most atheists come to their non-belief when they're inexperienced at rational discourse; either as young teens, or when faced with a more experienced adult in college. Their non-belief is just as likely an irrational response as other people's belief is. More importantly, there are many intelligent, educated people who have come to believe in God as adults. No one starts believing in Santa as an adult. Further, there are many more intelligent, educated adults whose faith has been strengthened as they learned more about reason, evidence, science, and so forth.
Logical and philosophical arguments suggest God's existence. Scientific evidence reveals an intended design in nature. Historical evidence proves Jesus' disciples absolutely believed He was raised from the dead. Manuscript evidence proves the Bible to be a precise source, and that it was accurately preserved from the originals. People personally experience God's influence in their lives. In short, there is ample evidence for God. Those touting the Santa Claus argument don't accept this evidence, of course, but many people—including former atheists—do. So, "insufficient evidence" is simply a statement of personal opinion, not facts. Even those who reject the evidence can't rightly claim no evidence exists.
Related to evidence is explanatory power. Presents under the tree and sightings at the mall are better explained without Santa. In fact, we have incontrovertible proof these are caused by parents and hired impostors, respectively. Atheism, on the other hand, can't come close to replacing God for necessary questions such as the origin of the universe, the origin of life, or the existence of morality. Atheism conveniently explains all these through purposeless luck. God's explanatory power is extremely strong, whereas both atheism and Santa have a hard time explaining anything.
A similar point can be made about miracles. Atheists claim the origin of the universe, the fine-tuning of the universe, the origins of life, the development of life, and the appearance of design are all just big, amazing, coincidences. These are one-time, un-repeatable, amazing, and uniquely curious events…but they happened for no reason and with no purpose at all. In other words, no explanation needed: they just happened! Which sounds like a miracle, but lacking purpose or cause. Atheism has a bad habit of retreating to "luck" as a catch-all explanation for any evidence they don't like. That's not much different than a parent avoiding a child's questions about Santa by appealing to "magic". Further, Christians believe miracles demonstrate God, whereas Santa's magic hides him.
Atheists and theists disagree over various lines of argumentation, evidence, and reasoning. They come to different conclusions on those. Some of these subjects are deep and technical. Both sides have rational, reasonable points to be made. Unfortunately, arrogance is an underlying assumption in every use of the Santa Claus argument. The atheist portrays himself as a sage, rational, mature thinker, and anyone who believes in God is immature, uneducated, and gullible. Clearly, that's not a reasonable assessment of either atheism or theism. Ironically, belief in the Santa Claus argument is a lot like belief in an actual Santa Claus: both are signs of a person who needs to "grow up", so to speak.
While the "Santa Claus Argument" isn't valid, it does touch on a legitimate point to which Christian parents should be sensitive. Teaching children that Santa exists, and that God exists, sets up a conflict in those children when they get older. It's perfectly reasonable for a child to ask: "if Santa was just made up, how do I know God wasn't made up, too?" As adults, we know they are not the same. But the skeptic's Santa Claus argument is rooted in exploiting that exact conflict. And the emotions of realizing parents were deliberately lying is remembered well into adulthood. That's not to say Santa is absolutely taboo for Christian parenting. Yet when a child learns their parents purposefully told them something false, it can't help but undermine their trust in other things they've been taught, including faith.
-- Editor
