{"id":114008,"date":"2001-04-18T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2001-04-18T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/usustatesman.com\/?p=114008"},"modified":"2001-04-18T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2001-04-18T00:00:00","slug":"letter-santa-claus-isnt-bad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usustatesman.com\/letter-santa-claus-isnt-bad\/","title":{"rendered":"LETTER: Santa Claus isn’t bad"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Dear Editor,<\/p>\n<p>\tI, like Richard Timothy, used to believe we shouldn’t tell our kids about make-believe holiday characters like Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. I think most people would agree that we need a “reformation,” or a return to the true meaning of our holiday observances. <\/p>\n<p>\tHowever, someone once posed a question that made me reevaluate the way I think about what Richard calls “lying to our children.” That question is this: Which pattern of intellectual development would be more beneficial to a child: <\/p>\n<p>\tNo. 1 to teach him what is scientifically correct from infancy so that he will never have to revise his views and always be right about everything.<\/p>\n<p>\tNo. 2 Allow a child to believe in tooth fairies and flying reindeer, with the understanding that one day he will revise his views. <\/p>\n<p>\t“Which course is more liable to lead to disaster, the open-ended Santa Claus or the ingrained illusion of infallibility?” (See The Ancient State by Hugh Nibley page 332.)<\/p>\n<p>Tai Davis<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dear Editor, I, like Richard Timothy, used to believe we shouldn’t tell our kids about make-believe holiday characters like Santa…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-114008","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-all"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v24.0 - 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