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Unlike Santa, Jesus exists. It's a matter of semantics though, as "Jesus" is accepted amomg historians as a name for Yeshua, even though it's not his real name, it's an anglication of a latinisation of a grecoisation of his real, Hebrew, name. But "Santa" is not accepted among historians as a name for St Nicholas. Also, adults really believe that Jesus did what Christianity says he did, if they're Christian. And if they're Muslim, they really believe he did what Islam says he did. So Christians and Muslims are not lying about Jesus. But apart from that, I'd say the Jesus of Christianity is a mythical figure akin to the Santa of Santaism. Both are based on real figures, but with some things changed, including the addition of magic. And I don't think there's a tradition of lying to kids about Superman and Batman, like there is with Santa. I'd say the Santa lie belongs to the category of fantasy parental lies, along with the Easter Bunny and Tooth Fairy lies. And the category of fantasy parental lies is in turn part of the category of parental lies. The lie that a child's parents are their biological parents, when in fact they are adopted, or conceived via a sperm or egg donor or something, is also in this category. This lie is sexually adultist if you ask me. I agree that peer passenger laws are ironic when compared to the age of sexual consent. It never occurred to me. However, the age of sexual consent doesn't necessarily have close-in-age exemptions. In this case, there is no irony. I think the irony stems from the fact that there seem to be two types of/sides to adultism. One is overprotection, this is when it's assumed that young people need restrictions to protect them. The other is thinking the young are irresponsible. Hence, they need to be restricted to protect public safety or something. Something you have both, kind of. When people think the young are irresponsible, so need to be protected from themselves. In fact, maybe all adultism stems from the belief that young people are irresponsible. There's two sides to irresponsibility, harm to oneself and harm to others/society. Hence two sides to adultism. It seems ironic to me that society accepts hitting kids when it overprotects them. But in fact, hitting kids is because society thinks they are too irresponsible to be trusted to make decisions without being hit. Just like it thinks they're too irresponsible to be trusted to make decisions that won't harm them. |