Childhood lies become grown up skepticism

• Let me tell you about my experience. When my daughter was about 8 years old, she quit talking to me. For several days she wouldn't come into a room where I was and if I went into the room where she was, she got up and went out. After a day or so I got a little upset. I tried to talk to her and she would answer my questions as briefly as she could and then leave. So I talked to her brother and asked him to talk with her and he came back and told me something that broke my heart. I have paid for this, right on up until today. Marie told him, “Mother lied to me. Can you believe it? She lied about the tooth fairy, she lied about Santa Claus, she lied about the Easter Bunny. She may be lying all the time, we don't know.”  Source link

• The question may be asked, what harm is there in telling the children of "Santa Claus?" Now honestly consider: Can "Santa Claus," a mere myth, a fable having its origin in Roman Catholicism, that idolatrous system, be owned of God? This "Santa Claus" is taught by parents to have the very attributes of God Himself! Parents talk of him as of a living spirit who sees and knows when boys and girls are disobedient, and who is able to travel through space, from north to south, east to west, in a few brief hours of time. Christian, you are teaching your child the first principles of idol worship; and telling an untruth yourself when you teach this wicked tale of "Santa Claus." Do you say, it is such a nice story for them, they are so little and must have their pleasure too? No doubt it is nice, and most agreeable to the flesh, or the world – whose god is Satan – would never relish it or commemorate it from year to year as it does. Some will argue for the "keeping of Christmas" on the ground of "giving the kiddies a good time." But why do this under the cloak of honoring the Saviour's birth? Why is it necessary to drag in His Holy Name in connection with what takes place at that season of carnal jollification? Is this taking the little ones with you out of Egypt (Ex. 10:9, 10), a type of the world, or is it not plainly a mingling with the present-day Egyptians in their "pleasures of sin for a season" (Heb. 11:25)? Scripture says, "Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it" (Prov. 22:6), to bring up children "in the nurture and admonition of the Lord" (Eph. 6:4).  Source link

• Parents purposely and deliberately lie to their children and tell them that they should fear Santa Claus because "he knows if you've been bad or good". These same parents also lie to their children about the Easter Bunny and Tooth Fairy. Then they wonder why their children become liars and don't believe the Messiah is real later on in life.  Source link

• Thru the year, parents punish their children for telling falsehoods. Then, at Christmas time, they themselves tell their little children this "Santa Claus" lie! Is it any wonder many of them, when they grow up and learn the truth, begin to believe God is a myth, too?
  
  One little fellow, sadly disillusioned about "Santa Claus," said to a playmate, "Yes, and I'm going to look into this 'Jesus Christ business,' too!" Is it CHRISTIAN to teach children myths and falsehoods? God says, "Thou shalt not bear FALSE WITNESS!" It may seem right, and be justified by human reason, but God says, "There is a way that seemeth RIGHT to a man, but the end thereof are the ways of DEATH!" "Old Nick" also is a term for the devil! Is there a connection? Satan appears as an "angel of LIGHT," to deceive! II Cor. 11:4 and Rev. 12.9.  Source link