The Santa Claus Myth is Beneficial (On Balance)

1.1 Importance of Role Models This point goes against Bsh1, as when the parents lie about the SC myth, their children will more likely to be like their parents. Thank you for countering your own argument, Bsh1. That makes life (or death for me in this case) much easier. 1.2 Santa being an amazing role model All I have to say is, Jonathan is definitely not a Christian. | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Nope, just kidding. I tricked you. That's not all I have to say. What I really have to say is that Santa Claus is actually not that good of a role model when one thinks very very carefully. As noted from [1], which makes a very good point of highlighting Natan Grill's essay, and striking the most strange, bad parts about Santa's image, Santa is of course very nice and teaches this aspect to kids. However, Santa is also obese and overweight, relating to children who are overweight as well because they misunderstand, relating Santa's obesity to niceness. In addition, if you think about it, Santa is also very lazy, wanting milk and cookies while visiting houses as his diet, and sitting in a sleigh pulled by reindeer. If he was a truly good model, then he could just magically teleport from house to house instead of using animals as slaves, and only be slightly plump instead of way overweight. I mean, look at the below picture! Santa is just way too fat! Even source [2] agrees. 2.1 SC myth spurs rituals But again, what about after the myth is revealed? What happens next? It would be awkward to have a holiday about somebody who doesn't exist. 2.2 Santa Rituals means togetherness and family. But the lie can also promote deceit, doubt, and discredibility within the family members. 2.3 Peace and unity Nope. Incorrect. Families are actually more likely to be dysfunctional, and a statistic shows that there's a suicide spike on New Year's Day or around Christmas, when depression comes in soon after the so called "reunion". [4] Christmas reunion? More like Christmas depression. 3.1 Santa brings whimsy It's not imagination!! It's just telling you facts about an imaginary person. Again, if I showed you a picture of myself and told you about my stories and my personality, no imagination is needed. You know what I look like. You know what I am like. There is no creative thinking within this. 3.2 More mental development and social skills.... And when they find about the falseness of Santa, they will hate the parents for ruining the magic they oh-so believe in. 4. Commercial benefits But--it must be noted that there are commercial harms to the people as well. As stated from source [3], due to how stores work, Christmas decreases income inequality, because of concentrated profits as well as smaller store having disadvantages, leading to today's deregulated economy. [3] Not only that, many many trees are cut down from real trees, just 33 million only counting the year 1997, and spending all the way up to $1.1 billion! [3] Finally, the planting of trees using farms decreases biodiversity and habitability of the natural wild nature or old-growth forests. This shows not only the economic obstacles of Christmas, but the environmental obstacles as well. Industry benefit: You win this one, but only because I can't find a source about how much the SC festival cost to run. Promoting Literacy: You win again. Now, unlike the previous round, I have tons of characters left, so I will try to create a philosophical argument. PATCHIN' UP THE HONESTY WALL: I'll be building an immunity force field around every single argument before about honesty. I will prove that the SC myth is indeed a big fat lie to patch up the wall before my opponent tries to make it disappear with a "It's not a lie" spell. The SC myth is a lie because Santa Claus does not really exist. There is a reason it is called a "myth", myths are false stories, and cannot be true, and therefore are lies. In addition, the man who it was based off of--Saint Nicholas--was completely misrepresented. Saint Nicholas is skinny, not plump or fat at all, as seen in his painting. [4] Even in his legends, he spent more time saving lives rather than giving gifts[6], while Santa Claus's sole purpose is to give gifts to good children while coal to bad people. Seriously? Coal? It's expensive and it can only help the bad child power the house....okay, I'm trailing off, but the idea is ridiculous and is a complete bad "parody" of St. Nick. I bet if sir Nicholas was still alive today he would not like how his image is represented: some old fat jolly guy who rides on his sleigh via reindeer and sneaks a few cookies and glasses of milk into his already over-fat diet. Nope, nope. Not only that, the SC myth misses the whole big mark of the true meaning of Christmas! Source [7] hits right at the mark, base home.... analyzing the old celebration verses the new holiday, examines it thoroughly and notes the fact that Chirstmas is just wealth worship in its core, since the poor can't exactly buy good gifts. In contrast, the olden holiday of Christmas was meant to celebrate the life of a saint who sacrificed his time and life to devote himself to a life of service, while Santa is just an imaginary figure who punishes the "naughty" while rewarding the "nice". While these two may seem similar, as source [7] notes, the wealthy receive excellent grand gifts, giving the illusion that they are "nice", while the poor families do not receive such good gifts and as a result are seemingly "naughty", and as a result will definitely have lower self-esteem in themselves and even possibly lead to depression! The SC myth simply does not celebrate the original old spirit of the good old Saint Nicholas holiday. In conclusion, for this round although I conceded two points, I rebutted the rest with counters and readied my armed forces for Bsh1's great attack. My "honesty wall" is up, with a variety of "soldiers" skilled within the effects of the lies, and all of it is protected by a "force field", in addition to the epic "missile" of SC myth being morally wrong and thus not beneficial, since it misses the true meaning of Christmas. I believe Bsh1 will have a very tough time trying to wreck holes and try to break through my castle, and I am taking back 50,000$ from my original bet at this moment just in case I somehow win this debate (possibly with the help of magic). Back to you, Bsh1. [1] http://abcnews.go.com... [2] http://www.foxnews.com... [3] http://www.huppi.com... [4] http://circ.ahajournals.org... [5] http://en.wikipedia.org... [6] http://en.wikipedia.org... [7] http://sojo.net...