Almost every child I know has at some point in there life affirmed their belief in Santa Claus and claimed he does, in fact, exist. I was no different and Santa Claus, to me, was an essential part of my growing years. Every December, I would clean my room, eat all my food, do all my work and try my level best to be ‘good.’ And all this for what? A gift from Santa Claus. Till I was the age of 5, I could not have ever imagined the possibility of there being no Santa Claus. The thought hadn’t even occurred to me. It was impossible. I wasn’t particularly bright either. If I was, I would have probably noticed that whether I was ‘good’ or not, the gifts came and whether I was at home, or on vacation, Santa somehow always knew where I was and sent the gifts right there. Looking back at all this now, makes me feel stupid. But it is true, it never struck me that Santa was probably a myth.
When I was 6, my elder sister told me there was no Santa. I responded with denial. I couldn’t believe it at first. But then things began falling in place and the more closely I looked at the Santa issue, the more I realized that there indeed was no Santa. It was humanly impossible to deliver gifts to all the kids in the world, all in the same night. It was unreal to have a body double at every other departmental store, function or Christmas party. It was strange that the gift I told my parents I wanted was the one that Santa gave to me. Everything, for once, seemed true.
This destruction of belief in Santa came about due to the knowledge I obtained from my sister and it was further confirmed with me reasoning things out in my head. A very similar and monumental destruction of belief was in the early years of the 16th century, when Nicolas Copernicus discovered that the earth was not the centre of the universe. He said that the earth does rotate and by noticing the movements of two particular stars in the night sky (which were actually the planets- Mercury and Venus) he said that the earth was not at the centre of the universe. This came as a great shock to the society then and it went against the views of the church which believed that the earth was at the centre. It can be said that Nicolas Copernicus displaced the earth from the centre. He shook everybody with his opinion and explanation. It was such a strong destruction of belief (similar to mine of the existence of Santa) that it was met with a strong denial. No one accepted this fact till much later.
Thus Copernicus’ findings and discovery prove wrong the belief of the entire society that the earth was at the centre. At a much smaller level, each child’s discovery (through people around him, reasoning or whatever else) of the non-existence of a Santa Claus can be compared to Copernicus’ theory. It often is self knowledge and ability to reason rationally that enables people to move away from their often misguided beliefs. Be it something as large as what lies at the centre of the universe, or whether there is a Santa Claus.
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Somiran this was a very useful piece of work. I've written many comments and shall refer to these in relation to other people's work. I say 18/20 for this
relationship with whether I was good or not = Reason
Sister = language
impossible to deliver goods = reason
trust in parents' honesty = emotion
on the other hand
Things asked for from Father Christmas were actually delivered: coherence; many people joined in the conspiracy (language and emotion)
Difficult to say that Copernicus 'discovered' it. He used reason (mathematics) plus such observations as he was able to make in cloudy Poland without a telescope. (correspondence). He was too early to have known that his future (if one can put it like this) colleagues in science would have required him to say that his was a new hypothesis, to be subjected to further fair tests to replicate his findings, and valid only as long as they continued to pass these tests. Galileo, who went a long way along that route with his telescope (perception) understood Copernicus' maths (reason) To 'discover' it suggests that it was true, and of course we now know that the sun is NOT the centre of the universe. It also required Newton's theories of gravity and motion and I think Kepler's further observations to establish how the planets could move in elliptical orbits without flying off in a straight line. Nowadays we are having to suggest Big bangs and Black Holes to balance the mathematics.
On a lower level, you should have started a new paragraph after 'out in my head'.
Views of the church: language plus emotion (religious belief) plus coherence plus correspondence with perception of a very large number of observable facts. Plus Denial (emotion) plus Confirmation Bias (they saw what they wanted to see)
Add from FRESCIPLACT that the Religious and Constitutional position of the church, which 'incidentally' involved a lot of money (Economics) and the personal status and reputation of the Pope (an Individual), was threatened by the heliocentric theory.
This comment has taken an hour and a half to get on to the blog, so I hope you appreciate it!
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