Comments on: Is the Tooth Fairy Like God?

By: Shel

Shel — Tue, 26 May 2009 19:09:06 +0000

Are they actually “buying into the story”, or playing along to get the rewards? I always knew my parents were the ones leaving me money, but I went along with the charade anyway, because hey, free money! Of course, they didn’t put any special effort into trying to make me believe. I think as I got older it got to a point where I would just show my mom that I had lost a tooth and she’d hand me 50 cents, or whatever the going rate for teeth was at the time.

By: Sabio

Sabio — Sun, 24 May 2009 16:09:19 +0000

Wow, I am very happy my post got picked up. Indeed, Hermant, it is a metaphor for religion. But as in many of my other posts, I emphasize that all humans sacrifice rationality at times (Atheists being no exception). But when religions make the sacrifice and then cloak the sacrifice in sanctification, we can rightfully protest more loudly.

By: Newman

Newman — Sun, 24 May 2009 14:48:43 +0000

Soren,
I tend to agree with your basic premise, however to make it more like religion you would have to say; If you believe in the “Tooth Fairy” you will get rewards (money), but if you don’t believe in the “Tooth Fairy” all your teeth will fall out.

By: revatheist

revatheist — Sun, 24 May 2009 05:42:02 +0000

pundit,
Your point was part of what I was trying to say in my post: my daughter was upset not only by the hard truth but by the thought of no longer getting rewards; however, she perked right up after she thought of the plan to still get the reward without sacrificing her rationality. (Although now that I really look at her solution, I think the little bugger is going to end up as a politician.)

By: Richard Wade

Richard Wade — Sun, 24 May 2009 01:17:19 +0000

So, if we could study the religions which offer the least in the trade-off for rationality, and if we could quantify those benefit packages into a dollar amount, we could find the average price of people’s rationality.

It seems to vary greatly from person to person, but I’d guess the average will fall around $16.43 over a person’s lifetime.

If anyone is interested, my rationality is for sale for only $4,457,893,444,602,399,101,686,349,223,568,000,231,884,393,278,199,473,459,401.27
Cash only, no checks, no refunds.

By: The Science Pundit

The Science Pundit — Sat, 23 May 2009 22:30:07 +0000

Children are able to sacrifice rationality and embrace myths as long as the trade-off is worth it.

This is a very ironic use of language when you consider that acting in one’s own enlightened self interest is considered by many to be the very definition of rational behavior.

By: hoverFrog

hoverFrog — Sat, 23 May 2009 21:12:20 +0000

Nah, the Tooth Fairy gives you money. God takes it away so that his preachers can buy swimming pools and stretch limos.

By: revatheist

revatheist — Sat, 23 May 2009 20:02:46 +0000

I have a six-year-old and had to recently explain to her about the Tooth Fairy, Santa Claus, etc. We had never told her that they were or were not real but we had played the game, apparently too well. When I found out that she thought these things were real I felt responsible and decided to undo the damage as gently as possible. She was of course rather upset, but had an interesting take: she asked if we could still pretend they were real. She liked the presents and everything and wanted to keep playing the game. I said that pretending is fine and can be quite fun as long as we remember that it is just pretend and not real.

By: Soulless

Soulless — Sat, 23 May 2009 19:49:38 +0000

The Tooth Fairy and God are very much alike also in that in both cases people do all the work but the fictional character gets all the credit.

By: Cindy

Cindy — Sat, 23 May 2009 18:58:24 +0000

Heck, I had to tell my son the tooth fairy WASN’T real when he was 6 because he was so scared of the thought of some stranger coming into his room while he was sleeping!