Your complimentary articles

You’ve read all of your complimentary articles for this month. To have complete access to the thousands of philosophy articles on this site, please

If you are a subscriber please sign in to your account.

To buy or renew a subscription please visit the Shop.

If you are a print subscriber you can contact us to create an online account.

Articles

Santa is Irrelevant

Sue Johnson replies to Les Reid’s attack on religion.

The existence or non-existence of Santa is irrelevant to the question of God’s existence.

I would like to thank Les Reid for his entertaining, though theologically dubious, article, ‘Santa Lives? The Challenge for Philosophy’ (Philosophy Now, Issue 7) as it provided an excellent discussion paper for my ‘A’ level pupils. All the quotations here are from that article unless otherwise stated.

No-one would deny that humanity is damaging the natural environment as never before, but anyone versed in the moral teachings arising from the majority of creation myths knows that stewardship is enjoined as humanity’s first duty. It is, arguably, no coincidence that the most terrible pollution and environmental damage have occurred since people began to dismiss religious –and the associated moral – teaching as irrelevant.

…