(September 8, 2015 at 6:43 pm)Losty Wrote:(September 8, 2015 at 6:34 pm)Pyrrho Wrote: That is a very different sort of situation from telling your children that Santa is real. In your example, the claim that you are dancing ballet with a giraffe does not involve any deception. You are saying things that are obviously false, and can be immediately seen to be false.
I also wasn't talking to you. I have said several times in this thread that I did not tell my children that Santa Claus is real. The reason I didn't do so is because I will not lie to my children for such a frivolous reason. I try not to lie to them except when I feel it is absolutely necessary.
I don't count the dancing with giraffes thing as lying at all, it is a lot closer to sarcasm than a lie, but I think it helps little kids learn to think for themselves.
Yes, it is very different from the Santa situation. That was the whole point of my post. You are not deceiving your children with the dancing with a giraffe story. What you are doing is very different from telling your children that Santa is real.
What you are doing is like telling a joke, "A priest, a rabbi, and a duck walked into a bar...." Your story amuses, and does not deceive.
It would be a very different situation if you told your children the typical story that Santa is real. That is because the typical story involves deception. But what you are doing is very different, because you are not deceiving your children.
I am not criticizing you, either in that post or this one, so I am a bit unsure why you seem to be taking offense.
"A wise man ... proportions his belief to the evidence."
— David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Section X, Part I.
