Santa Claus

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teenphilo1 said:
  1. I don’t know.
  2. not answer.
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1 is a lie. Are you saying it is ok to lie?​

#2 is not an answer to the scenario and it does not advance the conversation. It is akin to responding to the scenario about nazis looking for Jews and saying that your response would be to just close the door. I’m sure that Saints Augustine, Thomas Aquinas and Raymond of Toulouse would find your response to be unsatisfactory.
 
Timothysis said:
#2 is not an answer to the scenario and it does not advance the conversation. It is akin to responding to the scenario about nazis looking for Jews and saying that your response would be to just close the door. I’m sure that Saints Augustine, Thomas Aquinas and Raymond of Toulouse would find your response to be unsatisfactory.
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Nope, it’s a realistic answer. You’re under no obligation to “advance the conversation” with the woman who asks about abortion clinics, and nothing is going to happen to you for refusing to answer. Equating this question of yours with the nazis at the door scenario is just ludicrous.
 
  1. It’s the lesser of two evils.
  2. It’s practical. I’d like to think they’d be smirking right now. 😉
Either way, how on earth did we go from Santa Clause to abortion? That’s just depressing…
 
teenphilo1 said:
  1. It’s the lesser of two evils.
  2. It’s practical. I’d like to think they’d be smirking right now. 😉
Either way, how on earth did we go from Santa Clause to abortion? That’s just depressing…
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He’s just being deliberately obtuse at this point. I’m not going to entertain that latest tangent of his anymore, especially since it’s already been answered multiple times. So back to the original topic of lying about Santa Claus. 🍿
 
exoflare said:
Nope, it’s a realistic answer. You’re under no obligation to “advance the conversation” with the woman who asks about abortion clinics, and nothing is going to happen to you for refusing to answer. Equating it with the nazis at the door scenario is just ludicrous.
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I’m afraid you don’t follow. When I say “advance the conversation” I mean the conversation HERE, not with the woman.
 
exoflare said:
He’s just being deliberately obtuse at this point. I’m not going to entertain that latest tangent of his anymore, especially since it’s already been answered multiple times. So back to the original topic of lying about Santa Claus. 🍿
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Is not the topic about the morality of lying? I would advise you to steer clear of the Catholic Encyclopedia article about “lying” because it approaches the subject from an intellectual viewpoint that you seem to miss.
 
Meh. It’s not one of the four that “cry out to heaven for vengeance.” I’m going to choose it over #1 on the top 4 list, “homicide”. (Which I would be guilty of since I assisted in and condoned it by helping her)
 
this is for the sake of the children.

let me ask you some questions is it wrong to tell your kids that good guys always win when it is clearly not the case in the real world

or maybe your kid for christmas gets you something you don’t need you already have you don’t like do you tell them the truth or do you thank them for being so nice for getting this for me.

there is nothing wrong with telling false stories telling little white lies to help them become better people in the future. While I understand there are some people who are never tell lies people I do believe that sometimes not telling the whole truth especially when it comes to children is sometimes the correct thing to do.
 
ValPal said:
Children believe in all sorts of things, and pretend to be all sorts of things. Should I punish my daughters because they’re pretending to be one of those "Angry Birds?"

No, pretend is quite different from belief in superstitions.
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ChibiViolet said:
ValPal;9996488:
Children believe in all sorts of things, and pretend to be all sorts of things. Should I punish my daughters because they’re pretending to be one of those "Angry Birds?"
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No, pretend is quite different from belief in superstitions.

how is telling your kids about santa claus a superstition?
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Timothysis said:
I maintain that Dr. Feser, with all of his knowledge and cleverness, does not even readily understand exactly what constitutes a lie. A “lie” is usually told to evade responsibility, to gain an unfair advantage or to take advantage of a situation for personal gain. It is not a “lie” to tell a young one that their performance on the piano was “beautiful” when it really wasn’t, or to tell someone that, yes, you think their new dress is pretty when deep down inside it really doesn’t do anything for you.
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Perhaps, but have you seen his actual arguments as to what constitutes a lie and why? He addresses them elsewhere (BTW, Dr. Feser would probably agree with you on the piano and dress examples, interestingly enough).

Anyway, let’s address some of what you said:
Does anyone honestly think that they will one day stand in judgement to God Almighty for telling their little ones about Santa or the Easter Bunny, or seeing the joy and amazement in their eyes on Christmas and Easter morn?
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Of course not. :confused: There are degrees of gravity with sin. I’d imagine this to be one of the smallest.
Excellent points. How can something be an intrinsic evil when it impedes an act of injustice? Is it better that we “tell the truth” and let the injustice of murder be perpetrated upon the Jews? What would you think of the following conversation;
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“The gestapo asked, so I told them that there were Jews hiding in the attic.”
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“What happened to them?”
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“They killed them all. But thank God I didn’t sin by telling a lie.”
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How would the reader here react to the following situation;
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You are walking down the street when a pregnant woman asks, “I’m new here; do you know of an abortion clinic around here?”
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You know for certain that there is a clinic right around the corner. How do you reply?
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(And please don’t dodge the question by saying that you wouldn’t say anything or you would try talking her out of it.)
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Timothy, have you seen all of the lying threads around CAF? Do you know how often questions such as these crop up? Do you really think such arguments haven’t been addressed? Of course they have! At least actually respond to the counterarguments instead of giving these situations and expecting them to stand on their own. These are arguments from emotion. If you want me to I’ll link you to another thread going on right now. These questions are addressed there.

In any case, there are a lot of problems with your scenarios
  1. Of course you wouldn’t tell the gestapo there were Jews in the attic! You’d either try and use a narrow mental reservation to deceive them (a subtle, but important, difference from a lie), or you’d simply not say anything.
  2. Regarding the abortion clinic scenario, your idea of “Cheating” is ridiculous. My choices in real life simply are NOT between telling her where the clinic is or lying. I could simply say, “I’m sorry, but I oppose abortion and I will not help you find the clinic”, or you could just not answer, or try and use a narrow mental reservation to get around the question. Narrowing the choice down to two possibilities is ridiculous because there aren’t only two possibilities.
  3. Once again, you’re hoping we react emotionally to what are obviously extremely difficult situations where I would guess all of us would lie. When it comes to the Nazis at the door, I would lie, and I wouldn’t lose any sleep over it. The sin would be so minor that God may even bless us for our intentions to stop the perpetration of evil and protect the innocent. But just because most people would do it doesn’t mean you should.
  4. The definition of a lie, what counts as deception and what counts as lying, why that distinction is important, and these “life or death” lying scenarios have all been addressed. As a matter of fact, there are very interesting discussions going on about them right now. Many of the people don’t share my, or Dr. Feser’s, views, but the discussion is still interesting because they know of the arguments and try to offer legitimate objections and ask tough questions. These are not rebuttals to the arguments and they aren’t tough questions.
What constitutes a lie is definitely a ripe arena for debate within the Church, but you are not debating. You’re just condemning one view and asking a lot of what-ifs designed to make that view look silly. Well, the what-ifs HAVE been addressed. Again, if you want me to I’ll link you to the thread where we’re discussing them. Dr. Feser is a big influence on me and I quote his articles a lot. Look at why many of us believe lying is always wrong before you condemn it, at least.
 
simple question does anyone here understand the principle of double effect because I’m pretty sure in many of the situations people are brining up the principle of double effect would apply.

lying to protect jews from nazi’s satisfies the principle of double effect.
  1. the act of saving lives is good
  2. you aren’t using evil means to achive your end
  3. you are only enduring the evil and focusing on the good.
  4. the good is proportional to the evil being done
so you lie.

the principle of double effect is an important part of moral theology and I hope a part of this discussion.
 
Timothysis said:
It is dodging the question by refusing to answer. I intend it to be in the same speculative vein as asking "how many angels can dance on the head of a pin?" Replying "angels don’t dance" doesn’t advance the conversation.
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So you’re asking us what we’d do in the hypothetical world where all of our choices in conversation are ONLY between answering a question directly and lying about the answer? Because this hypothetical world doesn’t advance a lot of discussion here in the real world, where we could utilize our other options.
 
I would bet most if not all who think kids should be told there is no Santa, don’t have kids. 😉
So they really don’t know what they are saying, they are out of their depth,so to speak! 😉
 
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