Fact or Fiction, the fundy version

[browngrl]

This was on the front page of reddit: www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24995520

A couple of studies showed that children exposed to religious ideas are more likely to judge a protagonist with fantastic abilities as "real" whereas a secular child was more likely to be able to judge a protagonist with fantastic abilities as "fictional".

This might help explain why fundies freak out over books like Harry Potter. Perhaps they are less able to tell that Harry is a fictional character and so take him just that much more seriously. Thoughts?

Here is the abstract in full:

"In two studies, 5- and 6-year-old children were questioned about the status of the protagonist embedded in three different types of stories. In realistic stories that only included ordinary events, all children, irrespective of family background and schooling, claimed that the protagonist was a real person. In religious stories that included ordinarily impossible events brought about by divine intervention, claims about the status of the protagonist varied sharply with exposure to religion. Children who went to church or were enrolled in a parochial school, or both, judged the protagonist in religious stories to be a real person, whereas secular children with no such exposure to religion judged the protagonist in religious stories to be fictional. Children's upbringing was also related to their judgment about the protagonist in fantastical stories that included ordinarily impossible events whether brought about by magic (Study 1) or without reference to magic (Study 2). Secular children were more likely than religious children to judge the protagonist in such fantastical stories to be fictional. The results suggest that exposure to religious ideas has a powerful impact on children's differentiation between reality and fiction, not just for religious stories but also for fantastical stories."

[Mama Mia]

I don't know, I'd find this study much more interesting if it showed a significant difference in beliefs in 8 or 10 year olds. 5-6 seems to be pretty much the age kids are sorting out reality and fantasy, so if religious kids are a little slower at figuring out Superman isn't real, so what? It's still well within normal, if they still think The Easter Bunny or Santa or Harry Potter are real years after their non- religious peers understand otherwise, that would be news worthy. It would make sense if kids who are taught some supernatural or miraculous or meta-physical events are real, would take a little longer to distinguish between their beliefs and fiction.

Just spent the afternoon with my five year old granddaughter who understood on her own when she went to Disneyland at 4 that the characters were regular people in costumes, but the other day was quite willing to put her tooth under the pillow for the tooth fairy. :D

[salex]

I was an oldest child and my mother didn't much like the Santa "thing" because she thought the story that santa brought nice gifts for good little boys and girls was sort of cruel to poor children (I think she had a childhood friend who had been very dissapointed, but I'm not sure) My 12 years younger sister got much more of the Santa game than I did. Thus I was pretty amazed the year that a very fundie inlaw wrote in her xmas letter than her 6 year old had got saved and gone forward to give her life to Jesus-- then detailed the extravagent efforts (noise on roof, foot prints, etc) to keep the Santa real as well.

As far as the toothfairy-- does anyone ever really believe that? I knew my folks gave me money for the tooth. But, if i had to believe in the tooth fairy to get paid, I darn sure would have believed in the tooth fairy. :dance:

[Mama Mia]

I was an oldest child and my mother didn't much like the Santa "thing" because she thought the story that santa brought nice gifts for good little boys and girls was sort of cruel to poor children (I think she had a childhood friend who had been very dissapointed, but I'm not sure) My 12 years younger sister got much more of the Santa game than I did. Thus I was pretty amazed the year that a very fundie inlaw wrote in her xmas letter than her 6 year old had got saved and gone forward to give her life to Jesus-- then detailed the extravagent efforts (noise on roof, foot prints, etc) to keep the Santa real as well.

As far as the toothfairy-- does anyone ever really believe that? I knew my folks gave me money for the tooth. But, if i had to believe in the tooth fairy to get paid, I darn sure would have believed in the tooth fairy. :dance:

I know as a kid I believed in the tooth fairy longer than I believed in Santa or the Easter Bunny, not sure why, except I lost my first baby teeth pretty late :lol: . I had a friend ( completely non-religious) who was worried her daughter had stopped believing in Santa when the kid was like 11 :shock: , I was concerned that she was sending an 11 year old to middle school to be teased mercilessly if the subject came up! I wonder if nowadays, with everything being available instantaneously, if the Santa story seems plausible for longer?

[alba]

Yeah, I'm not sure how this applies to kids actually old enough to read things like Harry Potter. I went to a religious school, yet I was reading fantasy novels by the age of 8 at the latest and I knew full well they were made up. Sure, I hoped for a letter from Hogwarts the summer I was 11, but I knew it wasn't something that I was actually going to get.

By the way, I didn't stop believing in Santa until I was 10, after I'd read the first three Harry Potter books. To be fair, I'd been kind of iffy about it for a few years, but I wanted to still believe so I tried to ignore the evidence against him. In retrospect it seems a lot like the time I stopped believing in God :P

[salex]

Honestly, I never ever even heard that the Easter Bunny was supposed to be real. I helped decorate the eggs, my siblings and I would hide them from one another, and mom would give us a "spring gift" (kid size garden tools, a little tent, stuff like that) when we were little but I never saw anyone "do" an easter bunny morning until I was married and spending easter with some inlaws.

I have a friend who was worried her 11 or 12 year old daughter was no longer believing in Santa, too. What made it odd to me was--said friend is a Jew who is way more into Xmas than I am.

I am of the belief that people are happy for any reason to have a party!

[dpndetfarm]

It would be interesting to note the age at which fundy kids start differentiating between "fake" fantastic characters and "real" fantastic characters. IE Superman/Santa vs Moses/Jesus. My kids never believed in the religious characters given that they (religious characters) are mythical and they knew Superheroes were pretend although I am sure in their imaginations Superheroes were very real for a long time.

The Tooth Fairy brought a buck and a book for each tooth lost. Until all their teeth were lost you know they "believed" in her.

My kids are now 23 and 21 and to this day they believe in Santa Clause for the simple reason that I always tell them, "When you stop believing, Santa stops coming!" My son's fiance has had an epiphany since moving in with us. She now realizes that Santa IS real!!* LOL

*I dislike the whole xmas shebang except for a few ancient family traditions most of which involve Santa and his Elves. Therefore to continue the parts I enjoy my children must continue to believe in mythical creatures forever and ever. Oh my goodness, does that mean we are no longer atheists?!?

[tabitha2]

Not all religious characters are mythical by a long shot, just hazy and embellished and Santa- or at least Saint Nicholas-was real. 8-)

[dpndetfarm]

Not all religious characters are mythical by a long shot, just hazy and embellished and Santa- or at least Saint Nicholas-was real. 8-)

OK, bit of a generalization on my part, but I figured people here would get my drift. Jesus, yes, it is pretty well established that someone existed, but he did not have super powers. He has been given mythical powers. At some point even the real people turned into mythical characters.

[itsnotmeitsu]

So fundie kids believe mermaids and vampires are real?

[slickcat79]

This is a big reason why most fundies can't allow Harry Potter or many other fantasy stories. You can't tell kids that everything in the Bible (even the clearly unreal and miraculous stuff) is 100% true and expect them to be able to differentiate that from fiction books. Especially when lots of fantasy stories are allegorical to the religious stories. Kids might start to doubt, and we can't have that...

[louisa05]

This is a big reason why most fundies can't allow Harry Potter or many other fantasy stories. You can't tell kids that everything in the Bible (even the clearly unreal and miraculous stuff) is 100% true and expect them to be able to differentiate that from fiction books. Especially when lots of fantasy stories are allegorical to the religious stories. Kids might start to doubt, and we can't have that...

It is a bit more complex than that. Crazy Christian school banned Harry Potter pretty quickly when it arrived in the U.S. but you have to understand that many of the teachers (and parents) there had a neo-pentecostal/charismatic belief system. Their objections had nothing to do with kids thinking the Bible is not real. They, by and large, believed that there are demonic forces which make magic possible and a very real threat to Christians. The books would introduce such magic to kids in a positive light causing them to be susceptible to these demons and the people that they work through. In short: they thought the spells might be real or that there are such spells in real life even if Harry's were not the real ones.

My personal opinion actually fell on the side that their younger children should not read the books. If the adults around them believed it was or could be real, it would not be healthy for them and could very well be frightening. Older kids were a different matter.