Listen to your elders? Fuck that.

It struck me last night that I'm so skeptical/agnostic in part because of my upbringing - more specifically, it's pretty damn hard to believe what your "elders" tell you about Jesus, et al. when you know they purposely lied to you about Santa, the Easter Bunny, and pretty much everything else (like how the Pilgrims and Indians were great buddies)...

I don't normally hold a grudge, but seriously - what kind of fucked up society acts in colusion to delude and lead astray it's youth - then make it a rite of passage to find out that all along you've been lied to? Like a huge echo of "Ha ha, gotcha!" this kind of thing just dumbfounds - it takes my breath away really... I understand the "Spirit of Christmas" and the special circumstances that surround each make-believe story, but it goes further than that. We create newer, more elaborate lies to cover the old ones. And then we take great joy in revealing it all at whatever age we deem appropiate - as if such a realization will vault children into adulthood. no wonder they're little shits as teenagers.

Somehow it's all okay because we're doing this to kids... though that logic doesn't really work for me. In movies like The Game the main character reacts with anger and distrust when he finds out that his whole world for the last several days has been a farce - why should it be any different for children? Sure their whole world isn't what's been a lie - but when you're young, Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny are all it takes... especially when it's practically all adults lying to you about it.

Anyway, not sure how this morphed into a society-wide critique, I just meant to take a look at why I'm such a skeptic now. Meh.