This cartoon conveys an important truth: Most people instinctively think their own beliefs are inherently superior to everyone else’s that’s different.

It’s the nature of human beings and their beliefs.

And this assumed superiority is continuously reinforced by shaming proponents of any heterodoxy that emerges in groups of shared belief, like for example in conservative evangelical Protestant factions.

This is why myriad support groups exist for “recovering Christians,” apostates who are shunned, shamed, denigrated and sometimes physically attacked for leaving their generally fundamentalist religious communities and assemblies.

Such fear and loathing of apostates, atheists and nonbelievers has a long, ignoble history in the world, especially among Christians groups. Remember the countless so-called “heretics” burned at the stake by Catholic and Protestant ecclesiastic thugs through the Middle Ages for the dubious crime of doubt in the majority — often universal — faith of their societies.

It begins in childhood, when human minds are at their most pliable and vulnerable, as the religion of their parents and wider community is rigorously, purposely indoctrinated in their budding and soon permanent worldview. Believing in Santa Claus is just a gateway myth; it’s easier for children to accept a kindly old man bearing gifts than an omnipotent God who would send them to eternal hell for bad behavior.

There’s always plenty of time to fully accept and incorporate all the more ominous mythology as real.

So, indeed, when a child sends a Christmas letter to Santa at the North Pole, asking for presents while proclaiming a not-very-naughty year, it’s exactly the same dynamic as their parents praying to the divine to give them something or, more usually, to avoid something traumatic.

Keep that in mind not only when you chuckle at childish faith in unbelievable things but when adults compulsively and and almost universally do it — Christians, Muslims, Jews, Wiccans, Rastafarians, Mormons, etc., etc.

Don’t laugh: In fact, there’s such an embarrassment of unverified belief in the world, everyone should be chuckling constantly.

Cartoon/Thanks to Atheist Global

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