1. Do stop behaving as if you are God, Professor Dawkins

Comment #21363 by Avi Jacobson on February 8, 2007 at 11:24 pm

Dawkins often compares belief in God to an infantile belief in Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy, saying it is something we should all outgrow. But the analogy is flawed. How many people do you know who started to believe in Santa Claus in adulthood?

I'm surprised that no one has pointed out the following: McGrath argues that the only difference between the Santa Claus fantasy and the God fantasy is that former was created and disseminated with the goal of convincing and manipulating children (and did so successfully), whereas the latter was created and disseminated with the goal of convincing and manipulating adults (and did so successfully). This is the single "flaw" that McGrath cites in the Santa analogy; McGrath accepts, one can only assume, that in every other respect, the Santa fabrication and the God fabrication are equivalent. One is a fairy-tale accepted only by children, whereas the other is a fairy-tale accepted by adults.