Cheers, Slag. ;-) Yeah, there's Dylan influence there, specially when I sing one of his songs.

Regarding the Santa thing...I was the most scientifically rational kid I ever knew. I was studying Darwin's evolutionary stuff in some natural history books at my parents' place before I even went to school. (My mother taught me to read at home.) So it was a leadpipe cinch to figure out that the Santa Claus story couldn't possibly be true. After all, it violated several commonly known natural laws! What I couldn't fathom was that so many other kids didn't seem to even think about that...but their parents probably were the main cause of that. Kids imitate the example put in front of them.

We didn't go to church. My whole understanding of life in those days was scientific rationalism and normal social morality.

Interestingly enough, though, as time went by I discovered for myself that there are vast inner worlds of consciousness in human experience that science has little (if anything) to say about and that they are very real. I now have great interest in spiritual matters...some of which science can touch upon...but most of which science is blind to...so far. There's a physical universe. There's a non-physical universe. The one reaches into the other intimately and at all times, but you cannot observe or contain the non-physical through physical means, and you can't put it in a petri dish and weigh it or measure it. Nevertheless it plays a vital part in imparting consciousness and meaning to the physical...indeed the physical would be utterly dead and useless without it. We are not our bodies, we are our consciousness. It is from consciousness that we derive a sense of self and of meaning. The body, in my opinion, is just a vehicle. My consciousness is the owner and driver of that vehicle, and when the vehicle gets too old to drive, I'll send it to the wreckers and I'll find a new vehicle.