text: After years of reading and asking similar questions, I have come to the conclusion that people can fairly easily compartmentalize their belief systems. They can rationally understand that Santa, the Bunny, and the Fairy are all myths, but they can continue to go on happily believing in their god.\n\nThese people can be intelligent (or not) in many other areas of their lives and rational (or not) on most subjects, but they cannot make the leap to realize that their god fits in the exact same category as the myths listed above.\n\nFamily and culture do a great bit of reinforcing the myths for these folks and in so many cases there are severe "penalties" for even doubting the truth of the myths. Many people never get past that.\n\nThe myth reinforcement stops at one age or another for Santa and the others, but the reinforcement continues for people who believe in one or another invisible sky fairies.