I'm questioning your main point that santa is more real than the adult God, and that it takes child like perception to believe in God.
From the perspective of the child, how is santa not more real than adult gods? I think you're seeing santa as an adult, which is good, but as a child, santa rocks. I can sit in his lap, he talks to me and brings me presents. Does it get any more real? I can feel him, he holds me, he has a voice, he laughs, he talks to my parents. All my family tells me he's real too, tell me his reindeer fly. They put up a christmas tree and make him cookies. Stores are full of christmas things, music everywhere.
Now contrast that with the adult version. Can you touch your adult santa, pull his beard, hear his voice, smell him, sit in his lap? NO! Adult santa has become all spooky and invisible and everyone says it's real but it sure isn't real like santa was real.
It seems like you're missing my point, or just ignoring it. My understanding of what you're saying is
there is no physical embodiment of God, therefore Santa is perceived as more real. Yes, I'm with you on the point that to children Santa is real because there is a physical embodiment. But the analogy between child / adult isn't even really apt, because children will believe anything you tell them. You could feed a four year old literally any story and they would believe it.
But my argument is that you're understating how much of a physical embodiment of the Adult God there is. No you can't actually see God, but you can spend your entire life surrounded by other people who literally believe in it's existence, and will do anything in their power to convince you that it's real. In some regions of the world people can spend their entire life coming across no contrary social inputs.
You can live in cities where there might be 20 - 30 churches, some very grandiose, and in Catholic versions very striking imagery. In these same cities there might be biblical quotes on a number of street corners.
The bible is the world's best selling book and at least half of the world's population believe that it's a holy text.
On Facebook you can follow religious pages that will promote religion day after day.
So for the
adult it's not just a matter of intellect, and interacting with the world like a child, it's a matter of religion being a normalized part of our culture. Religion is even more pernicious than Santa because to most of the world it
is real. I get that you consider yourself an activist of sorts with regards to religion, but the constant insinuation that the religious are just dumb feels off the mark to me.
I think it's more the case that
those who can see beyond culture are very smart. Where those who fall for culture are just normal people.