Jim Hopkins: 'Tis the season to be a believer

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"Not everything that can be counted counts. And not everything that counts can be counted." - Albert Einstein

Don't tell Richard Dawkins this, but it wouldn't hurt to entertain the odd delusion tomorrow. Or, more precisely, another odd delusion. We already entertain a number of odd delusions (things beyond counting) at Christmas time. One more won't do any harm.

Specifically, it would do no harm, just for a day, to entertain what Professor Dawkins indignantly called The God Delusion in his book of the same name.

It's okay. Don't panic. You're not about to be accosted by a wild-eyed Pentecostal. This isn't an argument for God; rather it's an argument for belief - a cause-and-effect cost-benefit analysis that won't seek to settle the mysterious nub of the matter. Because it can't. If God exists, he is his own argument. If he doesn't, as Professor Dawkins believes is the case, then we are creators and he is our creation - a sort of all-seasons, all-purpose super Santa.

Whichever you prefer is immaterial - like God. You pays your money and you takes your choice, really, as we do with Santa.

Although, to be fair, if conviction is proof then Santa is certainly more fact than figment.

Most of us either believe he exists or actively encourage other people, usually younger and more suggestible, to believe he does. This causes us no embarrassment. We don't blush and mumble when we mention his name. No one thinks we're dotty. In a hundred thousand homes tonight, grown-up people will put out carrots for the reindeer or splosh talcum powder snow round the Christmas tree, or pen notes of thanks from himself.

And they won't feel silly. Santa is sanctioned. He's a jolly good fellow and his story's a jolly good story; the workshop, the sleigh, the super-dooper, hypersonic whiz around the world, transcending time, space and reason - these are magical things, especially when imagined by a child.

That's why we believe. It's more fun believing in Santa than not believing in Santa.

Long ago and far away, when Stonehenge was still waiting for resource consent, Christmas was basically the day everyone said, "Whoopee, winter's over."

But since we're no longer in thrall to the seasons, Christmas has changed. It serves a higher purpose now. And Santa is its agent, not its cause.

When you grow up in a vicarage, as we did, you get all the standard Christmas stuff: Santa, cards, a tree and stockings that were actually socks filled once a year with something more exciting than a foot.

But we got something else, too - another present, a parallel narrative that gave it all a larger meaning. True, we had to wash our faces and clean our teeth and comb our hair and go to church in the morning to get it, but that was part of the heart of the day.

The church was always full and everyone sang the carols - Away in a Manger, Once in Royal David's City, We Three Kings of Orient Are. The story was told of a baby and a star and wise men and a manger and no one was embarrassed or blushed at the telling of it.

There was no telly in those days, but there were church services on the wireless and messages from notable people about the real gift of Christmas being love and how all the other gifts were tokens of that. No one mumbled when they said such things. They seemed quite happy to believe them.

Not any more. "Best of the season" is as close as state-owned television comes to Christmas now; a message so vapid it's contemptible. Better to say nothing at all than coin a phrase so desperate to pretend there never was a parallel narrative.

We like to think we're rational creatures but it's our beliefs that are our essence. They're what shape us. And there's never been more to believe in. We're awash with beliefs. We can choose to believe whatever we please and whatever pleases us. We can believe we're broken, we can believe we're saved. We can believe in the Mayan calendar, Nostradamus, space aliens, global warming, psychotherapy, iridology, homeopathy, vampires, werewolves, mantras, chakras and 1000 things besides. We can believe life is a random accident, a pre-traumatic stress disorder, or a small part of a much larger purpose.

We can take our pick. And that's the point. If you think a little additional Christmas supernaturality would make more of the event and more of yourself, then entertain that odd delusion.

Christmas already has one officially sanctioned, widely endorsed supernatural entity zooming about doing good and magical things. No reason why you can't add another, especially one who says eminently sensible things that almost all of us, including Prof Dawkins, would probably endorse.

It is, after all, no bad thing to "love thy neighbour as thyself" or seek "peace on earth and goodwill to all men". That's the parallel narrative of Christmas. And if we need a little outside help to make it happen, then so be it.

If it makes sense, if it adds meaning, believe it. Heck, it's just for a day.