Whether I agree with them or not, within certain limits I try to respect everyone's beliefs. This respect might even extend to beliefs I consider childish or ridiculous, depending on the context.

Such as the age of the, um, believer, perhaps?

Anyway, it's Christmas Eve and I found myself intrigued and irritated by this story about a teacher apparently unable resist debunking Santa Claus for six year old children:

Theresa Farrisi stood in for Schaeffer’s regular music teacher one day last week. One of her assignments was to read Clement C. Moore’s famous poem, “A Visit from Saint Nicholas” to a first-grade class at Lickdale Elementary School.

“The poem has great literary value, but it goes against my conscience to teach something which I know to be false to children, who are impressionable,” said Farrisi, 43, of Myerstown. “It’s a story. I taught it as a story. There’s no real person called Santa Claus living at the North Pole.”

Farrisi doesn’t believe in Santa Claus, and she doesn’t think anyone else should, either. She made her feelings clear to the classroom full of 6- and 7-year-olds, some of whom went home crying.

Schaeffer got off the school bus later that day, dragging her backpack in the mud, tears in her angry little eyes.

“She yelled at me, ‘Why did you lie?’” recalled Jamey’s mother, Elizabeth. “‘Why didn’t you tell me Santa Claus died?’”

Elizabeth Schaeffer said she was appalled by Farrisi’s bluntness.

“I had to call the school,” said Schaeffer, a part-time custodial employee for the school district who is on temporary leave after complications from her last child’s birth. “I had to do something.”

Meanwhile, Farrisi, who is well versed on the history of “Santa Claus” — the traditional and literary figure — clarified her comments.

“I did not tell the students Santa Claus was dead,” she explained. “I said there was a man named Nickolas of Myrna who died in 343 A.D., upon whom the Santa Claus myth (is based).”

On Monday night, Jamey started to recite Moore’s famous poem while sitting on a couch next to a freshly cut tree, trimmed in tinsel and topped with a golden star: “’Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the house. No creatures stirred.”

She paused, looked up, and said that’s when the teacher interjected, just a few lines before the verse that announces the arrival of “a miniature sleigh and eight tiny reindeer.”

“The teacher stopped reading and told us no one comes down the chimney,” Jamey said, curling into a ball on the couch, bracing her chin on her knees, her voice shrinking away like melting ice cream. “She said our parents buy the presents, not Santa.”

"Mommy, why did you lie to me?"

Good question, damn it! It's high time six year olds when home and confronted their parents about these and other very harmful lies.

My immediate reaction was to assume that this teacher was probably one of those "godless secular atheists" we've been hearing about. But I should never assume, because after a minimum of digging, I found an additional report, which reveals possible religious bias by Ms. Farrisi:

....erecting a sign along the eastbound side of I-78, between the Bethel and Grimes exits, Leonard H. Martin has taken it upon himself to shatter the myth of Santa Claus for any youngster able to read the message from the back seat of a car as their parents drive by.

It marks the second consecutive year that Martin has posted what he termed a spiritual message on his land adjacent to I-78.

Last year, the sign stated, “Santa is a myth, lying to our children brings moral decay.”

For this season, Martin toned it down slightly. The sign now reads, “Worship God, who is all knowing & all seeing, Santa is a Myth.”

Martin, who operates a dairy farm at 250 Legion Drive, Bethel Township, is also a deacon with Harmony Christian Fellowship.

“We wanted to bring out the point that (Americans) are making Santa out to be what God actually is,” Martin said Tuesday. “We’re making Santa a god. I believe that is idol worship.”

Last week, Theresa Farrisi was working as a substitute music teacher at Lickdale Elementary School when she told a first-grade class that Santa Claus doesn’t exist. Farrisi is a former member of Martin’s church.

“The practice of Santa Claus, as it’s taught today, is a religious practice,” Farrisi said yesterday. “It’s a secular religion, but it’s not Christian.” (Emphasis added.)

Next she'll be telling the kids that Halloween is evil and Satanic.

What I want to know is, can Ms. Farrisi prove there's no Santa Claus?

As I proved two years ago today, science, religion, and logic are all very close to agreement that Santa Claus does in fact exist, which means Ms. Farrisi is promoting junk science, bogus religion, and bad logic.

She has 24 hours to repent or else she's getting coal in her you-know-whats!