Santa Claus

Originally posted by David C
lol, the Irony. Replace "Santa" with "Jesus", and feel my pain.

I was waiting for someone to bring this up. 🙂

Originally posted by caissad4
The quote by Mithras is documented by the fact that it can still be read on a wall of the Vatican, carved in stone.
Mithraism is not my religion and I agree that both Christianity and Mithraism are severely lacking in documentation.
I enjoy history.

...Christianity and Mithraism are severely lacking in documentation.
I enjoy history.

Severely lacking in documentation? Don't be ridiculous.

If we didn't have any of the New Testament or other Christian writings, we'd still be able to conclude much about Jesus from the testimony of ancient non-Christian sources, e.g., Josephus, the Talmud, Tacitus, Pliny the Younger, and others. Based on these documents we can conclude:

(1) Jesus was a Jewish teacher
(2) Many people believed that he performed healings and exorcisms
(3) Some people believed he was the Messiah
(4) He was rejected by the Jewish leaders
(5) He was crucified under Pontius Pilate in the reign of Tiberius
(6) Despite his shameful death, his followers, who believed that he was still alive, spread beyond Palestine so that there were multitudes of them in Rome by A.D. 64
(7) All kinds of people from the cities and countryside - men and women, slave and free - worshiped him as God

Not to mention the fact that there isn't a good reason not to accept the NT as a reliable record of events, considering it is the most well-preserved document in ancient history.

__________

Your claim that Christianity is severely lacking in documentation is quite simply ill informed.

Originally posted by caissad4
The quote by Mithras is documented by the fact that it can still be read on a wall of the Vatican, carved in stone.
Mithraism is not my religion and I agree that both Christianity and Mithraism are severely lacking in documentation.
I enjoy history.

Lacking in literature?? Not sure who you are agreeing with as that is not what I said.

Say what you want about Santa Claus but this much I know. As a child, whenever I left a sacrifice of milk and cookies for Santa I received something in return. Whenever I prayed to Santa or even wrote him a letter, I received something in return. I didn't always get exactly what I prayed for but at least I got something. Unlike the Christian god, Santa gets results and at the very least acknowledged and repaid my homage and worship towards him.

I'm going to start a new cult devoted to the worship of Santa Claus. I will focus my conversion efforts first upon the children. I will turn them away from the Christ and towards the Santa and through the exchange of toys for milk and cookies we shall establish our dominion over all the earth!!!

Praise be to Santa!!

Originally posted by caissad4
Can you produce irrefutable evidence that Thor did not rise from the dead ???
I don't think so.

Yes. According to the Eddas Thor and most of the other gods of Asgard die at Ragnarock battling the forces of evil and chaos. They are not reborn. Thor goes down in spectacular fashion, slaying the gigantic Midgard Serpent in the process.

The norse of old and modern day heathens are quite comfortable with the belief that their gods are mortal just like everything in nature. It isn't the deities themselves that are reborn but nature itself. The cycle of life-death-rebirth is endless and a savior is unnecessary.

Originally posted by vistesd
I don’t know if this is on point or not, but what pawnhandler posted made me think of it.

It seems that, developmentally, the “age of imagination” precedes the “age of reason”. And sometimes, for children, what is imagined seems quite real. I am not talking about hallucination, but things creatively and playfully imagined, ...[text shortened]... ions probably cannot be too generalized. Every child is different.

Just some thoughts…

With the vast majority seemingly willing and able to abandon reason to further their desires, I have to wonder at what point "such imagination prevents or suppresses developing reason". Does the reinforcement of such diversion from reality impede the maturation of the individual, i.e. freeing himself from delusion?

The truth will make you free.

Originally posted by epiphinehas
I was waiting for someone to bring this up. 🙂

I'm surprised it took that long.

Originally posted by Ullr
Say what you want about Santa Claus but this much I know. As a child, whenever I left a sacrifice of milk and cookies for Santa I received something in return. Whenever I prayed to Santa or even wrote him a letter, I received something in return. I didn't always get exactly what I prayed for but at least I got something. Unlike the Christian god, Santa gets ...[text shortened]... milk and cookies we shall establish our dominion over all the earth!!!

Praise be to Santa!!

Someone's beaten you to it.

Originally posted by epiphinehas
[b]My daughter is about to turn five. For the past five years I've made it very clear to her that Santa does not exist. I'm raising her to be a follower of Jesus Christ and figured it would be counterproductive to spend the majority of her childhood spinning white lies about a person who doesn't exist while simultaneously teaching her about a Person Who d ...[text shortened]... ersons out of thin air (even going so far as to eat the cookies she leaves out on Christmas Eve).

For a kid the best thing about Christmass is the excitement of what Santa has left for them when they wake up Christmass morning...to not have a kid under 10 believing in Santa is to deny your kid exactly what makes Christmass a kids best day of the year!

Originally posted by Jamesqt
For a kid the best thing about Christmass is the excitement of what Santa has left for them when they wake up Christmass morning...to not have a kid under 10 believing in Santa is to deny your kid exactly what makes Christmass a kids best day of the year!

Nonsense.

Originally posted by LemonJello
Nonsense.

I have to agree; as a kid I never believed in Santa and always had a great christmas, except for one year where all a got for pressies were airfix models which i hate with a vengence, and a fab hornby train set which broke on christmas day:'(

Edit: still had a good christmas that year too when I think about it, as i helped my dad try to fix the train set (unsuccessfully), and then went out to play war with my friends.