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What does Santa have to do with Jesus?

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Does the pagan issues with Christmas make it wrong for a Christian to celebrate it?







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  • MayCaesarMayCaesar 5965 Pts   -   edited May 2019
    The comparison with Santa is usually made on the grounds that children often believe in Santa Claus with no evidence of his existence, and then one day learn that it is just a fantasy story.

    Similarly, the notion of Christian god's existence has no evidence behind it, so you would think that everyone who has reached the age of 7-8 y/o and started asking questions would quickly realise that that, too, is just a fantasy story.

    Unfortunately, we do not have thousands churches praising Santa, or a book dedicated to him - but we do have thousands churches praising God and a "holy book" dedicated to it. So many people remain children forever in this regard, because they choose to believe the (perceived) authority over common sense.

    ---

    As far as your actual question goes, every religion has pagan roots and is based on pagan folklore, so I do not see anything wrong with religion celebrating pagan traditions.
  • YeshuaBoughtYeshuaBought 669 Pts   -  
    Christmas is supposed to be about Jesus, but many have paganized it.
  • PlaffelvohfenPlaffelvohfen 3985 Pts   -  
    Christmas is supposed to be about Jesus, but many have paganized it.
    Not exactly... Early Christians, arbitrarily placed the date of birth of Jesus to correspond to pre-existing pagan rituals ( Saturnalia , winter solstice ), it was a way to infuse it into traditions and effectively take over the cultural references... Pagan rituals were "christianized", not the other way around...

    The actual month of Jesus' birth, can be inferred to be summer or fall. Combining inferences from when shepherds would likely be in the fields and working backward from Zechariah's priestly service (John the Baptist's father) and its connections to Jesus' birth, one arrives at a likely date of mid-September to early October. This would suggest the conception of Jesus might have been in December, but not his birth.
    " Adversus absurdum, contumaciter ac ridens! "
  • YeshuaBoughtYeshuaBought 669 Pts   -  
    @Plaffelvohfen Fair enough. I stand corrected.
  • NeopesdomNeopesdom 157 Pts   -  
    @Plaffelvohfen

    Can you prove that they were early Christians? Why can't they be elements of a fragmented and threatened pagan priesthood which had dominated the Babylonian, Greek, Medo-Persian, and Roman civilizations for thousands of years. A Priesthood that became so desperate under the growth of true Christianity so as to conceal themselves under familiar Christian names and traditions in order to mask their true identity and ambitions.?


      “Never argue with an id'iot They will drag you down to their level and beat you with experience.” ― Mark Twain
  • NeopesdomNeopesdom 157 Pts   -  
    @MayCaesar

    >>Similarly, the notion of Christian god's existence has no evidence behind 

    Philosophically speaking there can be no such thing as 'ultimate proof'. Our senses can be deceived or manipulated. How do we know what we perceive is true reality or an illusion, we are not all knowing. Millions saw David Copperfield walk through the great wall of China or make things vanish before their eyes. How can we trust what is being presented to us as being real or true. To some people only what they perceive as tangible or measurable is real. Others believe that there is an ultimate spiritual reality and what those in physical form perceive is the construct. If a figure bathed in a great white light came to someone and claimed to be God, what would make them think that it might be not be some other supernatural being or highly advanced alien or maybe just some man made deception. All this situation would tell someone is that there is something going on beyond their present understanding.

    The point is this, that there is no such thing as "proof", there can only be faith.  You could also ask "is there any evidence against the notion of a Christian God"? You have many disciplines to draw from, archaeology, history, philosophy, other religious traditions etc. Can you come up with any? Christian faith is not a blind faith, it is based in reason and logic. "Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD...." (Isaiah 1:18)

    I think it requires a lot more faith to believe in something other than Christianity, esp, random chance which requires billions and billions of little miracles (mathematical improbabilities) to occur, it's simply a statistical impossibility. It is much more childlike to stubbornly cling to an absurd notion like this.

    The Bible sets its own standard for evidence if you are interested, Biblical prophecy is the type of 'proof' that is presented. Unique among all books ever written, the Bible accurately foretells specific events-in detail-many years, sometimes centuries, before they occur. Approximately 2,500 prophecies appear in the pages of the Bible, about 2,000 of which already have been fulfilled to the letter with no errors. And these are not vague prophecies like that of Nostradamus or Edgar Cayce but specific detailed prophecies of which there can be no doubt.

    Remember the former things of old: for I am God, and there is none else; I am God, and there is none like me; declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times things that are not yet done; saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure; (Isaiah 46:9-10)

    Most people who have thought seriously about life and death know that God exists. For those in denial, they always yell, "show me the evidence of your God's existence", yet different people will react to "proof" differently. Even when Jesus was doing his miracles, most didn't believe, not through lack of evidence, but because they did not want to. Most people have no real hope of heaven, so would prefer to believe that death is the end. That delusion is easily dispelled, yet not everyone will accept it because they just simply and childlike don't want to, all 'evidence' aside.

      “Never argue with an id'iot They will drag you down to their level and beat you with experience.” ― Mark Twain
  • ethang5ethang5 258 Pts   -  
    @Plaffelvohfen

    >The actual month of Jesus' birth, can be inferred to be summer or fall.

    The area where Jesus was born did not have 4 seasons but two.

    And what would correspond there to cooler weather in America is not Nov, Dec, Jan, Feb.

    Christians know Dec 25 is not the actual date of Jesus' birth, but wanted to celebrate the day anyway.

    Any day they chose would have fallen on some previous non-Christian holiday anyway.

    So the fact that some other non-Christian people earlier celebrated that day means nothing.

    A Christian can heartily take part in any holiday that is not offensive or disrespectful of Jesus, even non-Christian ones.
  • NeopesdomNeopesdom 157 Pts   -  
    More Santa Fun Facts

    Jolly Old St. Nick, In English, the Devil has a number of epithets, including Old Scratch and Old Nick. 

    St. Nicolas aka SINterklaas aka Odin
    Seems like good old Nic. here got some type of occult power, to read minds, shapeshift, control animals, all while flying from roof top to roof top on his magic chariot. Sinterklaas rides the roof tops on his white horse Amerigo or Slecht weer vandaag; Odin rides the sky on his gray horse. Children would place their boots near the chimney for Odin's flying horse, Sleipnir, to eat. 

    Sinterklaas is assisted by many mischievous helpers with black faces and colorful Moorish dresses. These helpers were called 'Zwarte Pieten' (Black Petes), which later became know as the mythical creatures we today call elves. During the Middle-ages Zwarte Piet was a name for the devil. 

    Hidden deep within the psyche of Europe's ancestors could lie an untold terror retold only through fragmented myth and lore. Could this legend of Santa's helpers go back to the horrors of the Moorish invasion of Europe, parents telling their kids to be good or the Barbary Bogeyman might come to steel you away? Santa gets a list of who's been naughty or nice, we know what happens to the list of who's been good, but what of the list of who's been bad? Santa has a secret helper and he's not so nice. If you've been bad, Krampus will come and steel you away! 



    Father Christmas
    And call no man your father upon the earth: for one is your Father, which is in heaven. (Matthew 23:9) Saying Father Christmas is saying that Santa Claus is God. The Devil’s stated goal in Isaiah 14:13-14, is to be like God. Kriss Kringle a name for Santa Claus derived from the German Christkindl (little Christ child).  The Devil -  "I will be like the most High" 

    The Devil doesn’t come in through the door
    The devil is pictured creeping in, Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that entereth not by the door into the sheepfold, but climbeth up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber. (John 10:1) Nick is another name for rob or steal.

    Santa passes through the fire!
    There shall not be found among you any one that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, or that useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch,.. (Deu. 18:10)

    Santa lives in the North!
    The LORD says to his people, "Run! Escape from the land in the north, where I scattered you to the four winds. Leave Babylonia and hurry back to Zion." (Zec.2:6-7) Santa wears scarlet robes, the sign of a King, in this case Babylon?

    Santa's role is to usurp the role of Jesus, thus becoming an Anti-Christ. Anti, as opposed to or against, but it also means, in the place of, or a substitute for, such as vicar of Christ. Middle English: via Anglo-Norman French from Old French vicaire, from Latin vicarius ‘substitute’ 

    https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8e/Sintenpiet.jpg
      “Never argue with an id'iot They will drag you down to their level and beat you with experience.” ― Mark Twain
  • 21CenturyIconoclast21CenturyIconoclast 169 Pts   -  



    Relative to  the brutal serial killer Jesus and Santa Claus being an MYTH, the irony is that the following biblical passage succinctly puts both of them in order. 

    "When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things." (1 Corinthians 13:11)




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