Remember Santa Clause? When my parents told me he wasn't real, this was no surprise to me. I suppose I was even a skeptic back then. Looking back, there are similarities between the Christian religion and the Santa Clause story.
Big Brother
Even though I had my doubts about whether Santa was real, I would still go along with it. I was told that he had telepathy, so I made sure to tell myself that he was real just in case it turned out to be true (I bet many Christians are this way regarding their belief in God). But not only did Santa have the ability to read minds, but the ability to see what people are doing at all times. Both God and Santa monitor everything a person does and thinks.
Coal and Hell.
The similarities between receiving eternal damnation in Hell and getting coal instead of presents is obvious. If you are bad, you get coal/go to hell. Both fairy tales push this concept. They both cause believers to behave well due to the fear of being punished.
Wish-list and praying.
Both the wish-list and praying are similar in concept. A believer asks Santa/God for something they want; they may, or may not get it, all depending on whether Santa/God feels they deserve it. This is redundant of course, considering they both can read minds (they would already know what is wanted).
Believe or else!
Both Santa and God punish people for not believing they are real (coal and Hell). Older kids would tell the younger kids that Santa wasn't real. The younger kids tell the older kids that not believing in Santa results in getting no presents and coal. Believers in God tell nonbelievers that they will be sent Hell. There are similarities between "younger kids" and "believers", as well as the "older kids" and "nonbelievers"; the "older kids" tended to have their position because they were better informed, same goes for "nonbelievers". The younger kids had the position they did because they trusted their parents and were afraid of getting coal. And obviously the "believers" are afraid of Hell, and trusted their parents and church etc.
Warping of truth.
St. Nick was a real person. The basic story is about a guy that was born around 300 AD, in the area of what is now Turkey. He was born into a large amount of wealth. He loved children and he ended up giving much of his wealth away to the less fortunate people in the area. Much of what he did was for religious reasons. This story has nothing magical about it, just a guy doing charity work. The real story was warped into an elaborate fable about him living in the North Pole, coming around once a year to give kids presents. Nearly the entire story that children learn about the guy is fabricated and filled with "magic". Like in the Bible, a lot of the places it refers to are real cities and towns. But the stories got warped so much, most of it is historically inaccurate. Some people will never let truth get in the way of a good story. The fairytale that sprout up surrounding St. Nick puts Christianity (or all religion for that matter) into perspective; both take real facts and warp them to the point of having very little truth left behind. And the motivations by the people that created them both were probably similar as well.
haha, this is so true
ReplyDeleteI've often debated about whether it's okay for atheists to celebrate x-mas and teach their kids about Santa. Personally, I think that believing something relatively harmless and then finding out it's false is actually an important lesson for kids to learn.
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