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The author
Micael Grenholm, a Swedish charismactivist, apologist and author.
Why Believing in God isn’t Like Believing in Santa
It feels like this article shouldn’t have to be written, and yet it’s not uncommon to hear people say “Believing in God is like believing i the tooth fairy or Santa”, “There are no more evidences for God than what there are for Santa” or “Believing in an all-knowing, magic Santa is ridiculous, so is belief in an all-knowing, supernatural God.” The idea is basically that since Santa doesn’t exist, God doesn’t exist, because they are too similar.
This doesn’t work, for many reasons:
1. Adults believe in God
Shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone. While basically only kids believe that Santa exists due to their parents telling them so, the majority of the world’s adult population believe in some sort of Deity. Now, some atheists would say that’s because God-believers are like kids who just believe what someone else told them without checking for evidence, but that’s not just insulting but false; while nobody “converts” to belief in Santa Claus as an adult, several atheists have become theists (like C.S. Lewis, Greg Boyd, Anthony Flew) after examining arguments at hind evidence. Which brings us to point number 2:
Why Santa Shouldn’t be a Penguin, but a Dead Penguin
Santa
Earlier this week Aisha Harris wrote an article about how confused she was as a child since Santa Claus who was sitting in the malls and who was present in the television shows was white, but the Santa who visited her African-American home was black. She argues that the normative white male Santa is problematic and argues that Santa instead should be a penguin, that people of all colours can relate to. Megan Kelly from ultra-conservative Fox News got frustrated and argued that Santa has to be white and that Jesus was white, which of course He wasn’t.
Initially I liked the idea of a penguin Santa, and there’s already a lot of pictures of her/him, but then I thought – why do we need Santa? Today Santa is king of consumerism, speeding up environmental destruction like crazy in order to give stuff primarily to rich people. As I say in my campaign video Selling Christmas (below), Jesus’ model of generosity was about selling stuff and give the money to the poor, while the Christmas generosity is about buying stuff to give to the rich. An awful way to celebrate the birth of the homeless Saviour.
Santa is thus a not very good represntative for S:t Nicholas either, since he gave gifts to the poor children so that they would survive, not playstations or mascara. So I’d say we kill Santa. Replace him with Jesus, the Middle Eastern version, and share His Gospel about justice and eternal life. And give your money to Unicef or Iris Relief instead of buying unnecessary stuff. Merry Christmas!
Related articles
- Santa Is A Penguin (combine26to28.wordpress.com)
- The (Race) War on Christmas: Megyn Kelly Declares ‘Santa Claus Just Is White’ and So Was Jesus (mediaite.com)
- Really?? Fox News Anchor Tells Black Kids Santa Claus AND Jesus Are White So Stop Complaining (bossip.com)
- Harris: It’s time to give Santa Claus a makeover (newsday.com)
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