Relevant Difference btwn Faith in Jesus and Santa?

“Santa Claus does not pass the test of defeaters included in religious experience arguments. This appears to be grandstanding to me. There is a lack of texts to support the Santa tradition, etc. There is a large number of details that will prove there is no such thing, etc, etc.” – [StealthPudge18]

Religious experience arguments? Didn’t I give one of those?

“AND! It gives me hope and comfort when I’m alone at night and I talk to Santa in the dark. Feeling Santa’s presence makes him real enough to me to believe in him …”

Religious/mystical experience of Santa. You might have a problem with the fact that I don’t really have that experience, but then I can just as easily counter that Christians don’t really have their experiences. And there are other ways around that problem as well…

Lack of texts to support the Santa tradition? Would you have said that to Paul in the year 50 AD? Would you have remained a pagan or a jew or whatever because there wasn’t a text that supported the Jesus tradition?

If so that would be very interesting…

“There is a large number of details that will prove there is no such thing…”

Details…like what?

None that can’t be glossed over as easily as the problem that “people don’t rise from the dead after being dead for 3 days”?

Or other proofs that prove there is no such All-Good God, like the problem of evil. I contend that if you think there’s a good solution to the problem of evil, then I can come up with an equally good solution to the problems that you can come up with for Santa.

In the end, can you tell me what the relevant difference is between having faith in Santa and having faith that Jesus is messiah/son of god/god/savior/human/died and rose again?

Jordan160

November 25, 2004

You’ve gotten countless answers time after time after time after time, when are you ever going to just accept things for the way that they are and stop asking people to waste their time trying to give you something that you know that they’ll never be able to give you, the proof that you’re looking for only Jesus Christ can give you…..think about it and happy thanksgiving!

BlessedDarkness

First off I’m angry with you for not reading my entry. second off, I’ve been petrified of Santa since I was three like I would honestly only go over and stand by him because I thought I was protecting my sister. My mum told me there wasn’t a Santa finally and I cried because I was relieved at there being no reason to fear, but I hated her, for lying to me and making me think that there was. We

didn’t get along at all before, and after that I don’t know. I don’t talk about my mum much cause she walked out and all. ~Love in Christ~ ~Bonnie~

haredawg

“You might have a problem with the fact that I don’t really have that experience, but then I can just as easily counter that Christians don’t really have their experiences.” This argument gets worse and worse. If christians concede that your stance is valid will you concede there’s? No. You’re back to mixing straw god with unicorns. You think your stance is clever, but know it’s invented.

On a cynical level you can say everybodys experience is suspect. It’s a moot point. You keep rehashing the same tired, used, arguments. You can call me boring again if you want, I’ll even cede the point. My being boring doesn’t make your argument any sounder. It wasn’t sound the first twenty times you trotted it out either.

relevan questions – i think both sides, theists and atheists, forget that belief in Jesus or God or both is still very much a matter of personal opinion – no experiments have yet proven the existence of God or that Jesus lived and was the son of God and neither there is any data to disprove it

StealthPudge18

I can put it very simply: The proof that there is a Santa Claus, namely the presents, etc, are described by a simpler, easier solution. For the real religious experience arguments, arguments of a numinous experience, there is no better explanation than a god of a theistic world view.

Again, I side with haredawg: these tired “see how ignorant and silly Christians are” arguments made by choosing something everyone knows is false and a figment made to take in children as a equivalency to belief in a/the god/s is nothing more than a silly joke with no intellectual value whatsoever. Logically, it doesn’t stand up. There are much better arguments you could make than these.

Mns

there was something in this journal that was on RC. i clicked on it and ended up here. silly and ignorant, that would be me. and santa isn’t all the perfect guy he’s made out to be~

Lillake

November 26, 2004

Santa? What happened to the Sock God? You shall burn for all eternity in the land of mismatched socks for this! You can only save yourself now by wearing purple socks on your hands and wandering across the land for 20 years preaching the love of the Sock. Repent now!

testytatum

November 27, 2004

The difference is that Santa, a legendary hero based on a real, albeit relatively insignificant person, has been used to replace Christ, a real person who is also God, in the hearts and minds of the innocent children. Santa cannot really give us things although he is credited with such. Christ gives life eternal and many constant blessings. When the plane is going down, I won’t pray to Santa.

santa or no santa,. dont really matter to me,.. tho the message that is behind it matters more,.. for it poor children hear that santa brought them something,.. they will have hope, they will see somebody who gave them that love, hope,showin kindness, that is what matter, for to feel something like that, will let you open your heart to that what is good, lettin you somewhat be more kind,etc….

it is that what matter whether they expect that, and make it part of them,. it is a part portion that is added on the battel between believe and disbeliev, ranked as all life experience r. it all adds up to the sum of disbelive or believe; it can be used for either one, therfor the battel of that what is on stake right now, is not the real battel that makes u put out this question. 1god1love1way

EWS

November 29, 2004

My favorite is the world wide flood that supposedly engulfed the entire earth a mere 6000 years ago that theres no archeological evidence of, but yet we have evidence of thousands of different species of dinosaurs that roamed this globe as far back as 286 million years ago. Eric

well I guess you could say that what you believe to be real therefore is real. But then there is the other level > that whether someone knows it or not, there is a reality that exsists even if it is not acknowledged. Does a tree falling in the forrest make a noise if no one was there to hear it? Ofcourse it does.