5 ms·

I'm not sure that the whole Santa Claus thing is in the bible or part of Christianity.

by buro9 11y ago

drdeca 11y ago
It is not. At all. It may have some influence from "Saint Nicholas" but that was, I'm pretty sure, after like, 1000 AD. So, uh, yeah. Some people want to take Santa out of Christmas to focus more on Christ, and I would generally agree.
- stinkytaco 11y ago
  Well, I think there's a pretty solid argument for Santa being a stand-in Jesus, at least in our current conception of him. You're punished for evil and rewarded for nice and he's watching you all the time? My understanding from listening to some guy on the radio, almost certainly on NPR, is that's a fairly modern conception. It's like they couldn't put the Christ back into Christmas, so they shoehorned St. Nick into Christ instead.
  - drdeca 11y ago
    If so, not a very good stand-in imo. "For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.". John 3:17 Christ didn't come to reward the people already doing good, and punish those doing evil. Rather, "[...]for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, [...]" People are not justified by being "good enough" by themselves, but rather, are "[...]justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, [...]". Your description of "You're punished for evil and rewarded for nice and he's watching you all the time?" is, I think, a very misleading and simplistic idea of Christ.
    - upquark 11y ago
      Yeah, the algorithm needs its viral hook: being good enough is not enough, you need to spam 10 people with this message to achieve full redemption.
      - drdeca 11y ago
        Not sure how you're getting that from what I said. I didn't mention evangelism at all? Why would you not include that in the "being good enough" part? I wasn't just saying that "being good enough" isn't enough. I was saying that no one (except Christ) is good enough. That one cannot, of oneself, earn or achieve justification, but that one is given justification, that one cannot deserve, as a gift.
BuildTheRobots 11y ago
I was hoping to say "or I'm one of the x% of people in the world that doesn't believe in Santa" -but I entirely failed to work out what percentage of the populus that actually is; Christianity was my fallback stat. Whilst googling for that nonsense I did find a buzzfeed article [1] claiming that 43% of Americans believe in Santa and that 32% agree that "it's a verifiable fact that Santa Claus was white". Wowzer... well, seems like it's time for me to get my coat, fill the pockets with bricks and try and imitate Jesus on a large body of water... [1] http://www.buzzfeed.com/andrewkaczynski/war-on-christmas-poll http://www.buzzfeed.com/andrewkaczynski/war-on-christmas-pol...
aidos 11y ago
Interestingly, I've discovered over the last few days that Christianity in the uk doesn't seem big in to Santa. The few openly Christian people I know have all told their kids (4yo) that Santa isn't real. That's kinda ruined it for our kids. Not judging, but I find it astoundingly hypocritical to dismiss one made up figure while religiously worshiping another!
- mercer 11y ago
  It's not hypocritical if you believe the other is not made up. Much as I'm not a believer in a higher power, I really dislike these kinds of easy swipes at something that others (including people very dear to me) consider the foundation of their entire lives. It feels cheap and condescending.
  - jessaustin 11y ago
    You see this again and again on HN. Apparently it's some sort of signalling, although what it signals besides "I'm an asshole!" remains unclear.
    - krapp 11y ago
      Mocking obvious logical fallacies and contradictions is an easy way to condemn religion as a farce, and religious people as being hypocrites at best, or imbeciles at worst. It signals intellectual superiority on the part of the skeptical in-group.
  - aidos 11y ago
    My comment about it being hypocritical was meant to be somewhat tounge in cheek (as vaguely hinted at by the exclamation mark), though I can see how it could be offensive (and wasn't obvious). Apologies. There is a deeper interesting conversation to be had around this topic though. Unfortunately I'm not in the position to engage in it at the moment and I suspect the tone might already be set in the wrong way (given that a sibling comment here has already called me an asshole).
- triangleman 11y ago
lostlogin 11y ago
I can't reply to BuildTheRobots below, but the white Santa thing begins to get a little dark if you dive in. Black Peter and Saint Nicholas are where you start. Edit: I may be too harsh on the racism thing, but I'm not certain. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinterklaas https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinterklaas
- tripzilch 11y ago
  (disclaimer: I'm Dutch, where Sinterklaas is a real big thing) We're working on it. I agree that Zwarte Piet (Black Peter) is indeed racist, although (mostly) not intentionally so. I never gave the tradition a second thought either, until some years back I read the English Wikipedia on Zwarte Piet. I was a bit confused at first (happy childhood memories were suddenly badwrong) but then I read further into it and, yes it's racist (IMO). One of the problems is that over here we're not really taught a lot about the whole minstrel/blackface traditions. The Dutch did do slavery, but unlike the US, we didn't bring them home (instead exploited them in Indonesia and South Africa), therefore the cultural impact of that is very different over here. The people with a history of that exploitation for a large part do not live here. But when I did read about blackface/minstrel traditions, it's impossible to deny that yes, it's not just that his face is "black like soot" (an excuse we came up with in the second half of the 20th century--see we don't want Zwarte Piet to be a racist character), because also Zwarte Piet's costume is exactly like those blackface minstrels. Most Dutch people don't know that bit. The difference today, however, is globalisation. For a bunch of decades already, people from all over the world came to live here. And some (perhaps a lot, even) of those people have that history (in their families, etc). Those people have lived here for a long time now, started families in NL, etc. And for them, to see that image of Zwarte Piet, it hurts. And they have just as much right to have an opinion about what should and should not be "Dutch culture". Just like others would have a real bad feeling if there was a festive holiday about people parading around swastikas and putting naughty children on trains (sorry for the Godwin, but I think it's a useful analogy in this case, and otherwise just ignore it). The problem, however, is that I don't know what the right solution is either. It's a tradition that nearly everybody has extremely happy (and not racist) childhood memories about. It's hard (as a culture) to let that go. You can't have Sinterklaas without Pieten, just like Santa needs his elven helpers. Sinterklaas is played as a really old man, slightly forgetful etc, he needs them, it's part of the play. But, say, if you paint Piet's face a different neutral colour (blue or yellow or whatever, kids don't care, we know this), he (or she, Piet has been multi-gender for quite a while--even though it's a male name, it's used as a title, like Smurfs) still wears that costume. But if you also change the costume, then Piet is no longer Piet, because those were their defining characteristics. At least that's how it seems right now. So it's hard, no obvious solution. But the positive thing, what I'm seeing is, there is a growing awareness. There is also (loud) resistance, of course, but the cat is out of the bag now. We probably won't fix it next year. But maybe the year after that. I really believe that, in a few years, we will figure out some variation on the Sinterklaas theme that is not hurtful to parts of the Dutch people. And the kids will love it regardless, so that's good. edit/afterthought : Sinterklaas keeps his naughty/nice list in a physical book which he carries around everywhere he goes. Santa's mistake for going digital :-P
Canada 11y ago
True. He's the one we truly worship now. We have for decades. God bless our favored corporations that enable consumerism. Merry Christmas! And to all, a good night!

I'm not sure that the whole Santa Claus thing is in the bible or part of Christianity.

by buro9 11y ago

I'm not sure that the whole Santa Claus thing is in the bible or part of Christianity.

It is not. At all. It may have some influence from "Saint Nicholas" but that was, I'm pretty sure, after like, 1000 AD. So, uh, yeah. Some people want to take Santa out of Christmas to focus more on Christ, and I would generally agree.

stinkytaco 11y ago
Well, I think there's a pretty solid argument for Santa being a stand-in Jesus, at least in our current conception of him. You're punished for evil and rewarded for nice and he's watching you all the time? My understanding from listening to some guy on the radio, almost certainly on NPR, is that's a fairly modern conception. It's like they couldn't put the Christ back into Christmas, so they shoehorned St. Nick into Christ instead.
- drdeca 11y ago
  If so, not a very good stand-in imo. "For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.". John 3:17 Christ didn't come to reward the people already doing good, and punish those doing evil. Rather, "[...]for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, [...]" People are not justified by being "good enough" by themselves, but rather, are "[...]justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, [...]". Your description of "You're punished for evil and rewarded for nice and he's watching you all the time?" is, I think, a very misleading and simplistic idea of Christ.
  - upquark 11y ago
    Yeah, the algorithm needs its viral hook: being good enough is not enough, you need to spam 10 people with this message to achieve full redemption.
    - drdeca 11y ago
      Not sure how you're getting that from what I said. I didn't mention evangelism at all? Why would you not include that in the "being good enough" part? I wasn't just saying that "being good enough" isn't enough. I was saying that no one (except Christ) is good enough. That one cannot, of oneself, earn or achieve justification, but that one is given justification, that one cannot deserve, as a gift.

BuildTheRobots 11y ago

I was hoping to say "or I'm one of the x% of people in the world that doesn't believe in Santa" -but I entirely failed to work out what percentage of the populus that actually is; Christianity was my fallback stat. Whilst googling for that nonsense I did find a buzzfeed article [1] claiming that 43% of Americans believe in Santa and that 32% agree that "it's a verifiable fact that Santa Claus was white". Wowzer... well, seems like it's time for me to get my coat, fill the pockets with bricks and try and imitate Jesus on a large body of water... [1] http://www.buzzfeed.com/andrewkaczynski/war-on-christmas-poll http://www.buzzfeed.com/andrewkaczynski/war-on-christmas-pol...

aidos 11y ago

Interestingly, I've discovered over the last few days that Christianity in the uk doesn't seem big in to Santa. The few openly Christian people I know have all told their kids (4yo) that Santa isn't real. That's kinda ruined it for our kids. Not judging, but I find it astoundingly hypocritical to dismiss one made up figure while religiously worshiping another!

mercer 11y ago
It's not hypocritical if you believe the other is not made up. Much as I'm not a believer in a higher power, I really dislike these kinds of easy swipes at something that others (including people very dear to me) consider the foundation of their entire lives. It feels cheap and condescending.
- jessaustin 11y ago
  You see this again and again on HN. Apparently it's some sort of signalling, although what it signals besides "I'm an asshole!" remains unclear.
  - krapp 11y ago
    Mocking obvious logical fallacies and contradictions is an easy way to condemn religion as a farce, and religious people as being hypocrites at best, or imbeciles at worst. It signals intellectual superiority on the part of the skeptical in-group.
- aidos 11y ago
  My comment about it being hypocritical was meant to be somewhat tounge in cheek (as vaguely hinted at by the exclamation mark), though I can see how it could be offensive (and wasn't obvious). Apologies. There is a deeper interesting conversation to be had around this topic though. Unfortunately I'm not in the position to engage in it at the moment and I suspect the tone might already be set in the wrong way (given that a sibling comment here has already called me an asshole).
triangleman 11y ago

lostlogin 11y ago

I can't reply to BuildTheRobots below, but the white Santa thing begins to get a little dark if you dive in. Black Peter and Saint Nicholas are where you start. Edit: I may be too harsh on the racism thing, but I'm not certain. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinterklaas https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinterklaas

tripzilch 11y ago
(disclaimer: I'm Dutch, where Sinterklaas is a real big thing) We're working on it. I agree that Zwarte Piet (Black Peter) is indeed racist, although (mostly) not intentionally so. I never gave the tradition a second thought either, until some years back I read the English Wikipedia on Zwarte Piet. I was a bit confused at first (happy childhood memories were suddenly badwrong) but then I read further into it and, yes it's racist (IMO). One of the problems is that over here we're not really taught a lot about the whole minstrel/blackface traditions. The Dutch did do slavery, but unlike the US, we didn't bring them home (instead exploited them in Indonesia and South Africa), therefore the cultural impact of that is very different over here. The people with a history of that exploitation for a large part do not live here. But when I did read about blackface/minstrel traditions, it's impossible to deny that yes, it's not just that his face is "black like soot" (an excuse we came up with in the second half of the 20th century--see we don't want Zwarte Piet to be a racist character), because also Zwarte Piet's costume is exactly like those blackface minstrels. Most Dutch people don't know that bit. The difference today, however, is globalisation. For a bunch of decades already, people from all over the world came to live here. And some (perhaps a lot, even) of those people have that history (in their families, etc). Those people have lived here for a long time now, started families in NL, etc. And for them, to see that image of Zwarte Piet, it hurts. And they have just as much right to have an opinion about what should and should not be "Dutch culture". Just like others would have a real bad feeling if there was a festive holiday about people parading around swastikas and putting naughty children on trains (sorry for the Godwin, but I think it's a useful analogy in this case, and otherwise just ignore it). The problem, however, is that I don't know what the right solution is either. It's a tradition that nearly everybody has extremely happy (and not racist) childhood memories about. It's hard (as a culture) to let that go. You can't have Sinterklaas without Pieten, just like Santa needs his elven helpers. Sinterklaas is played as a really old man, slightly forgetful etc, he needs them, it's part of the play. But, say, if you paint Piet's face a different neutral colour (blue or yellow or whatever, kids don't care, we know this), he (or she, Piet has been multi-gender for quite a while--even though it's a male name, it's used as a title, like Smurfs) still wears that costume. But if you also change the costume, then Piet is no longer Piet, because those were their defining characteristics. At least that's how it seems right now. So it's hard, no obvious solution. But the positive thing, what I'm seeing is, there is a growing awareness. There is also (loud) resistance, of course, but the cat is out of the bag now. We probably won't fix it next year. But maybe the year after that. I really believe that, in a few years, we will figure out some variation on the Sinterklaas theme that is not hurtful to parts of the Dutch people. And the kids will love it regardless, so that's good. edit/afterthought : Sinterklaas keeps his naughty/nice list in a physical book which he carries around everywhere he goes. Santa's mistake for going digital :-P

Canada 11y ago

True. He's the one we truly worship now. We have for decades. God bless our favored corporations that enable consumerism. Merry Christmas! And to all, a good night!