Boy, talk about a War On Christmas!!

Didn’t Trey Parker and Matt Stone do a far funnier job of this with ‘Spirit of Christmas’ over a decade ago?

Les- you forgot to mention how poorly written the lyrics are: grammatical mistakes, bad rhymes, repetitive…  For anyone who wants to clean out their ears after that foray into Poe’s Law territory, here’s an antidote.

You miss the point of Christianity obviously. It is to save souls, not save Christmas. Although almost every Christian I know of seems to be trying to save Christmas.

That said, I don’t really think you have ever missed the point of Christianity. It is to guilt us all into following a religion while offering no real (doable) solutions to todays problems.

But heck, what is today when we have eternity.

How many times do Christians have to be told that Jesus wasn’t even born in December or even in the winter. I have told so many that Christmas was originally a pagan holiday and was adopted into Christianity during the council of Nicea.

Fairytale Of New York with the late Kirsty MacColl
Still one of my all time favourites.

How many times do Christians have to be told that Jesus wasn’t even born in December or even in the winter. I have told so many that Christmas was originally a pagan holiday and was adopted into Christianity during the council of Nicea.

Council of Nicaea,  not Nicea, and that is untrue; December 25 was not chosen for the date of Christmas at that council. Though, that said, the way that they choose the date of Easter each year was apparently decided at Nicaea. And of course the date is unimportant, the point of the holiday is to celebrate Jesus’ birth; whenever that might have been.

Anyway, the reason I post this is because that comment reminded me of a story that I heard a few years back about the real St. Nicholas. St. Nicholas of course was a bishop, and according to this story he was himself in attendance at the Council of Nicaea. The issue at Nicaea, as some of you might know, was the teachings of Arius, called Arianism; which to put it briefly said that Jesus was not God but that he was of a different “substance.” According to the story, St. Nicholas is listening to Arius discussing his beliefs, or is perhaps directly debating Arius. St.  Nicholas, or Santa, becomes so enraged by what Arius is saying that he walks up to Arius, punches him in the face, and is apparently arrested and put in a prison cell.

Good old Santa Claus…

By the way, before someone starts talking about how this story is an example of religious intolerance, the story itself probably isn’t true and as far as I can tell is an Eastern Orthodox tradition/legend. I still thought it was interesting, considering the image that Santa has in the west.

Positive writes…

And of course the date is unimportant, the point of the holiday is to celebrate Jesus’ birth; whenever that might have been.

I agree. Ignore the fact that I was born in August. I want to celebrate my birthday today. Where’s my presents?

By the way, before someone starts talking about how this story is an example of religious intolerance, the story itself probably isn’t true and as far as I can tell is an Eastern Orthodox tradition/legend. I still thought it was interesting, considering the image that Santa has in the west.

I suppose, though I think it depends on how much you buy into the idea that St. Nicholas was the sole basis of the Santa myth. All indications are he’s only part of the story and Santa is an amalgam of a number of different stories and characters, both real and mythical.

I’m a Christian Monk whose legal name is Santa Claus.  I’m a full-time, volunteer advocate for the 2 million children in the U.S. annually who are abused, neglected, exploited, abandoned, homeless, and institutionalized through no fault of their own.  I believe that Christmas is the celebration of the birth of Christ—not the crass, commercial spectacle it has become in many places.  The greatest gift one can give is love.  End of story.  Blessings to all, Santa }

But that is the point Les.  We don’t know when his birthday would have been. Its not a matter of ignoring his actual birthday. I really don’t see that it should take away from the holiday. The fact that December 25th is not his actual birthday has never troubled me, anyway.

And you’re right about there being more to the Santa myth than St. Nicholas, but he is where it all goes back to, including the name and his apparent generosity in giving out presents.

Either way, I just thought that was an interesting story to tell around Christmas time.

I find it so funny that this idiot is reviewing CHILDREN’S BOOKS….....

For the love of our good Lord, can you not comprehend a light hearted look at a way to bring Jesus to children ?

Perhaps is has to to with your limited intelligence that you have to limit your reviews to children’s books… what’s next, Green Eggs & Ham?  The Star Bellied Sneeches?

Imagine that. Even Santa reads SEB.

Positive writes…

But that is the point Les.  We don’t know when his birthday would have been. Its not a matter of ignoring his actual birthday. I really don’t see that it should take away from the holiday. The fact that December 25th is not his actual birthday has never troubled me, anyway.

We have a pretty good idea what time of year it would have been based on the details from the Bible stories and December most likely wouldn’t have been the best guess.

I’ve mentioned before why the December date bugs me and it has to do with the early church’s attempts at taking over Pagan festivals and holidays, of which Christmas is a prime example. You don’t think it’s at all a tad bit odd that, being able to pick anytime of the year to declare as Jesus’ birthday, the church just happens to pick one that coincides with a significant and widely popular pagan celebration? I’m sure the date chosen was entirely random and had no ulterior motives at all.

And you’re right about there being more to the Santa myth than St. Nicholas, but he is where it all goes back to, including the name and his apparent generosity in giving out presents.

Actually it goes back even father than Saint Nicholas. Aspects of the myth can be traced all the way back to the god Odin as well as some of rituals, such as hanging stockings near the fire in anticipation of them being filled during the night.

Kristy writes…

I find it so funny that this idiot is reviewing CHILDREN’S BOOKS….....

Are you suggesting that children’s books are beyond criticism? A bad story is a bad story no matter which age group it’s written for.

For the love of our good Lord, can you not comprehend a light hearted look at a way to bring Jesus to children ?

Of course I can comprehend it. I’ve seen some good example of such, this is not one of them. Personally I think trying to indoctrinate children with the Jesus myth before they’re even old enough to understand the concepts involved is a mistake, but that doesn’t mean I can’t comprehend that this is an attempt to do just that.

Perhaps is has to to with your limited intelligence that you have to limit your reviews to children’s books… what’s next, Green Eggs & Ham?  The Star Bellied Sneeches?

You’ve read one entry of mine and you’ve already decided that I have a limited intelligence? That’s very arrogant of you. Alas, it’s also very Christian of you though I doubt Christ himself would approve.

Les, right, the Bible indicates that he was born in the Spring.
And, no, I do not think it was a coincidence. I think it is clear that the early Christians were trying to rival the Pagan holiday and perhaps were trying to win Pagans over, or perhaps were trying to give converts a Christian holiday to celebrate to help them forget their Pagan customs. The same is true of the holiday that became our Halloween, for instance. But I do not see that there is anything wrong with this. You can certainly point to instances where Christians committed immoral acts against Pagans (and vice versa) but I don’t think this is one of them.

And I was not aware that the Santa Claus character has roots in Odin. Interesting.

You’ve read one entry of mine and you’ve already decided that I have a limited intelligence? That’s very arrogant of you.

Now, Les, he’s right; you DO have a limited intelligence.  Of course from reading thousands of your posts, I’d say your intelligence is limited to art, music, computing, science, humor, philosophy, literature, history, cinema, and a few hundred other specific topics, all interrelated and spiced up with your strange outlook on life.  But it IS limited.

The question is, what’s HIS intelligence limited by?  The correct spelling of Nicaea? Speculation about the time of Jesus’ birth?  That’s pretty thin gruel; we know the shepherds were lying with their flocks at night (naughty shepherds!) so that puts it sometime between March and late September.  After that the flocks have headaches.

Positive: as picky as I can also be, I would not fault anyone for saying “Nicea” instead of “Nicaea”: last I looked, both spellings were accepted. They come from the Greek Νικαία, so “Nikaia” would be a better transliteration in any case.  The evolution in pronunciation from hard “k” to sibilant “c” is a fact of life- if you want to take that on, there’s oodles of English words you will have to reform.  Do you really want to do this in kyberspace?

About religious intolerance: St. Nikolas was allegedly not only critical of Arianism.  There’s a story (apocryphal, as most of these stories are) that he saw to it personally that the Temple of Artemis in Myra be destroyed.  Since Artemis’ (or Diana’s) birthday was celebrated on Dec. 6, the story goes that St. Nick appropriated the December celebration for the Christians.  Of course, there’s probably more to it than that.

And in keeping with our topic, anyone who has not seen this should.

And by the way: anyone who thinks that mixing Santa with Jesus is cute is going straight to Hell.