How can we make adults believe in Santa?

[daver49]

Yes, the religion needs an anti Santa to explain all the bad things that happen

Here he is - ready made for the Santa religion - Krampus

In German-speaking Alpine folklore, Krampus is a horned, anthropomorphic figure. According to traditional narratives around the figure, Krampus punishes children during the Christmas season who had misbehaved, in contrast with Saint Nicholas, who rewards well-behaved ones with gifts.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krampus

There are also other companions for Santa such as Belsnickel, Black Pete, and Knecht Ruprecht.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Companions_...t_Nicholas

Here is Krampus:

That isn't Krampus, it's Bigfoot! The Yeti! The Abominable Snowman! All captured on film! What more proof do you need?

[Chad32]

If you believe in Santa, you get presents. if you don't, you get coal.

Although the coal thing always confused me. Assuming you have a wood stove, or something else that burns things other than gas, getting coal when winter is setting in would be great. I can imagine some people being really bad just so they get a lot of coal. Children like being warm too, you know. As soon as they find out you can burn coal, the threat is gone.

Maybe it made more sense when Jesus' birthday was in the warmer months.

[watchamadoodle]

There will even be a place for historians and textual criticism in Santaism. We can argue about who wrote the books of the Santa Bible, the apparent mythical and pagan origins of Santa, was the Night Before Christmas loosely based on historical events, is it all a moot point, etc.

"A Visit from St. Nicholas", also known as "The Night Before Christmas" and " '​Twas the Night Before Christmas" from its first line, is a poem first published anonymously in 1823, and later attributed to Clement Clarke Moore, who acknowledged authorship in 1837.
...
Moore's connection with the poem has been questioned by Professor Donald Foster, who used textual content analysis and external evidence to argue that Moore could not have been the author. Foster believes that Major Henry Livingston, Jr., a New Yorker with Dutch and Scottish roots, should be considered the chief candidate for authorship, a view long espoused by the Livingston family. Livingston was distantly related to Moore's wife.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Visit_from_St._Nicholas

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If you believe in Santa, you get presents. if you don't, you get coal.

Although the coal thing always confused me. Assuming you have a wood stove, or something else that burns things other than gas, getting coal when winter is setting in would be great. I can imagine some people being really bad just so they get a lot of coal. Children like being warm too, you know. As soon as they find out you can burn coal, the threat is gone.

Maybe it made more sense when Jesus' birthday was in the warmer months.

The coal is meant to be understood allegorically. Those whose hearts are warmed by the Spirit of Christmas have no need for coal.

[Smaug]

I've been wondering why Santa belief disappears but religious belief doesn't. What would we need to do to turn Santa belief into a religion that could compete with Christianity, Islam, etc.?

Here are a few changes that might help:
(1) The real-life gifts on Christmas need to change, because that is too easy to falsify. Either the gifts need to be invisible, or the gifts need to arrive at unpredictable times as random good fortunes. If you have not been naughty, but you still are not receiving gifts, then you simply don't appreciate the gifts that you are getting, and that is very naughty. That explains why you are not getting gifts.
(2) The cookies and milk need to change. Every Christmas Eve, the Santa believers consume a cookie and drink some milk with the assurance that Santa will share this snack with them in spirit.
(3) Santa needs a hell that depends on belief. If you stop believing in Santa, then you will remain on the naughty list until you repent of your unbelief. If you never repent, then you will burn forever in Santa's cookie oven.

You've forgot the Enemy. There has to be the Enemy to pile all the mishappenings onto. Say, Rudolph the reindeer, who had coveted Santa's divine ability to bring presents and betrayed him by misleading the sleigh on one Christmass night. The sleigh fell down from the skies somewhere near the South Pole and only Rudolph and Santa survived. Rudolph rammed Santa with his mighty horns and shot laser beams from his nose but Santa in his divine wrath pulled out a magic candy cane shaped steel rod and drove the traitor into the deepest caves leading into the very center of Earth (widely known to be flat AND hollow) where he still resides and mines coal alongside with Hitler and his jewish-reptillian illuminati nazis from Nibiru.

[Homeless Nutter]

Kill and torture enough non-believers in the name of Santa and the rest will fall in line. Keep it up for a generation or two and you have yourself an established religion.

In Russia you can still find religious icons of Joseph Stalin.

[h4ym4n]

I am a poly-a-santaist from birth. It would take santa itself to get me to believe. It's Santa, it would know exactly what it would take for me to believe.

[Mudhammam]

Kill and torture enough non-believers in the name of Santa and the rest will fall in line. Keep it up for a generation or two and you have yourself an established religion.

In Russia you can still find religious icons of Joseph Stalin.

Whoa. I thought the first picture was Italian Jesus but then I recalled that's just Catholicism. Pretty neat. Where'd these come from?

[Homeless Nutter]

Whoa. I thought the first picture was Italian Jesus but then I recalled that's just Catholicism. Pretty neat. Where'd these come from?

Yeah - at first I thought it was Tom Selleck...

Apparently - people painted them and donated them to Orthodox Christian churches in Russia. What exactly was their reasoning is difficult to say, especially that the word "reasoning" is rarely the right one to use in the context of religion. But it's not that surprising, considering that stalinist regime was constructed to mimic and replace religion and Stalin himself studied at a seminary, to become a priest. I think Hitchens explains a lot of it quite well here:




EDIT: If I remember correctly, he wrote more about the similarities between Russian communism and religion in "God Is Not Great".

[watchamadoodle]

Apparently the first step in the creation of a saint is for local people to venerate a person. Eventually the Church declares that person to be a saint as a way to reestablish their control on the local practices. There is a Saint Pilate (not a nice person) and a Saint Thecla (not even a real person), so why not a Saint Stalin?

How about a non-human saint? Saint Rudolph the Red-nosed.

[Mudhammam]

How about a non-human saint? Saint Rudolph the Red-nosed.

I nominate....



But who's going to play devil's advocate? (Fun fact since Christopher Hitchens was mentioned by Nutter: The Vatican invited Hitch to play devil's advocate at Mother Teresa's beatification in 2002).