Yeap Chee Seng asked:


When I was in my religious church, I used to wonder like my fellow christians on why has Christmas become a celebration of Santa Clause. Isn’t Christmas supposed to be the birthday for Jesus Christ? How did this Santa Clause manage to sneak in? No matter now hard we tried to tell the public that Christmas is about Jesus and not Santa, no one bothers. Why? In this article, I will seek to explain this phenomena.

Please note that I use the term “Religious Jesus” to mark it as a separate entity form the true Jesus of the Bible. The Religious Jesus is the Jesus preached by the religious churches and this person is the exact opposite of the true Jesus of the Bible.

“How do you know that?”

I was once a member of a religious church. Please go to the following link for information on my past:

http://cheee.wordpress.com/about/

Let us start from Santa Clause. What type of a man is he? He is happy. He is kind and generous. He always laughs. He gives out presents unconditionally out of love. He only has one law: Be good and you will get presents. Be naughty and you won’t get any.

Even then, he is very forgiving. Even if you are naughty for the whole year and be good only in the last few days prior to Christmas, you will still be qualified for presents. Whenever he talks to you, he used kind words. Children love him. He doesn’t condemn you nor put you down. He doesn’t lay burdens nor guilt on you.

His favourite words: Ho ho ho. Laughter. He loves to laugh. He creates happy mood. He lifts up your spirit. His only weakness is he only works once a year.

How about the Religious Jesus?

In my view, he is the worst person ever existed. He is a hypocrite, sadist, liar and evil. Whatever evil you can think of, he can do exceeding abundantly worst than that. For some unknown reasons, religious churches love him and promote him.

Here is how he operates:

If you are not a christian, he will tell you how much he loves you. He loves you so much that he is willing to die for your sins. His love is selfless and unconditional. He wants you to accept his love and be a christian.

Once you have become a christian, the evil face appears. Now that you belong to him, you are to obey his every instruction. He wants you to read the Bible, pray, go to church, give him money, serve in church and go for missions. He doesn’t like disobedient children and he will not hesitate to punish anyone who dares to disobey him.

Whenever you pray, he will tell you all your faults. If you sin, he will condemn you for sinning. If you do good, he will tell you it is not enough. No matter what you do, he will find ways to put you down.

If you disobey him, beware! He can give you or your family accidents, sickness or any other disaster. Ironically even if you tried your best to obey his every command he can still give you or your family accidents, sickness or any other disaster. In a nutshell, nothing is beneath him. He can sink to any level, any perversion.

When that happens, you are required to praise him for his goodness.

He also loves your money. It does not matter to him how poor or needy you are. He wants you to give him money. It is his glory to see you poor and sick.

Do you dare to ask him for prosperity? I don’t think so.

Based on the above comparison, who will you choose to spend time with? Santa Clause or Religious Jesus? I go for Santa Clause anytime.

However, I have a good news and a bad news for you.

The bad news is: Santa Clause does not exist.

The good news is: neither does the Religious Jesus.

The Jesus of the Bible is exactly opposite from the Religious Jesus that is preached in the religious churches.

Here is some simple comparison:

Religious Jesus: I want you to stop sinning. I will not hesitate to take stern action to punish you if you still sin.

Jesus of the Bible: I paid for the penalty of your sins. Sin has no power over you now. You are free. Come to me. Together we are going to beat this sin of yours. Remember, I am always on your side against your sins.

Religious Jesus: Sometimes I will give you sickness for any reason I choose. After all I am God. I can do anything I like. I can be as perverted as I want to be. Even then, I expect you to praise me and tell others what a good God I am.

Jesus of the Bible: At the Cross, I took away all your sickness. By my stripes you are healed. Sickness and disease has no right to oppress you. Stand up to your right. I paid dearly for you healing. It pleases me to see you healed. Start believing in me and claim your right of healing.

Religious Jesus: Give me all your money. I love your money. It does not matter to me how poor you are. If you are poor then continue to be poor for my glory.

Jesus of the Bible: At the Cross, I was poor in order to make you rich. It does not matter how bad your situation is right now. As long as you keep believing, you will receive my prosperity. Even if you are very rich now, I can still give you more. It is my glory to see you rich.

Religious Jesus: I want you to do things for me like serving in the church and going for mission. I don’t care how much you need to sacrifice. I am God. If you think you are in a bad shape right now, I can make it worse if you dare to disobey me.

Jesus of the Bible: I appreciate any intention of yours to do things for me but I want you to remember this: You are the one I love. My love for you is not dependent on the things you do for me. Even if you stop doing those things, I still love you.

Conclusion

I hope this simple article is able to help you to tell the difference between the true Jesus and the Jesus invented by the religious churches.



Glenn

asked:


The History of Santa Claus Revealed

Norman A. Rubin

(At Christmas time we imagine a jovial figure dressed in red driving a sleigh filled with toys and gifts pulled by a herd of reindeer streaking over rooftops. Or could that he is a really figure from the past and not as we envisage him to be.)

Since the earliest history of man almost every European culture has marked the winter solstice with a major festival for the rebirth of the earth. As the moment in time when, provided the appropriate rituals are performed and celebrated the earth will be reborn anew from the quietus of winter, its significance is manifest. Many are aware that this which lies behind our Christmas and New Years celebrations.

The lack of significance is indicated by the fact that no attempt was made to Christianize the festival until the middle of the fourth century. In the seventh century when the Puritans of England actually banned it with

other festivals of this kind there was no outcry.

The truth is our present festivities of the holidays are almost entirely a nineteenth century innovation in which three elements came together. One, the English writer, Charles Dickens with his Christmas stories, most famously ‘A Christmas Carol’, was the native element. The second was Germanic, in the form of the Prince Consort of the throne of England who, in 1840, set up a Christmas tree for his children at Windsor Palace. The other element was American, though it was to combine with a relic from pagan Britain.

The American contribution to the element of Santa Claus came by a circuitous route, which in the early of colonization of America was called Saint Nicholas. The Dutch who colonized what was called New Amsterdam, now New York, had imported a custom from their home country of Holland. The sixth of December is the feast of their Patron saint. Nicholas of Myra. The day was traditionally marked by a figure in red and white Episcopal vestments visiting every household in which there were children. If the youngsters had been good throughout the year, they were rewarded with small presents. If not they were liable to a mild form of punishment at the hands of Klaubauf the assistant who accompanied St. Nicholas.

In 1822, Clement Moore, professor of Greek and Hebrew at New York State University, charmed by the custom, wrote a fifty-six-line poem ‘The Visit of St. Nicholas’, with its now famous line:

“T’was the night before Christmas, when all through the house

Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse…”

The poem was intended solely for his children, his audience, when he first read it, numbered a lady who arranged for its anonymous publication in a local paper. The story was later taken up by Thomas Nast, a magazine illustrator of Bavarian descent. He was the person who turned St. Nicholas, his name now abbreviated to Santa Claus or Klaus (from the Dutch Sankt Nikolaus) into the cheerful, rubicund, bearded figure that became the personification of Christmas.

Soon popular throughout the United States, Santa Claus began to lose any connection with his Dutch and religious past. His secularization went still further when he crossed the Atlantic Ocean to the British Isles in the mid-nineteenth century. Here the figure quickly merged with an ancient personage, Father Christmas or Old Christmas, who had figured in the Mummer’s plays probably since the pre-Christian era.

Over the ensuing years the process continued with Father Christmas/Santa Claus acquiring characteristics, which increasingly separated him from his original ancestry. Save in the country of Holland, where the tradition of St. Nicholas is still celebrated. Within time the Saint is no longer generally associated with the sixth of December, but to the Christmas holiday on December twenty-fifth; and his abode has moved to the frozen north, whence he travels on a flying sledge drawn by a team of flying reindeer. Today Santa Claus remains the bearer of gifts, but most idiosyncratically he enters homes by the way of the chimney and leaving, ‘traveling upward with fire and smoke..”.

“And a Merry Xmas to all…”

NOTE:

1) The reindeer remains important to the economy of the Laplanders of Northern Europe, but another source of income augment it. It is tourism as it is the place much visited that is supposed to be the place where Santa Claus lives; and at Xmas time the post office there is inundated with letters by children to that jolly figure.

2) In the days when open fireplaces were usual, children would write their requests to Father Christmas on pieces of paper then thrown on the fire when they burned to ash and allowed to drift up the chimney and float on the winds, that it was hoped their petitions would reach him before Xmas.



Savannah