Exactly!

And would you tell your kids that YOU went to the moon? Of course not! You'd tell them the TRUTH!!! You tell them that NASA said they put a man on the moon! Let the kids decide for themsleves whether they want to believe NASA.

Same thing with religion!

There is no difference.

I just read some more of that Santa = Satan site.

It's amazing how demented people radicals can be.

The fact that they can show so many parallels between scripture and the folklore of Santa Claus just goes to demonstrate how easy it is to make parallels where none exist.

Satan says:

"I AM NOT SANTA. NOW SIT ON MY RED HOT LAP AND TELL ME WHAT YOU REALLY WANT!"

As a Christian I believe Santa is evil, along with the christmas tree, gift giving, and anything else that distracts from the christian meaning of Christmas.

I do believe in celebrating Christmas, but keeping the religous meaning in mind while celebrating.

By evil I mean against God in any way.

In what way is Santa 'against' God?

IMO, it's a distraction from the christian meaning of christmas. Instead of Christmas being about the birth of Jesus and the gift of life, Santa makes christmas seem like it's about getting material things.

For Christians Christmas is about the gift of life, the birth of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Saviour.

-if its a lie how can it come from God?
-if its not of christ its antichrist.
- clear enough?
i for one dont teach the santa lie to childern. sorry.

-and where exactly are we commanded to practice christmas in the bible?
- We are COMMANDED to practice christmas not from God but from Hollywood, ect.

Rambill, how did you know what I was gonna type? LOL

i'm a mother...and we don't "do" santa claus. we enjoy the hype and silliness, but when my kids question the reality of santa, i tell them about saint nick...and that we are commemorating his memory. i tell about shoes being left on the doorstep...and that it's a sweet story.

i then say that we give gifts to celebrate our love for one another and our love for Jesus.

my children fully know that our faith is just that: faith. do i believe? yes...i've had my own personal miracle, and i'll never forget it.

i know. lets kill a perfectly good oxygen producing tree, drag it into our house ( fire hazard) and bury it it trinkets, (graven images?), then decorate our house with lights which burn up more of our resources, then try to outdo each other buy spending money WE DONT HAVE on things no one even wants for the most part.... then wrap them in paper from more dead trees... then lie to the kids about a fat man in the chimney... then call it happy holidays instead if christmas... it just dont make any sense. i say STOP THE MADNESS.

What do you mean "we"?

What matters on establishing a criteria of "truth" here is the parameters that one choses in defining what is acceptable or not as truth. What may be acceptable to me as proof could be foolishness to you - but how do we compare life experiences in this matter? And do I set my parameters to your satisfaction? Or you mine? Of course not. So I must totally disagree with your claim that we are all "agnostistics". To be an agnostic means that there is some doubt about the existance of God. I have absolutely NO doubt about this. I have more than enough life experience to claim - unequivicably - that God exists, and I don't feel the need to have to meet anyone else's criteria to establish this as a fact in my life. Nor do I expect this "fact" to influence what you may believe. If you believe you are an Agnostic - I have no reason to disagree with you. However - when you claim that I am one... well - you're wrong.

I think they should take all the fanatical radicals, put them in solitary confinement in a padded room and never let them play with another toy as long as they live.

After all, if they claim to want to live in non-materialistic world why not give them what they want?

As far as I’m concern this kind of thinking is doing nothing other than claiming that all of God’s creation (the material world) is EVIL!!!!

Duh????

And I thought God “Saw that it was good” when he created it?

What a contradictory story!

Where did this religion run amuck?

It’s an extremely negative world view. All men are inherently sinful and God’s creation is EVIL!

What a SICK religion.

abra, mabe you should keep your anti God, man is king opinions to yourself when on a RELIGION chat room. hmmmmm/

it's not MY religion, james...beauty is a GOOD thing.

the people that are messed up, in my opinion, are the ones that put material belongings before humanity. to own possessions...there's nothing wrong with that. it's how you treat others that counts.

sadly, many christians are lacking in this department.

Oh, I'm not anti God Bill.

I'm just against sick interpretations of dogmas that make God out to look like an idiot.

I believe that God's creation is wonderful, and that God loves man.

In fact, the idea that man is inherently evil is clearly hogwash. Less than 1% of the human population is involved in violent crime. Less than 10% are adversely affected by war, disease and accidents combined.

So on the contrary, God's creation is looking pretty darn good to me. No need to get all demented about it.

God is nice. Not like the Bible Thumpers try to make him out to be.

Maybe they are the ones who should quit bashing God.

The web site that Jax posted about Santa only goes to show how low proselytizes will stoop. It's pathetic!

Now there's a reasonable Christian.

The idea of Jesus, is one of comfort, love, the ultimate sacrifice. There are any number of books and fairy tales that even Christian parents read to their kids.

The idea of St.Nicholas, filling a peasant childs' shoe or stocking with fruit (not an easy commodity back then) or a sugar candy (when no sugar was to be had), gave otherwise hopeless children one day to look forward. One day when a fairytale could come true. One day to believe in miracles when no others were to be experienced.

This was promoted by Christians themselves, because it was a 'training' exercise. "see if your good you will be rewarded". "see there are miracles".

This begins to translate into "see if you sin, you will be punished." "See, if you don't believe, you will not go to heaven." "See, if you are bad, bad things will happen to you."

Of course this backfired when times became plentiful, when miracles could be 'created'. And those with creative skills, those 'devils' of the mass marketing fame, began to work thier magic, commercialism became the name of this game.

Of course just like fairy tales, and St.Nicholas, Christians, TOO, made great profits from this new vision,(mass marketing and commorcialism).

Now though, it is less convenient to be capitalized for it's original Christian purpose - thus, it is now an evil concept.
"SANTA".

Kinda like trying to decipher the words God,Lord, Eloheim, Yew-whatever.

By the way, how many Bibles do you suppose are BOUGHT and given as a Christmas gift? Commercialism, love it or hate it, we all participate.

By the way, how much money is spent decorating the alter of most Christian churches, how much is spent on manger displays, HOW MUCH MORE MONEY IS GIVEN to the church at this time of year?

I personally thing it's the spirt of Santa that moves people to be so charitable at this time of year.

That's what I'm saying.

IMO, Santa puts encourages children to put material belongings before humanity.

"Be nice to your sister or Santa won't bring you that new fire truck for christmas."