Jesus Clause

This is hardly the correct season to be thinking about this sort of thing but...

If you raise your child as a Christian and celebrate Christmas in secular (Santa Claus) and religious ways, there has to be some impact from that deception. Once your child finds out or you tell them that Santa Claus doesn't exist, they will have been lied to for around seven or eight years. This belief in ol' St. Nick requires One to believe that Santa has supernatural powers that enable him to see when you do bad things. Not unlike God's omniscient quality. So when you tell a child that Santa can't do those things and the whole thing was a farce, why should they believe in the "God lie" you have been telling them about for just as long. Fool me once Mom and Dad, shame on you, fool me twice shame on me. Once you take Santa out of the picture Christmas seems to kind of lose it's appeal. I mean Jesus doesn't bring any presents! Oh sure eternal life.... blah blah blah. I want something tangible like a Playstation 3. Let's see the big man pull that one off, I could see myself going to church then. But I digress...

Not to say that I don't like the Santa thing, because I really do. I just think there has to be a period of real questioning for a child at that age. When you raise a child to believe in God you have to create an alternate reality in a sense. A so called "spiritual life." I asked a close family member if their political and religious views ever clash and the answer I got was that they are separate and they can be mutually exclusive. I don't buy that at all though. The spiritual life revolves around a specific creed, and anything contradictory would be wrong and suspect. Now, of course no one actually follows that belief with any sincerity as there is quite the blurring distinction between religion and politics right now and many views of the religious Right and certainly the atheistic Left belies the views of the church.

So then, if you invalidate Santa Clause and keep teaching a supernatural God, you should expect some problems with your children questioning authority and religion. My view is that we should keep Santa ditch Jesus, unless he starts doing that wine thing again, and start a new religion: Clausianity. The story goes: Santa was birthed by a reindeer by immaculate conception. In his teens he adopted a group of twelve midget disciples, called Elves, who help Santa carry out his mission of helping disadvantaged kids and spreading his message of "Be nice." That message alone is a good summation of the Ten commandments. Killing? Not nice. Adultery? Not nice. Taking peoples stuff... yes Not Nice. Santa has all his bases covered. He does magic. He is immortal, omniscient, and vengeful (coal in your stocking).

Coming soon to a house near you: Young sixteen year old kids dressed in red velour shirts and slacks trying to convert you and talk to you about the "good news."


Happy Easter.