Santa is God to children as God is Santa to adults.
As believers in Santa, we go to the mall to tell Santa what we want and to the mail box to send him letters. We present offerings of milk and cookies, sing songs and read stories about him and his supernatural powers. As believers in God, we go to the church instead of the mall and talk to the priest or pastor instead of Santa. We send our letters in prayer form through the air rather than the mail, our offerings are of cash instead of cookies, and of course we sing songs and read stories about God as well. Both God and Santa are all-knowing, seeing our each and every deed. They sit as cosmic judges, showering the good with toys and blessings, while punishing the bad with a lump of coal or burning them like one. Both hail from faraway places, Santa residing in a secret place atop the world and God above the clouds. Santa writes people’s names in his big book as does God. Both have somehow existed forever and neither seems likely to ever die. Both Santa and God have supernatural helpers and both are creators and distributors of gifts, Santa employing elves to assist him and God, angels.
Both children and adults long to see the object of their affection and many are convinced they do. A glimpse of a red hat in the living room on Christmas Eve, the sound of reindeer on the roof, the jingle of a bell or an angel in human form, a magical, unexplainable feeling, a heavenly whisper, an answered prayer.
It’s fun and relatively harmless to believe such things as a child. It may bring joy and comfort to persist in such delusion as an adult but it’s hardly harmless. Belief in the supernatural leads to unwarranted guilt and fear and the danger increases dramatically with increased power as when the Christian Church burned priceless books and countless people, when Muslims, sure of their ticket to Paradise, flew planes into buildings, or when the most powerful man in the world thought he heard the whisper of his God command war.
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4 comments:
Hi John,
Interesting comparison...one that's been made a kagillion times before. You articulate it very well, though.
One thing about this post really does not ring true to me. It's your assertion that a belief in God somehow prevents me or others from engaging the real world here and now.
I can't go with you on that one, even though there are those for whom that is completely true. The same could be said of you, me, or anyone if in fact some passion, drive, belief, delusion, etc was substituted for the reality of where we are right now.
I think that is completely up to each individual, and I believe I engage the here and now and reality in a very real sense.
Oh well, that discussion could go on and on, but I have some real activities to tend to...
-Greggo
Hi Greg, Thanks for your comments. You make a good point that many things—not simply religious belief—can draw our focus away from the here and now. And belief in God can in fact inspire focus on the here and now, at least when the focus is not on another world. But it seems belief in any God comes with baggage—fear, guilt, obligation, concern for certain rituals, narrow thinking, prejudices, etc that taint life, even when one is quite engaged in it.
But it seems belief in any God comes with baggage—fear, guilt, obligation, concern for certain rituals, narrow thinking, prejudices, etc that taint life, even when one is quite engaged in it.
I can't disagree too much on that, but (as you might think I would say), I think people can and do have all of those things unrelated to belief in a god.
I'm not trying to argue with you, but when I read your response, that just came to mind.
ryc on my blogspot...thanks, dude!
I suppose I can be distracted from the here and now by worry of tomorrow, by suffering, by imagination, escaping into art, music, movies or drugs and alcohol. You are right about belief in the supernatural not being the sole distractor. But it seems to me that we can identify that as a culprit so to speak that unleashes suffering with any happiness it may bring and so avoid it. Just as we avoid abusing drugs and alcohol and spending too much time day dreaming or sitting in theaters or wringing hands with worry.
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