Reply to Talking about Santa

Forum Index » Religion

Reply to "Talking about Santa"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]As a history PhD who taught in many colleges and universities over the years, it saddens me to see how many people here don't have any understanding of how folk beliefs like Santa come to be.  The folks (including me in some cases) posting about ancient gods with flying reindeer are trying to show what any person with a college education should know - that holiday celebrations and folk beliefs evolve over time and absorb bits and pieces of many past  traditions.  The roots of Santa are ancient.  No one said the Slavic sun goddess was the original Santa - what a sad lack of reading comprehension on the part of the PP who claimed that.  It was one of many examples given of Santa features that pre-date Christianity itself, thus clearly showing (or it should be clear, anyway) that Santa as we know him is not wholly, or even mostly, derived from Christian texts or a saint.

I can't even remember the original point of this thread, but [b]I think it had to do with non-Christians celebrating Christmas, Christians popping up to claim they basically have a monopoly on Christmas [/b]and that it's disrespectful for others to celebrate it, and then people trying to show that the most popular Christmas traditions aren't rooted in Christianity in the first place.

But unfortunately, as usual on dcum, ignorance reigns supreme and many posters are either trolling or just incapable of understanding history.  How sad for those of us who have spent out lives trying to teach it.[/quote]

Nope. It’s rich that you’re accusing others of lack of reading comprehension. Please point to the post that said Christians have a monopoly on Christmas. Look, it’s great you have a PhD in modern European or Slavic history or something, but your insults and distortions suggest you’re not an academic at all.

What you’re missing/refusing to understand is that a vomit bucket of posts from places like Mongolia, cut and pasted from an atheist blog, just isn’t persuasive and barely constitutes argument. Were those yours? How embarrassing for you.

You’re also missing that nobody here seems to care that Santa is a myth, and that he may even come in part from earlier myths. But Santa also brings new things to the folklore, such as 1) St. Nicholas around 300AD and 2) the gospel’s wise men who brought gifts to the baby Jesus. THAT’s how history works, sorry someone on DCUM needs to explain it to you.

— A history major from a great college who got a graduate degree and now does research in a different field [/quote]

Not sure why you're replying to me (the PP with the quote above this), but I haven't cut and pasted anything in this thread.  Believe it or not, there is more than one person who knows that pre-Christian influences are a huge part of the current Christmas celebration (and other Christian holidays too).  I think you are conflating the posts of several people.  I accurately summarized how this thread evolved to where it did, and even though you could easily go back and read it, you even want to disagree with that.  I'm not even sure what point you are trying to make here - this is just a vitriolic post full of insults and generalizations.  Not sure what you are angry about - I imagine something here challenged your beliefs and it set you off and this is your best response.  [/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics