Santa, do Christians believe in him? If not, why not.

[dangerdan]

Ok, you're probably wondering what Santa has to do with Christianity? bear with me here....

The topic of Santa was brought up in the thread "Everyone should be agnostic?, and with it brought some interesting topics to do with belief systems, well worthy of a new thread.

Now why is this in a Christianity forum? I think it has some rich insights into Christian epistemology - why they believe in some things and not others. I was pondering putting this in the philosophy sub-forum, but I feel it’s more relating to pure Christian thought (though if moderators feel otherwise then that's ok).

So, let the debate begin! I do not intend the question to be demeaning or disrespectful, but merely a candid enquiry. So with no further ado - Do Christians believe in Santa? If not, why not.

[chrispalasz]

This discussion is straying from the topic too much. I am moving it to:

http://www.debatingchristianity.com/for ... =8155#8155

Where I have posted a response to these other posts.

[potwalloper.]

Soooooooooo, Santa is getting a bit too hot eh?

Understandable...

[Arch]

What is he talking about he can't move a thread.... the link he has is to the why do you believe in Creationism or Evolution? thread.

What a tactic he took our posts and posted them on a thread where our original posts aren't so he can misrepresent what we said. Does it take all that to try to prove your point Greenlight?

Now our posts are no where close to being placed in the original contexts that they were written in.

[chrispalasz]

What is he talking about he can't move a thread.... the link he has is to the why do you believe in Creationism or Evolution? thread.

I never said I moved a "thread". I said I moved the discussion - and why shouldn't I? It's obvious where this discussion is going... and it's nowhere near Santa anymore. It has only indicated that it will further stray from that topic. So, of course, I moved my response to where it is more applicable.

What a tactic he took our posts and posted them on a thread where our original posts aren't so he can misrepresent what we said. Does it take all that to try to prove your point Greenlight?

Now our posts are no where close to being placed in the original contexts that they were written in.

Please don't accuse this of being a "tactic" of mine. I think it is clear that I don't need to, nor have I ever needed to, purposefully "misrepresent" what you or anyone else has said. Let's focus on the discussion. If you feel wronged - feel free to withdraw from the discussion or to post a duplicate of your post, that I refute, in the same thread that I moved mine to.

P.S.
potwalloper
I hope you can see where some of my frustrations lie, too...

[Gaunt]

All righty, well, I'm a bit confused about which thread to respond to, so I'll just stick it here and hope that it all works out.

God only exists objectively in the sense that He exists in everything that is objective. The actual entity of God is not objective, though. Everything that exists is evidence of the invisible (non-objective God).

I read this as meaning God is subjective, and that through your belief in him, you have read in evidence of his being that may or may not exist in an objective sense. Would this be accurate?

A rock existing does not automatically imply that there is a God. It just means that a rock exists. You have chosen to see the rock's existance as indicative of the existance of something else, but your beliefs do not make it a reality, and you've shown no reason why one would think that save for "God said so".

If you will not accept this... does that get me off the hook for providing evidence?

Except you haven't provided any objective evidence for your claim of an objective God, and in fact you claimed that god did not exist in an objective sense. If god doesn't exist in an objective sense, then I'm not sure what your position here is.

Given what I have already said in this post... would you conclude that it is possible to provide evidence for the disagreement at hand?

If the Christian God can be proven to exist objectively based only on subjective evidence, why not Santa?

Propose, then, that we agree - since my beliefs are justified

You have not shown how any belief in an objective god would be justified.
You've stated that God, as an entity, does not exist objectively in fact. So, I'm not sure what your beliefs are that we would be agreeing to.

Otherwise I will have to say that all luck is not, in fact, luck - but God.

You can call it however you like, I'm just stating that, if you have a million beliefs, one or two are bound to turn out correct, whether or not you are justified in believing them.

Well, let's first establish that Jesus did exist as a human being. Then we will move on to what you propose to be true. BTW: Do you contest Jesus' existance as a human being? I am curious.

If God does not exist in an objective sense, what does it matter if some dude claimed to be his "son" 2000 years ago? I don't care that people claim to be Napoleon right now! To me personally, whether or not Jesus existed is a side issue: a needless variable thrown in that can only hurt your side of the discussion. Even if he did exist, it means precisely nill with regards to providing objective evidence of a Supreme Being.

[nikolayevich]

This discussion is straying from the topic too much. I am moving it to:

http://www.debatingchristianity.com/for ... =8155#8155

Where I have posted a response to these other posts.

GreenLight311, please allow the moderators to decide when to move a conversation to a different thread. Sometimes conversation will tangent a little and come back to the heart of the debate as this one has and that is okay.

So as to avoid derailing a conversation unduly, please PM the moderators if you feel we've missed something and we'll try to do what needs doing (this often involves discussion about what to do). As far as I can see though, there are still plenty of people liking the conversation about Santa as contrasted with belief in God. And it is timely after all...

[chrispalasz]

Okay. My apologies to everyone involved in this discussion. I suppose the reason I moved it was because I was intentionally leading this away from the Santa discussion.

Also, I was hoping it wouldn't go back to Santa. So, if anyone is interested in a discussion with me regarding my response, you can post it in the other thread. That will make me happy. I have made all the Santa arguments I wanted to... and I have heard more Santa arguments than I ever wanted to. So, since this thread is about the Santa stuff... I'll just focus on other discussions. If you want to post a response to mine with the possibility of it leading back to the Santa issue... that's fine too (but I think I'm done with this it, myself).

Sorry again.

[dangerdan]

I have made all the Santa arguments I wanted to...

So correct me if I’m wrong, but the principal reason you don’t believe in Santa is because most adults don’t believe in him…is this right?

Is this your strongest reason? Or is one of the other reasons your strongest? I’m just curious.

If this is your most compelling reason, what are your thoughts then on statistics about how most adults in the world don’t believe that Jesus Christ is a personal savior?

[chrispalasz]

You are wrong. Correction: The entirety of the combined arguments that I have posted, as well as others, make up the strength of my "disbelief" in Santa. There is plenty posted to more than crush the Santa argument.

So, how about you can answer this question:

Why do people believe in Santa?

[potwalloper.]

Greenlight311 wrote

So, how about you can answer this question:

Why do people believe in Santa?

For the same reason that Christians believe in God - because they have faith. The fact that the believers of one are children and the others are adults is immaterial - the key tenet to the belief is faith not evidence...

...however, there is nothing wrong with that