Santa & God

It's inevitable: comparisons between Santa & God.

I've heard theists make a psychological profile of atheists before: they have bad father figures, they never got over the disillusionment of finding out Santa isn't real...this cartoon plays on that a bit:

If you can't make out the caption very easily, it reads:

Dear Children
One Day You Will Learn Everything About Santa Claus.
On That Day Remember Everything The Adults Have Told You About Jesus.

Much to the theists' chagrin, there are an awful lot of parallels between God and Santa, when one thinks of it. Seasame Street Atheism or no, the very same "childlike faith" we are required to have to sustain belief in God is similar with respect to belief in Santa. The unquestioning submission to authority and tradition are similar between children and adults compared to people and the Church/church doctrine...in ways, dissimilar in others.

God does these magical acts on very rare occassions, of which we have no hard evidence at all, that are supposed to justify our belief in him throughout the thousands of years after these events occurred. Santa just gets his magic thing on once a year, spending only 34 microseconds at each stop. Hopefully, Santa will get a little more green and reduce his reindeer's methane emissions using kangaroo enzymes; then he ought to ask people to shop online this Xmas to help lower CO₂ emissions.