The man we bow to
Apparently Santa is the universal god of pagans/paganism. Seriously. Cuz, newsflash, it says so in the Bible! The Common Man’s Reference Bible, by David Hoffman. A Bible printed only in the last few years from what I can tell (and which costs $72 according to its main seller’s website…seems like a hefty price for a Bible).
Here is the passage which claims that Santa is the universal god of pagans:
“The universal god of pagans is Santa Claus. The famous words of Santa/Satan came from the Bible. This satanic counterfeit is arrayed in red (blood) and white (purity). He is hailed to be omnipresent, omniscient, and omnipotent as he travels the world giving gifts to children. His sleigh is supposed to be pulled by flying reindeer (Song. 2:8-9) with a drunken, red-nosed reindeer in the lead. His little green elves are defined as wandering spirits (Rev. 16:13); evil spirits; and devils in Noah Webster’s 1828 American Dictionary of the English Language. Santa (feminine) Claus (masculine) is an unisex freak of Satan (Jer. 10:2; Dan. 11:37).”
(For a visual of the Bible page, click here.)
Oh, so much to pick apart…
This drivel was a footnote to a passage of this Bible which included the words “Ho, ho.” Aside from the fact that the guy who wrote this footnote is completely misinterpreting a number of things, the footnote is utter tripe but unfortunately fairly typical of fundamentalist/evangelical thinking. Who hasn’t heard of SANTA= SATAN? And I know that most fundies don’t make logical sense, but I can’t help but wonder: if Santa is satanic, why then is he wearing white, the color of purity? Seems counter-intuitive to me, but then I’m not David Hoffman. It must have made sense in his mind when he wrote it.
Someone tell me, when did Rudolph become a drunken reindeer? That is something I have never heard of. Poor little guy, he’s a victim of libel. And how exactly is he supposed to get drunk anyway? Did someone pour a bunch of ale or beer into a trough and Rudolph drank it up like the big drunkard he is?
And as a linguist, I must take issue with the assignment of gender to the individual words “Santa” and “Claus.” In other languages, those words may have a gender assignment, and it is true that “-a” is often indicative of a feminine noun while lack of a vowel can be indicative of neutral or masculine words. BUT English is not a language that has grammatical gender! Santa Claus is no more unisex due to the structure of his English name than President Obama is female because of the feminine ending to his surname. Whatever source the author got that information from clearly had no understanding of basic linguistics.
So if Santa is our god, how do we worship Him? He brings us gifts, what does he expect from us in return? Are we supposed to leave Him a gift under the tree? Or are the gifts just in the form of sustenance? That would explain all the cookies and milk.
And the biggest contradiction of all… wait for it…
Christmas is a CHRISTIAN HOLIDAY (despite the pagan roots we all know it has). Santa operates only on Christmas Eve. Does that not make Santa Christian? How can Santa be the ultimate pagan god when he’s a Christian fixture? (And Satan is a CHRISTIAN element. Apparently the fundies seem to think that we believe in their theology even when we aren’t a part of their religion. Go figure.)
However, as I said before, fundamentalists tend to not make logical sense….
Related post and inspiration for this post is from Unreasonable Faith.
