Why God is not Santa Claus

[ArmsMerchant]

For one thing, he isn't a he. We assign a gender to deity out of convenience or ignorance.

For another, God neither wears a red suit, nor smokes a pipe.

But mostly, God does not make a list of who's naughty and who's nice; nor does he reward good children and punish bad ones.

God is not about judging and rewarding and punishing. God loves us all the same and treats us all the same.

[L3d3ni]

But... Santa is still real, right? Please, Arms, don't crush my childhood dreams.

[Fascistsmasher]

G-d is however a crazy cool diety. But yea, G-d is a non-anatomical spiritual being so assigning a gender, atleast the the Hebrew G-d was done solely out of linguistic convienience.

[Spirit of '22]

All of you sicken me. God treats and loves us all the same?! Why? That is always and only uttered out of a hatred of uniqueness and envy of quality.

And of course "God" is a Man. In the Biblical sense, he creates Adam in his image, and much later, creates Eve OF ADAM. And in any other Tradition, the spiritual, animating principle that breathes life into the feminine, material principle, is masculine.

[Direckshun]

I fail to see how loving everyone could be equated with hating diversity, Spirit.

[Fascistsmasher]

Acctually he created man in his image meaning man has free will and the ability to choose. If all men looked like G-d, well aside from the fact that G-d has absoulutely zero physical attributes, we would all look exactly the same and there would be no need for people like you spirit.

[Recidivist]

Originally posted by ArmsMerchant:

For one thing, he isn't a he. We assign a gender to deity out of convenience or ignorance.

Since a culture's diety doesn't exist physically, its imagined manifestation can be whatever gender they like. The genderless god you are speaking of is specific only to you and a very narrow segment of the world's population. You should be careful of making such generalizations. If I want, my god can be male, female, both, or neither.



For another, God neither wears a red suit, nor smokes a pipe.



...





But mostly, God does not make a list of who's naughty and who's nice; nor does he reward good children and punish bad ones.



How do you know what god (I'm assuming you're talking about the modern christian concept of god, which again is a very narrow context) does or does not do? Since you are talking in a christian context however, and christians consider the old testament to be part of their religious canon, an example from the old testament will contradict your point. Consider Job, whom god singled out as being "nice," and treated him differently than other people because of it, first by punishing him and then by rewarding him. So actually the christian god does put people into categories (or did at one time).



God is not about judging and rewarding and punishing. God loves us all the same and treats us all the same.



A world where this was the case would be no different from a world in which there was no conception of a christian god at all. What does this tell you? A god which does nothing is no different from no god at all.

Also, the bible states that it IS the christian god's role to judge and to reward and punish. Read Revelations. Or all of the New Testament. If you're a christian, I don't think you're very familiar with your religion.

Edit: fixed UBB code



[This message has been edited by Recidivist (edited 10-01-2003).]

[ArmsMerchant]

The Bible is wrong, and Christianity as it is practiced today is largely a sham.

[lannibis02]

i like santa. who doesnt like a fat jolly guy smokin a pipe and bringing people presents? now "god", who likes this dude- a fat not-so-jolly guy smokin nothin at all and bringing his wrath upon everyone... wtf?

[noraa_boy]

God judges people by the rules that he set up long ago at creation. He is a loving God, but he has to juggle it with justice as well.