I just thought I'd share a couple of ideas that have rattled around in my
head for the last couple of weeks:

1 The existence of Santa Claus is more plausible than the existence of
God

Many of us have actually physically seen someone who claims to be Santa
Claus, who fit the description fairly well, and behaved as Santa is often
described. This doesn't seem to be the case with God. True, some people
claim to have physically seen God, but it is (AFAICT) much rarer. As well,
many of those who claim to have physically seen God have been found to
suffer from serious psychological illnesses, or are under the influence of
mind altering drugs, or have been caught up in hysterical circumstances.

Santa Claus is described as living at the North Pole. This is a real
place, which we have empirical evidence for. Although we have not found
any North-Pole-Complex belonging to Santa Claus, we DO have a confirmed
real place for his residence. This is not true of Heaven, which we have
no empirical evidence for whatsoever. We also have no evidence for "God
being everywhere". No other sentient entity appears to have this
attribute, and we have no impartial data supporting that God is
everywhere, so we can discount this possibility until/unless evidence is
provided.

Many of us have received real, tangible presents which apparently came
from Santa Claus. This is consistent with the description of Santa Claus.
As well, cookies left for Santa Claus are often removed, indicating an
eater of the cookies. This provides us with evidence that Santa Claus was
present, besides fitting in with the description of him as somewhat fat.
Physical evidence of this sort is much weaker in the case of God. There
are many cases where the physical evidence flatly contradicts the
descriptions of God. They are too numerous to mention, although I'll
provide two as examples: a) The flood which God claimed to have
inflicted upon the Earth doesn't appear to have occurred. b) The creation
of Man, as God describes, does not appear to accurately reflect Man's
actual origins.

The lore of Santa Claus leads us to believe that giving presents requires
a fairly large amount of effort, both in manufacturing (by elves), and in
distribution (by Santa and the reindeer). Santa is apparently happy with
this arrangement (jolly), and it matches the oft stated goal of bringing
happiness to children. This seems fairly consistent. God, on the other
hand, is viewed as having a similar goal (the enlightenment/salvation of
children, and those who were once children) and yet is often described as
angry and vengeful in His attempts at achieving his goal. He is described
as being powerful enough to provide unlimited material without effort to
achieve his ends, yet does not actually do so. If he were all-knowing and
all-powerful as is often described, He should be able to create a policy
to achieve his goals which is far more successful as Santa's. If fact, he
should be able to figure out and institute a policy which would be
guaranteed of universal success. It is inconsistent that an all-knowing,
all-powerful being is incapable of this, even if He chose to include some
complexity by allowing "free will".

Santa Claus is described as "good". This fits very well with the rest of
Santa Claus lore. He is happy, enjoys giving presents to children when
they too are "good", withholding presents from children who are "bad",
presumably to provide incentives for future "good" behaviour. God is also
described as "good", yet is willing to heap any amount of horror on people
over even minor infractions, or no infractions at all. He is apparently
willing to allow someone to be tortured forever due to the circumstances
of their birth, or for lack of belief in him. He is willing to kill
babies, (clearly incapable of doing either "good" or "bad" of their own
accord), call for the rape of children, extermination of populations, the
killing of the elderly, and the keeping of slaves. These are actions which
we typically judge as NOT "good", so the claim of God being "good" and
instigating or causing such acts is inconsistent.



2. God has to allow man to do evil on order for free will to be possible.


For an apparently all-knowing and all-powerful being, this is a pretty
serious limitation. Why can't such a God allow free will but prevent evil
from being done?

As an example, why couldn't he allow us to have freewill and yet have no
ability to commit evil? He could have made us all too weak to ever hurt
another person, or too resilient to be damaged by such attempts. After
all, we haven't been given the ability to cause brain aneurysms in our
enemies by looking at them, (thus preventing our ability to kill in one
regard), yet this is not commonly viewed as a limitation on free will.

Nor is not having a tail. If *I* had a tail, I suspect I would chose evil
every time! Yet I haven't been given the freedom to make that choice.
Since I don't have a tail, I don't desire to act evilly at all. This is
unfair to others. I would get to go to Heaven, because I was never in a
situation where I would choose evil (I need a tail first), yet some people
would go to Hell because they have all the body parts they desire in order
to commit evil. From this we can ascertain that free will does not
require the ability to do evil, or this God is unjust by placing differing
limitations in us to exercise free will (ie Not Good).




Anyhow, just some silliness.

I just thought I'd share a couple of ideas that have rattled around in
my head for the last couple of weeks:

1 The existence of Santa Claus is more plausible than the existence of God

Many of us have actually physically seen someone who claims to be Santa
Claus, who fit the description fairly well, and behaved as Santa is
often described.

I just thought I'd share a couple of ideas that have rattled around in
my head for the last couple of weeks:

1 The existence of Santa Claus is more plausible than the existence of
God

Many of us have actually physically seen someone who claims to be Santa
Claus, who fit the description fairly well, and behaved as Santa is
often described. This doesn't seem to be the case with God. True, some
people claim to have physically seen God, but it is (AFAICT) much rarer.
As well, many of those who claim to have physically seen God have been
found to suffer from serious psychological illnesses, or are under the
influence of mind altering drugs, or have been caught up in hysterical
circumstances.

Santa Claus is described as living at the North Pole. This is a real
place, which we have empirical evidence for. Although we have not found
any North-Pole-Complex belonging to Santa Claus, we DO have a confirmed
real place for his residence. This is not true of Heaven, which we have
no empirical evidence for whatsoever. We also have no evidence for "God
being everywhere". No other sentient entity appears to have this
attribute, and we have no impartial data supporting that God is
everywhere, so we can discount this possibility until/unless evidence is
provided.

Many of us have received real, tangible presents which apparently came
from Santa Claus. This is consistent with the description of Santa
Claus. As well, cookies left for Santa Claus are often removed,
indicating an eater of the cookies. This provides us with evidence that
Santa Claus was present, besides fitting in with the description of him
as somewhat fat. Physical evidence of this sort is much weaker in the
case of God. There are many cases where the physical evidence flatly
contradicts the descriptions of God. They are too numerous to mention,
although I'll provide two as examples: a) The flood which God claimed
to have inflicted upon the Earth doesn't appear to have occurred. b)
The creation of Man, as God describes, does not appear to accurately
reflect Man's actual origins.

The lore of Santa Claus leads us to believe that giving presents
requires a fairly large amount of effort, both in manufacturing (by
elves), and in distribution (by Santa and the reindeer). Santa is
apparently happy with this arrangement (jolly), and it matches the oft
stated goal of bringing happiness to children. This seems fairly
consistent. God, on the other hand, is viewed as having a similar goal
(the enlightenment/salvation of children, and those who were once
children) and yet is often described as angry and vengeful in His
attempts at achieving his goal. He is described as being powerful
enough to provide unlimited material without effort to achieve his ends,
yet does not actually do so. If he were all-knowing and all-powerful as
is often described, He should be able to create a policy to achieve his
goals which is far more successful as Santa's. If fact, he should be
able to figure out and institute a policy which would be guaranteed of
universal success. It is inconsistent that an all-knowing, all-powerful
being is incapable of this, even if He chose to include some complexity
by allowing "free will".

Santa Claus is described as "good". This fits very well with the rest
of Santa Claus lore. He is happy, enjoys giving presents to children
when they too are "good", withholding presents from children who are
"bad", presumably to provide incentives for future "good" behaviour.
God is also described as "good", yet is willing to heap any amount of
horror on people over even minor infractions, or no infractions at all.
He is apparently willing to allow someone to be tortured forever due
to the circumstances of their birth, or for lack of belief in him. He
is willing to kill babies, (clearly incapable of doing either "good" or
"bad" of their own accord), call for the rape of children, extermination
of populations, the killing of the elderly, and the keeping of slaves.
These are actions which we typically judge as NOT "good", so the claim
of God being "good" and instigating or causing such acts is inconsistent.



2. God has to allow man to do evil on order for free will to be possible.

For an apparently all-knowing and all-powerful being, this is a pretty
serious limitation. Why can't such a God allow free will but prevent
evil from being done?

As an example, why couldn't he allow us to have freewill and yet have no
ability to commit evil? He could have made us all too weak to ever hurt
another person, or too resilient to be damaged by such attempts. After
all, we haven't been given the ability to cause brain aneurysms in our
enemies by looking at them, (thus preventing our ability to kill in one
regard), yet this is not commonly viewed as a limitation on free will.

Nor is not having a tail. If *I* had a tail, I suspect I would chose
evil every time! Yet I haven't been given the freedom to make that
choice. Since I don't have a tail, I don't desire to act evilly at all.
This is unfair to others. I would get to go to Heaven, because I was
never in a situation where I would choose evil (I need a tail first),
yet some people would go to Hell because they have all the body parts
they desire in order to commit evil. From this we can ascertain that
free will does not require the ability to do evil, or this God is unjust
by placing differing limitations in us to exercise free will (ie Not
Good).




Anyhow, just some silliness.