Santa Claus is the primary figure of worship for Christians until the age of ten. He is best known for his annual trip around the world in which he breaks into homes to leave toys built by slaves.
Bet you can name more reindeer than apostles.
Just The Facts
- Santa was based on St. Nicholas of Myra mixed with a series of traits from folklore the Church would rather you forget about.
- Over time, Santa has come to be personified as a jolly, fat man, proving that even Saints can let themselves go.
- Santa is one of the most depicted people in modern media, unless you count "genetalia" as a person.
The Original Jolly Fat Man
The legend of Santa can be traced back to St. Nicholas of Myra, who was a Bishop famous for his generous gift-giving around 300 AD. He is even said to have given three daughters of a pious Christian dowries so they wouldn't have to become prostitutes, making him the patron saint of children and the sworn enemy of perverts. Just like Christmas, the modern image of Santa plagiarizes many ideas from non-Christian religions, including Norse, Dutch, and Germaic folklore.
The modern image of Santa was solidified in the pages of history by Thomas Nast, a famous cartoonist who seemed to have a thing for drawing fat men.
Oh, we see where he got the fat man thing.
In modern times, traditions and customs involving Santa vary from culture to culture. In America, Santa is said to come down the chimneys of good children while everybody is asleep, eat anything laying out nearby, leave tinkertoys, and take off through the use of his magical reindeer. Essentially, the man gets away with billions of accounts of criminal activity every year. However, because of the immense economic boost sending the parents of bad children shopping provides, Santa is considered "too big to fail" and has become above the law. Ask a lawman about bringing Santa in and they're pretend like he doesn't even exist. Fortunately, alert citizens have set up measures to keep this social hazard in check.
The Santa Proof
Many attempts have been made to disprove Santa through science, most probably because physicists need pure children's tears for experimentation. The list of complaints appears thousands of time on the internet, making it nearly as common as Santa-themed porn.
Now do you believe in Santa?
These complaints, while commanding a deep understanding of the physical world show a neglectful-at-best understanding of Santology. Lets take the list of complaints one at a time:
There Are No Flying Reindeer
If these have the right to exist, are flying reindeer so hard to believe?
There are too Many Children
Well, while there are around 2 billion people under 18, Santa only visits Christians (in theory). In addition, he only visits houses with good children. Who are you to decide how Santa decides who is good or bad? Perhaps Santa is like Jehova, only letting a certain number of the best children in on this whole Christmas thing.
While it was once believed that bad children get coal from Santa, which would significantly increase the size of his trip, this is clearly a lie and perpetrated by a Santa-hating imposter. Santa lives at the north pole: him giving bad children the ability to increase CO2 emissions would be like you slapping people outside your house and handing them a sledgehammer.
There Isn't Enough Time!
Oh, naive public. Santa doesn't give presents on Christmas Day everywhere. Some places it's his custom to give gifts on December 6th. It's not all about Jesus, sometimes a man likes to celebrate his own birthday by giving everybody else presents, like a Hobbit. This means, based on varying customs, there are at least four days (December 5th, 6th, 24th, and 25th) that Santa can deliver presents. Include the rotation of the earth and the understanding of relativity, in which a person or thing moving faster ages more slowly, add in some other fancy science words like "theorize" and "signifying the signifier" and you have some damn convincing arguments.
Other Generalized Complaints!
The answer to this is simple: Santa is fucking magic. How does Santa fit in the chimney? He's fucking magic. Why doesn't Santa burn up when going at supersonic speeds in the atmosphere? He's fucking magic. How does Santa control his oppressive communist state of elves so much more effectively than Lenin controlled the USSR? Years of practice. That is, years of practicing magic. Which he fucking is.
Would you be so bold as to say that a magic man can't do things you don't understand? Go ahead; he's watching. Maybe instead of getting nothing this year you get a stocking full of magic death. We're not saying it will happen, we're just saying it does happen.
Read more: http://www.cracked.com/funny-3538-santa-claus/#ixzz18aE0Q7pL
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