Crossposting to
Street Prophets.
Believe it or not, this is not yet another slam of DarkSyde's rant. In fact, I'm going to do a little defending of his position here, even though I believe, quite firmly, that there is far more to the universe than these mere globs of animate biomatter we inhabit. However, it's clear that DarkSyde's real problems come not from people who 'believe in Santa Claus,' which represents something 'whacky, if perhaps relatively pleasant on the surface'. Sure, he's dismissive of the idea, but aside from the agnostics (and even them only to a point), which of us doesn't believe we have a decent handle on our faith/beliefs/reason? I mean, if we didn't actually think we were right, we wouldn't believe what we believe. QED.
No, his real problems are with people like this:
They don't just limit it at that even, they insist everyone kiss their ass about their Santa belief every damn day of their lives and if you don't humor them at the drop of hat under any circumstances, you're being disrespectful, you're out of line. No matter how much you humor them, they always demand more.
Reminds me of Abraham Lincoln's comment about how defenders of slavery were just before the Civil War. A few more:
...campaign speeches all end with "Be good or Santa won't come to visit".
...
Imagine that large sections of the country, the majority in fact, reject modern geography and want to teach that Santa lives at the North Pole in a giant Dickinsian factory manned by elves as part of that curricula.
...
...your kids better not repeat any Santa skepticism, or they'll be teased horribly at the very least and might get the shit beat out of them by other kids from time to time.
...
The ruling party is supported by a large block of truly radical Santa believers who want to run the entire country like they believe the North Pole facility operates, including sweatshops with kids all busy working away seven days a week 365 days a year in long assembly lines, with hand tools, in the freezing cold arctic winter, all for benefit of a few old men with long white beards who live in complete splendor on that labor. Because that's how Santa wants it, see?
...
The nation slides slowly towards Santacracy year by year.
...
...they stalk off screaming things like "OH I get it! You HATE Santa Claus and you HATE Christmas and you HATE getting presents, and you're trying to get even by pretending you don't believe in Him."
Hell, that last one might have been taken verbatim from an O'Falafel rant. ;-)
It's a funny thing. Neo-pagans and atheists are about as diametrically opposed, cosmologically speaking, as is possible, but we're natural allies politically because the dominant radical Santacrats want to destroy us both. To them, it doesn't matter whether we believe the Easter Bunny and the Great Pumpkin are equally valid Holiday Avatars or for thinking they're all equally invalid. We both upset their one-true-wayism, creating those nasty little doubts they've demonized.
Certainly, neither paganism (Rome, feeding Christians to the lions) nor atheism (Stalinist Russia, 'nuff said) has a history as pure as the driven snow. But you know what? Neither pagans nor atheists are within striking distance of overthrowing freedom in our country. (There are fundie Hindus with serious power in India and tyrannical atheists running China, but neither group is our immediate problem.) So I really, truly understand where he's coming from here. I wish I could wear my pentacle ring to work, for example, but I don't because I work with a lot of devout Christians. They're mostly cool, but I really don't have the emotional energy to deal with more attempts to 'save' me and my continued employment is shaky enough as it is.
So what's my point? After all, the title of this diary is "believing in Santa Claus," so it's obviously not solely being written to defend DarkSyde, right?
Right. You see, I do believe in Santa Claus. Now, I don't actually believe in a physically incarnate guy with a red suit (invented by Coca-Cola) and a long white beard any more than I believe that YHVH is a physically incarnate Charlton Heston clone with a long white beard sitting on an actual throne. And you know what? People who do believe in either beyond a shadow of a doubt worry me too.
What I do believe is that as the season turns, as we pass Samhain and move toward the Yule festival season, something changes in the air. In spite of our society's every effort to drain Yule of its goodwill and charity through a combination of commercialism and shrill, unstable ranting about the 'secular assault on Christmas,' somehow something wonderful and intangible remains. People as a whole get more patient and cheerful.
Sure, there are incidents where two mothers turn into WWE combatants over the last ninja turtle or what have you, but take it from a guy who worked at a Toys R Us one Yule season, it doesn't happen that often. For children, cool toys are great, but it's the parent who gets the real reward (my memories of my son's smiles have far outlasted many Yule gifts). In spite of the world's O'Falafels, it is increasingly becoming a time to embrace what makes us the same instead of what makes us different...our love, our charity, our basic goodness. That is Santa Claus -- not a jolly old elf built like a sumo wrestler with a heart just as big (though more power to him if he's out there ;-), but the spirit of peace and giving that really puts presents under trees and in our hearts. And you don't even need to 'believe in Santa' to embrace that spirit.
The thing is, you either feel that spirit or you don't. It doesn't make you a bad person if you don't, it just means your perceptions are different. And if you do feel it, you can't explain it to someone who doesn't any more than you can describe a rainbow to a blind man.
So you know what? I'm a big ol' pre-teen, age 36, who still believes in He Who Is Santa, Kris, Nick, Grandpa Yule, etc. etc. Of course, I'm a UU Santaist, but I guess that's part of my liberal style of faith. :-)
--
(/) Roland X
Great Pumpkin-ite, but still respects Santaists ;-)