Atheism

The issue is: moral values, some of them at least, are supposed to be absolute. E.g., how much money should I pay you to convince you to kill someone? Or simply, to hit a perfectly innocent child? I like to think that I would be saying no to any offer of such kind. Morals are absolute. Big no-nos exist. How do you enforce and drill into people's minds the big no-nos? That's where Santa comes in.

You would have a very hard time getting rid of Santa if you tried to. Imagine a public campaign with sign and advertisements and protests all over the country: "Stop lying to your children, stop the lies about Santa!"... Now imagine the response of society to that, the backslash.

Santa Claus is therefore a secular version of St Nicolas, or of Jesus. He already replaced God and His Saints in the hearts of men during the 20th century (all this is very recent)... and maybe he is PRECISELY one of these societal responses / adaptations to an increasingly secular world that Spendi and I (and you are welcome to join) are talking about... :-)

PS I would never be proud about having common ground with Spendi - I think he was the first or second person I ever put on ignore.

PS I would never be proud about having common ground with Spendi - I think he was the first or second person I ever put on ignore.

His alcohol addled ramblings are incomprehensible anyway.

Good proof of a post I saw on my twitter timeline, which made the point that the most difficult person to deal with is the highly confident, uneducated moron.

The all-Nisei 522nd Field Artillery Battalion was organized as part of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team; but towards the end of the war, the 522nd became a roving battalion, shifting to whatever command most needed the unit.
The 522nd had the distinction of liberating survivors of the Dachau concentration camp system, from the Nazis on April 29, 1945.Nisei scouts west of Munich near the small Bavarian town of Lager Lechfeld encountered some barracks encircled by barbed wire. Technician Fourth Grade Ichiro Imamura described it in his diary:

"I watched as one of the scouts used his carbine to shoot off the chain that held the prison gates shut .... They weren’t dead, as he had first thought. When the gates swung open, we got our first good look at the prisoners. Many of them were Jews. They were wearing striped prison suits and round caps. It was cold and the snow was two feet deep in some places. There were no German guards. The prisoners struggled to their feet .... They shuffled weakly out of the compound. They were like skeletons - all skin and bones ...."

Holocaust historians have clarified the Nisei 522nd liberated about 3,000 prisoners at Kaufering IV Hurlach. Hurlach was one of 169 subordinate slave labor camps of Dachau. Dachau, like Auschwitz, Buchenwald, Mauthausen and Ravensbrück, was surrounded by hundreds of sub-camps.[3]

Pierre Moulin in his recent book 'Dachau, Holocaust and US Samurais' writes that the first Nisei arrived at Dachau's gate not on April 29, the date of the liberation of the camp, but on April 28, 1945.

But the basics of ethics predates gods - how did humans survive long enough to invent gods? That heritage isn't easily disposed of either.

you were saying that atheists are all the same,

Anything other than a lack of belief in gods is a belief and is not atheism.

Their is no church of atheism, and it was not inculcated into me. There wasn't a user manual and I certainly didn't read about it's 'philosophies'

I think at the time I said I was putting him on ignore because I was spending much more time trying to decipher meaning from his posts than he was spending writing them.

Oh so in other words you mean all creationists?

I don't believe morals are absolute - take a look around the world functioning societies have polygamy (damn, the old testament flaunts it).

The big no-nos don't need gods, they are acculturated.

Plenty of societies survived and flourished without Santa, say China, for example. It's still not an argument.

Red envelopes

Traditionally, Red envelopes or red packets (Cantonese: lai sze or lai see) (利是, 利市 or 利事; Pinyin: lìshì); (Mandarin: 'hóngbāo' (红包); Hokkien: 'ang pow' (POJ: âng-pau); Hakka: 'fung bao'); are passed out during the Chinese New Year's celebrations, from married couples or the elderly to unmarried juniors. It is also common for adults or young couples to give red packets to children.

Red packets are also known as 壓歲錢/压岁钱 (yàsuìqián, which was evolved from 壓祟錢/压祟钱, literally, the money used to suppress or put down the evil spirit) during this period.[27]

Red packets almost always contain money, usually varying from a couple of dollars to several hundred. Per custom, the amount of money in the red packets should be of even numbers, as odd numbers are associated with cash given during funerals (帛金: báijīn). [...]

Red packets are generally given by established married couples to the younger non-married children of the family. It is custom and polite for children to wish elders a happy new year and a year of happiness, health and good fortune before accepting the red envelope. Red envelopes are then kept under the pillow and slept on for seven days after Chinese New Year before opening because it symbolizes good luck and fortune when you sleep on the red envelopes for seven nights.

Although I could interpret your santa theory as an indication we are evolving into atheism - because no child over 7 believes in Santa, so translating that no child over seven believes in Jesus. So we're getting there.

I fear your generalisations about atheists and apparent cultural myopia colour the way I interpret your intentions. But carry on.

as the influence of religion fades away, some of its functions are being taken up by non-religious cultural items such as Santa.