Friday, December 24, 2010

Santa Lives!

In this latest and most blasphemous War on Christmas my faith compels me to respond to those unbelievers who would deny even the existence of the One who is the true reason for the season: Santa Claus. These people must be cognitively defective, unable to see the visions of Santa we all experience daily, or to feel His spirit moving within them (or they deny it's there when they really, secretly, know it is, which would make them delusional). More likely in my opinion they want to deny Santa's system of rewards and punishments so they can do whatever they want and not be bound by any moral law. And that's a slippery slope. It is well known Hitler did not believe in Santa.

Santa Claus is defined by Scripture (that precious corpus of psalms and tales of His glory) and by natural reason as the Holly Trinity: He is One Being in three persons. He is the Santa Claus incarnate, the red-coated, bearded, fat-bellied jolly Man who becomes flesh every year to dispense His rewards and punishments on all (even the unbelieving--for even if you don't believe in Him, rest assured, He still believes in you). He is also the Christmas Spirit, which enters all our souls this time of year to communicate to us and move us to join in unison in celebrating the love of giving and cheer. And He is the Three Ghosts of Christmas, the Ghost of Christmas Past, the Ghost of Christmas Present, and the Ghost of Christmas Future.

Yes, at this point it gets complicated. Nonbelievers insist that that makes two more persons, so really Santa is five persons in one, and they mock us for our irrationality and inability to do basic math. But they are the ignorant ones. For clearly according to Scripture (Christmas Carol 9:21, 18:11, and 24:8) the three Ghosts are really temporally santificated incarnations of one and the same Ghost, and thus they, too, are three persons in One Being, and thus are One, and thus Santa is three persons in One, not five. Obviously.

This Santa Claus is the true reason for the season, and any shops or agencies that refuse to display His image or acknowledge He is the real Lord and God of this day should be shunned and condemned. Even refusing to use the proper name of the day, Christmas, mocks and insults all believers in Him, and such politically correct attempts to pretend this is just the "Happy Holidays" and not His day are wholly un-american. It is shocking that public schools are not allowed to teach that the name Christmas comes from the old Gaelic "Craughesd" which is the root of our modern English word "Claus," and that "mas" is a late corruption of the word "mush," which is the sacred word of command that Santa Claus calls out to His celestial deer creatures as He travels from chimney to chimney across the world on that Holy Night of that very blessed name: Christmas.

Shockingly, people deny even the existence of His minions, but the eyewitness testimony and circumstantial evidence is overwhelming: elves do exist, and so do the so-called "rain deer," so-named because they come from the "waters above heaven" (Genesis 1:6-8), from which also comes all rain. They are therefore in fact heavenly beings, and not the ugly tangle-horned nasty little things crassly called reindeer and herded for their disgusting milk in the hills of some pinko commie country.

But I am here to defend the existence of the One, Santa Claus. Perhaps there can be debate over the particulars of which minions serve Him. And we should strive to convince the unbeliever to at least enter our broad tent and begin that debate. But there is no possible way for any rational person to deny the existence of Santa Claus Himself. Santologians have long developed several iron-clad proofs of it, and I can only shake my head in perplexity at how unbelievers cannot have known of this. So I have gathered them all here, so the nonbeliever will be left with no excuse...


Tuesday, December 21, 2010

NOE on DVD

Breaking News: The Nature of Existence is now available on DVD. In fact, there is an affordable two-disc set available that has 80 minutes of additional material (which possibly includes more footage of Roger's interview with me), and a seven-disc companion set that does what I had hoped for (and asked for in my review of the film in The Skeptical Inquirer): explore all the questions that the film by itself didn't get to (like "Why do you believe that!?"). I haven't seen those companion discs yet, but I'll blog about them if and when I do. I'm sure there is more footage of me in there (as I'll be the one stumping for naturalism).

If you want to buy any of these editions and finally see this interesting movie (or stock it in your library, or give it to religious friends, or what have you), just visit NOE's official website. Oh, and if you forgot what this film is about, take a look back at my past blogs on it (June 2010 and October 2009 and February 2009).

Friday, December 03, 2010

Essentials in Politics

The Conscience of a ConservativeI have added a new section to my Richard Carrier Recommends Amazon storefront. For those who might not remember (see earlier blog about this) my Amazon Storefront is a place where you can buy books from Amazon and I get a cut of Amazon's profits. It's a nice way to help support me, and get some great books that have been influential on me, and that I think are essential reading these days. I already had essentials in philosophy, ancient science, and origins of Christianity, plus my favorite fiction and films and TV, and those lists are still there, and updated.

The Truth (with jokes)Well, I've just added an Essentials in Politics. It's superb and important stuff, IMO. Check it out. Read them all if you can. They are all entertaining or engaging in one way or another, so they won't make dull reading. And you'll know so much more after having read each one than you ever thought possible. I've also added a new page with just my own books (since there are getting to be quite a lot of them).

Just FYI, I'll be blogging on politics in a few days, but forgot this post has been sitting in the queue for a month now. I wrote it before I even knew I was going to start the next one. So it will soon be accidentally relevant!