The Sun That Wasn't there

OK here's one that I have never thunk of. Thank god for all the cool and super smart atheist out there like John at Debunking Christianity and the very youthful looking Richard "freekin." Carrier. With the recent demise of my hero, Christopher Hitchens, it is my hope that these two become more prominent in the battles to debunk Christianity and for secular society.

In the gospel(s) of Matt, Luke and Mark they talk about how after dudes crucifixion "there was darkness over the whole world from the sixth hour until the ninth." This "eclipse" of the sun is supposed to be all powerful-n-stuff and a message to humans "hey, y'all fucked up and killed my son." Or as the gospels say "...for the sun stopped shining." This is where beautiful science comes into play.

It is impossible for a black out of the sun for that long. This is the part I have never thought of. We have seen many eclipses, but never one for that long. They usually last a couple of minutes, right. A multi hour eclipse in unheard of and, I'm no biologist and all but, wouldn't a three hour eclipse, like, destroy da erffs and all life on it (yes). The bible claims the sun was blacked out over the whole earth, but that is impossible because, ya know, the earth rotates and it would be impossible for that to happen. Lastly, there were hella astrology types back in the day with hella records-n-stuff, so wouldn't one of them, at least of of them have recorded the fact that the entire earth was blacked out for three whole hours.

I think so, unless of course, it didn't happen.

* Debunking Christianity

The Evolution Of Santa

 If you or I or anyone on Team Atheist were to go back in time and do a Terminator to kill the Sarah Connor's of Christmas, there are two dudes that we must go and get.

One is Clement Clark Moore. This dude took a not so well know legend, St. Nick, and turned it into this ginormous thing. Originally St. Nick was a 4th century priest that was generous-n-stuff and he did give gifts to people and even used a stocking; but he was no Santa.

 Moore took that and added some Sinter/Cinter Klaus elements from the Dutch. Sinter/Cinter Klaus was then merged with the Pagan Yule God, Oden for more characteristics. Oden's 8 legged flying horse did not make the cut tho.

 To further the transformation, Moore added on to his Elfish gift giver, American furs (yuck) and a pipe. Legend does not say what is in the pipe, but if dude was doing all this work-n-stuff...then he smoked the weeds. Needless to say at this point in the transformation Santa was looking more like a hippie Elf than a priest (which is the origin).

At this point Santa did have a sack full of toys, the flying sky sleigh, the not PETA approved slave reindeer with their own names and his sick arse pipe.

 The next loser that evolved the myth of Santa is illustrator Thomas Nast. He was commissioned by Harper's Weekly to, to....err, I dunno. But when he was finished the Nu Santa was no longer an elf; dude was now taller (and more American-ish). He was jolly with a "twinkle in his eye" and he was also aided by two important tools: 1) his list of naughty or nice kids and 2) the North Pole where his factory is located (and incidentally, is also the place of many work place violations.).

 This season there has been much ado about should Christian parents teach their innocent children about Santa when obviously Santa is Satan, and to embrace Santa is pretty much, well, a sin. On one site I was checking out it pretty much said Santa is made up so don't believe in dude. Well, that is when Team Atheist says to Christians...pot, kettle, black.

More Kriss' War On Christmas later folks. Stay warm and stay awesome.

* History Channel