Natural man cannot understand Spiritual things

[Skyangel]

1 Cor 2 :14 But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know [them], because they are spiritually discerned.

The bible tells us the natural man can't understand anything spiritual because they are spiritually discerned.
What does that mean to you readers?

According to the bible, a person needs to use spiritual discernment in order to understand spiritual things.

The natural man is the man who is governed by his senses and wants physical proof of everything. The natural man rejects spiritual discernment and spiritual proof.

How do any people who admit they are not spiritual expect to get proof of God or anything spiritual for that matter when they refuse to use spiritual discernment but want physical and sensual proof?

Science is incapable of proving spiritual things because science does not use spiritual discernment.

Spiritual discernment comes from what science calls the right brain as opposed to the left brain.

Check/test which side of the brain you are using the most here> http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/right- ... 1114603615

Your mind can make that animation on the above site turn around depending on whether you are using the right or left brain.

To some people the dancer is turning clockwise and to others she is dancing anticlockwise.

Which way do you see her turning?

If you cannot see her turning clockwise, you are not using the spiritual side of your mind ( right brain functions) at all.

[Flail]

Flail wrote:

I observe her spinning only counter clockwise.
If you have convinced yourself that the Bible makes sense to you and is from 'a God', you must be far right brained I guess, and using your imagination can spin it anyway you choose, evidence to the contrary notwithstanding. No wonder Jim Jones was able to spin his right brained followers into a 'kool aide' death. Be careful out there.

Skyangel wrote:

People are gods in the same way people are Santa Claus. That is what logically makes sense to me.

(emphasis added)
False 'gods', mythical 'gods', concocted 'gods'...make sense to you?

[Crazy Ivan]

The possiblity that you have not made the effort to alter it is not necessarily negated by the animation since the written word and pictures are perceived differently by our own minds.

That just seems rather convenient at this point. If you want this test to have any legitimacy you can't just suddenly invalidate its results based on whether we're looking at pictures or words. By that rationality one can also perceive the dancer rotate counterclockwise and still perceive religious literature "spinning" clockwise. Which makes your "test" completely pointless.

If we believe we can make sense of the right side of our brains then we can make sense of it. If we don't believe we can make sense of it then we will never make sense of it.

And it's perfectly obvious that you brought up this "test" under the impression that it reveals the "open mindedness" of those that believe they can make sense of the right side. These would be the people that see the dancer rotate clockwise. Well, I do. But now, all of a sudden, the test is no good regarding religious literature.

Most people will try to see both ways in the animation because the site says it can be done and they believe it can be done so they do it.

This is a completely unsubstantiated opinion. I've consistently read reports of frustrated people, not being able to reverse the rotation, without ever suggesting they don't believe it's possible. Fact of the matter is, this has nothing to do with "spirituality". All it takes is knowing what to focus at, and at what specific point. There are clear proposed methodologies to accomplish the reversal.

Those who don't believe it can be done, can't do it. If you have convinced yourself that the bible does not make any sense then it will never make any sense to you.

Religious literature makes all kinds of sense to me. Your assumption that it doesn't make ANY sense is just that, an assumption.

I know it can make sense to anyone who really wants to understand it because it makes sense to me and if I can understand it, anyone can.

Makes "sense" to you as WHAT?

You can do anything you believe you can do if you put in the effort and work required to do it.

Any follower of any religion you don't follow can make the same statement regarding your choices.

[JoeyKnothead]

From Post 90:

As previosly stated, the core claims of theists can't be shown to rise above the level of imagination. Try it, and surely you'll see there is scant evidence to suggest donkeys and snakes talk, global flooding occurs, or folks hop up from three day old graves.

Surely any mature adults understand these things are not to be taken literally? I can understand children believing in talking animals but even children grow up and learn to cast aside those childish beliefs and childish ways. Mature adults put away childish things.

It is for those who propose these as literally true events my question concerns. I'm well aware you fall back to "metaphor" when challenged.

He wants proof of God but doesn't want to stand back far enough to see God.

Have you seen God? What's He look like?

He looks the same as His image, just as you look the same as your image.

Great way to give the illusion of answering with actually doing so.

I see you appear to understand the answer without actually doing so.

Sure, "God looks like God" is such a reasonable response when challenged to explain what God looks like.

These tests can't confirm such activity to be a reflection of reality - beyond the reality that the brain is active.

Those who have audible hallucinations can be seen to have activity in the sound centers of the brain. This, however, does nothing to show there's anyone in the room hollering at such folks.

It could also mean they are singing a song to themselves in their own mind. No hallucinations necessary to quietly have a song playing in your own mind.

Still don't make the subject of those songs factually and literally true events.

Any movies of dead folks hopping up out of three day old graves?

Yes there are...

I challenge you to produce such movie for examination.

1ST CHALLENGE.

Yes there are, as well as stories, and these movies and stories show you what those creators also saw in their mind/ imaginations or in the spiritual realm. It is up to the observer to believe they saw it and experienced it or not and categorize these things as you wish as fact or fiction or both if you know how they can be both at the same time.

I have no interest in determining the validity of movies presented as fiction.

Do you consider movies to be real or not?

Only in the sense they are recordings of events that may or may not be staged.

Got any movies of the ancient preacher named Jesus hopping up from a three day old grave for us to examine for authenticity? Walking on water? Turning water into wine? Healing folks?

Sure. Plenty of Jesus movies and other bible stories on movie format in the world.

I feel confident the observer with below average intelligence will realize quite readily I referred to the Jesus of the Bible and not some recent role for a clearly and admittedly fictitious representation of supposedly historical events.

"Debate" with you is a farce.

It serves my purposes though, as a display of the twists of words and statements you and so many other theists use in trying to present 'T'ruth.

[Skyangel]

You understand more than you realize when you can understand that the word spirit is metaphorical as in the spirit of kindness or a spirit of joy which can be felt at a party or any happy occasion or a spirit of sorrow which can be felt at a funeral for example.

Yes, but a metaphor must represent something. The boss says that his assistant is his right hand, it is a metaphor meaning that he feels that his assistant is an irreplaceable part of his own efforts. If spiritual things are only metaphors then there is no eternal life (except in that we have made an impact on others and may or may not be remembered).

Spirits represent attitudes, emotions, motivations, conscience, intuition, and those types of invisible things inside people.
Obviously no mortal man lives for ever. Eternal life is about spiritual things not about physical things living for ever. It is about the morals and principles of life being handed down from generation to generation through the human race.
The spirit of life goes on in our children and their children and theirs etc etc. The morals and principles we hand down to others which have an effect on their lives, continue to have a ripple effect through all generations as people continue to pass on the concepts of life which they know. It is more than just being remembered. It is about passing on a way of life in Truth to the next generations so they learn to live in Truth even if they never remember us or one day cannot prove we ever lived. The Truth lives on in people and is eternal. Love lives on in people and is eternal. Kindness lives on in people and is eternal. Those things which we perceive as negative things in life, eg hate, death, pain, etc are also eternal and continue on in the human race even after individuals die.

I posted a bible study on "what is a soul" on the bible study section
if you are interested. http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/v ... hp?t=14307

In your study, you claim that the spirit can separate from the body resulting in the body being lifeless. You also claim that the spirit goes somewhere after death, to God. Please explain to me what you mean by this without metaphors. As I understand biology, life does not leave a being at death, it just stops living.

How do you expect a person to explain a metaphor without using the metaphor?
Spirits are things like Love for example. When a person dies they can no longer love anyone since they are dead. The Spirit of love is no longer in them but that Spirit of Love which they handed down to others and passed on in principle and in values still exists in other people. The Spirit continues in the human race as a whole even after the individual dead bodies decompose into the ground.

As for the consensus, it is a good example of how a word can have two different meanings and still be correct in the minds of those who perceive it either way and use it either way. It can mean both things at the same time to people and if you understand that fact, you can obviously see both views at once.

Yes, it was an example of how, in different contexts, the same words can mean the opposite thing. However, I still don't see any meaning for that which is said to be spiritual except as a metaphor.

I see it as a metaphoric too. I do not believe in ghosts as portrayed in peoples imaginations as disembodied spirits.

[Skyangel]

Skyangel wrote:

People are gods in the same way people are Santa Claus. That is what logically makes sense to me.

(emphasis added)
False 'gods', mythical 'gods', concocted 'gods'...make sense to you?

Logically those mythical gods exist in fairy tales. That is what makes sense to me.
In a metaphoric sense, these gods represent people in reality.

Look at the myth about the god Janus, a two faced god which people worshipped.
Look at the myth about the god Shiva, a god with four arms.

Where do you think these myths came from ? The Truth behind them is based in reality. Think about it. People of the past did not know much about co-joined twins and so when people like that were born they made gods out of them. Even today some people still believe a co-joined twin is a reincarnation of a god.
Here is a person with two faces in reality. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,337492,00.html
Here is a person with four arms and legs in reality.
Here is a person with two heads in reality.
These kind of people were perceived as gods in the past, "superhuman" beings who had attributes, physical or mental, which were considered super natural or super human because they were different than what was considered average or normal.

Some Myths are based on reality. Even the fictional Santa Claus is based on the story of a real man St Nicholas who once existed. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Nicholas

People are god and gods are people. This is evidenced by that fact that in some cultures where people are still more superstitious than realistic, they tend to believe in the reincarnation of gods as you can see from the article about the two faced baby born in India and worshipped as reincarnated god

[Skyangel]

The possiblity that you have not made the effort to alter it is not necessarily negated by the animation since the written word and pictures are perceived differently by our own minds.

That just seems rather convenient at this point. If you want this test to have any legitimacy you can't just suddenly invalidate its results based on whether we're looking at pictures or words. By that rationality one can also perceive the dancer rotate counterclockwise and still perceive religious literature "spinning" clockwise. Which makes your "test" completely pointless.

The point of the whole thing is to explain the natural man vs the spiritual man as the two different parts of the mind, the left brain and the right brain which obviously have different functions. The left brain cannot do what the right brain can do. It cannot understand what the right brain understands. However, we can obviously explain the right brain and left brain logically and understand how they work together if we want to understand it.
All people have an artistic, intuitive, or spiritual side to them as well as a logic, mathematical and analytical side. To deny or ignore either side of yourself is to be only half a person. To understand oneself and how ones own mind works is a step toward being able to work both sides together for our own benefit.

If we believe we can make sense of the right side of our brains then we can make sense of it. If we don't believe we can make sense of it then we will never make sense of it.

And it's perfectly obvious that you brought up this "test" under the impression that it reveals the "open mindedness" of those that believe they can make sense of the right side. These would be the people that see the dancer rotate clockwise. Well, I do. But now, all of a sudden, the test is no good regarding religious literature.

The test is meant to explain the difference between what the bible calls the natural mans vs the spiritual man. I am saying the concept of the natural man vs the spiritual man is talking about two different aspects of the same man or the two aspects of the same mind. To be a whole person with a sound mind we need to have them in balance so as not to be "double minded" or unstable.

Most people will try to see both ways in the animation because the site says it can be done and they believe it can be done so they do it.

This is a completely unsubstantiated opinion. I've consistently read reports of frustrated people, not being able to reverse the rotation, without ever suggesting they don't believe it's possible. Fact of the matter is, this has nothing to do with "spirituality". All it takes is knowing what to focus at, and at what specific point. There are clear proposed methodologies to accomplish the reversal.

Obviously not. If there were, you could explain how to do it to anyone who is frustrated about not being able to do it and they could do it by following your instructions. It is a mind thing which is totally subject to each individuals perception. How a person changes perception may differ from one person to another. Some people find it extremely hard to change their perceptions and see things totally opposite to what they "normally" see them. Some people find it impossible. Why ? The only reason I can think of is because they do not believe it can be done so they don't do it. Much of it depends on what a person really believes in the first place.

Those who don't believe it can be done, can't do it. If you have convinced yourself that the bible does not make any sense then it will never make any sense to you.

Religious literature makes all kinds of sense to me. Your assumption that it doesn't make ANY sense is just that, an assumption.

If religious literature makes sense to you, my statement does not apply to you. When I use the word you, I am using it in a plural sense to apply to all readers who can wear the cap if it fits them. My statement applies to those who have convinced themselves the bible makes no sense.

I know it can make sense to anyone who really wants to understand it because it makes sense to me and if I can understand it, anyone can.

Makes "sense" to you as WHAT?

I can see truth and reality in its metaphors.

You can do anything you believe you can do if you put in the effort and work required to do it.

Any follower of any religion you don't follow can make the same statement regarding your choices.

That is exactly my point. You do not need to follow an organised religion in order to believe something with all your heart. Anyone can follow Truth and believe in Truth without following an organised religion. A persons religion is their life, it is the standards, morals, and principles which they adopt and apply to themselves.
The bible tells us pure undefiled religion is not about rituals but is simply about helping the people in need and caring for one another. It is that simple.

[Skyangel]

As previosly stated, the core claims of theists can't be shown to rise above the level of imagination. Try it, and surely you'll see there is scant evidence to suggest donkeys and snakes talk, global flooding occurs, or folks hop up from three day old graves.

Surely any mature adults understand these things are not to be taken literally? I can understand children believing in talking animals but even children grow up and learn to cast aside those childish beliefs and childish ways. Mature adults put away childish things.

It is for those who propose these as literally true events my question concerns. I'm well aware you fall back to "metaphor" when challenged.

What do you expect me to do? Do you want to hear me tell you I believe in literal talking animals? Well I do believe some animals can talk. Parrots can be taught to talk but that does not mean they know what they are talking about. If you wish to call a person some animal name then that name won't stop them from talking.

He looks the same as His image, just as you look the same as your image.

Sure, "God looks like God" is such a reasonable response when challenged to explain what God looks like.

It depends what god you are talking about. Most gods are usually described in the stories in which you find them.
Some gods look like people, some look like animals, some look like plants. I have heard of people who worship trees. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tree_worship

These tests can't confirm such activity to be a reflection of reality - beyond the reality that the brain is active.

Those who have audible hallucinations can be seen to have activity in the sound centers of the brain. This, however, does nothing to show there's anyone in the room hollering at such folks.

It could also mean they are singing a song to themselves in their own mind. No hallucinations necessary to quietly have a song playing in your own mind.

Still don't make the subject of those songs factually and literally true events.

It makes it a fact that their brain activity is caused by what they are thinking.

Any movies of dead folks hopping up out of three day old graves?

Yes there are...

I challenge you to produce such movie for examination.

1ST CHALLENGE.

Here are some movies I can recommend for you to watch. Have fun.
http://christianity.about.com/od/christ ... easter.htm
These might entertain you too
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0063350/
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0848557/

Yes there are, as well as stories, and these movies and stories show you what those creators also saw in their mind/ imaginations or in the spiritual realm. It is up to the observer to believe they saw it and experienced it or not and categorize these things as you wish as fact or fiction or both if you know how they can be both at the same time.

I have no interest in determining the validity of movies presented as fiction.

Then why bother asking for movies to review/examine?

Do you consider movies to be real or not?

Only in the sense they are recordings of events that may or may not be staged.

Got any movies of the ancient preacher named Jesus hopping up from a three day old grave for us to examine for authenticity? Walking on water? Turning water into wine? Healing folks?

Sure. Plenty of Jesus movies and other bible stories on movie format in the world.

I feel confident the observer with below average intelligence will realize quite readily I referred to the Jesus of the Bible and not some recent role for a clearly and admittedly fictitious representation of supposedly historical events.

"Debate" with you is a farce.

It serves my purposes though, as a display of the twists of words and statements you and so many other theists use in trying to present 'T'ruth.

I live in reality and any Jesus movies which are on the market today are all played by actors. I don't think people had the ability to make movies over 2000 years ago. I thought you were aware of that when you were asking for movies about Jesus? Film making began around the 1800's http://www.kino.com/edison/d1.html
"Debate" with you is comical. I perceive you like a child asking me to do magic tricks. That is said with all the love and kindness I can muster up. I love children dearly so don't take it as an offense because it is not intended to be offensive.
"Pull my finger."

[Crazy Ivan]

I can see truth and reality in its metaphors.

http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/v ... c&start=80

There was a challenge issued in this thread to explain the "truth and reality" of a parable. Perhaps you can indulge.

[JoeyKnothead]

From Post 97:

It is for those who propose these as literally true events my question concerns. I'm well aware you fall back to "metaphor" when challenged.

What do you expect me to do?

I prefer the observer is always aware you speak of metaphor, and not literally true events. As it relates to this OP, I seek to ensure the observer is aware your "spiritual" is little more than "the mind", or "imagination", and not "spirit" in the common religious sense.

Sure, "God looks like God" is such a reasonable response when challenged to explain what God looks like.

It depends what god you are talking about. Most gods are usually described in the stories in which you find them.

Whatever. I feel confident that by now the observer is aware your claim of "stepping back and seeing God" is pointless, or just more "metaphor".

Still don't make the subject of those songs factually and literally true events.

It makes it a fact that their brain activity is caused by what they are thinking.

But, as I seem to have to keep repeating, it does not make the "spirit" to which you refer any more real than one's imagination.

Any movies of dead folks hopping up out of three day old graves?

Yes there are...

I challenge you to produce such movie for examination.

1ST CHALLENGE.

Here are some movies I can recommend for you to watch.
...

Do you contend fiction is reality?

You seem to be struggling with comprehension, so let me make the challenge more clear...

"Any movies of dead..."

Now, let's stop right there and define dead...

1 : deprived of life : no longer alive

Do you still wish to declare there are movies with dead folks hopping up from three day old graves?

I have no interest in determining the validity of movies presented as fiction.

Then why bother asking for movies to review/examine?

Please see the definition for dead above.

You do this quite often, where you make a claim and then seek to wiggle out from under that claim by resorting to non-standard definitions, and I will point this out whenever I see it occur.

I live in reality and any Jesus movies which are on the market today are all played by actors. I don't think people had the ability to make movies over 2000 years ago. I thought you were aware of that when you were asking for movies about Jesus?
...
"Debate" with you is comical. I perceive you like a child asking me to do magic tricks.

I perceive you like a fraud who changes definitions and intent upon challenge or whim.

I'm tired of your referring to other debaters as children, and will be reporting your post as a violation of civility.

[I AM ALL I AM]

... Some Myths are based on reality. Even the fictional Santa Claus is based on the story of a real man St Nicholas who once existed. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Nicholas ...

G'day Skyangel.

Good old Satan Claus is hardly derived from Nicholas of Myra alone, and is in fact another christan take over of pagan festivities ...


[center]Father Christmas[/center]

In considering the character of Santa Claus, and given that he is so closely associated with elves and antlered reindeer, the question is often posed as to whether there is a Witchcraft connection here. Also, is the name Santa perhaps a play on Satan (being a straightforward anagram), or does Santa Claus really emanate, by phonetic corruption, from Saint Nicholas as we are led to believe ?

As we have seen, the concept of Father Christmas (with customary holly-sprig in his cap) is a direct representation of the gift bearing Yuletide Holly King, sometimes called Father Winter or Grandfather Frost. His one-time pagan image was brought into line with the Christian festival in the 17th century, whereas Santa Claus first appeared by that name in America as late as the middle 1800s. And then, of course, there is the Kris Kringle portrayal. Are they all the same character and, if so, how can an historical Christian bishop possibly equate with the jolly, pipe-smoking Yuletide Elf ?

Back in the very earliest days of the Roman Church in AD325, one of the bishops at Emperor Constantine's Council of Nicea was a certain Nicholas of Myra from Asia Minor (modern Turkey), who claimed to have a personal dialogue with Jesus and an angel. At this Church conference the bishops were debating the nature of the Holy Trinity - the Father, Son and Holy Ghost - and of how Jesus was not simply the Son of God, but was also God incarnate. There were, nonetheless, some bishops of the pre-Roman school who opposed this new Imperial dogma and averred that Jesus was the Son as created in the flesh by God - but he was not himself God. The leading spokesman for this opposition faction was an aged Libyan priest of Alexandria named Arius, but when Arius rose to address the Council in this regard, Nicholas of Myra punched him in the face - an event which paved the way for the emergent Nicene Trinity Creed.

Other than that, very little is recorded about Bishop Nicholas (Ad 271-343) until a fictitious biography was written by the Greek missionary Methodius in the 9th century. Then, as a direct outcome of this, schoolboys, pawnbrokers, sailors, prostitutes, merchants and apothecaries all claimed the violent bishop as their patron saint ! Methodius reported in his text that Nicholas had given a bag of gold to each of the three girls to save them from prostitution - whence, apparently, the three golden balls used as a sign of pawnbrokers, although the connection is difficult to comprehend. He was also said to have the power to calm the seas, while the story which established his traditional link with children claimed that Nicholas successfully restored to life three boys who had been cut into pieces and preserved in brine by their inn keeping parents !

Following these reports, Nicholas became the elected patron saint of Greece, Apulia, Sicily, Lorraine and Russia - becoming especially popular with the Eastern Orthodox Church. Then, based upon the 'bags of gold' story, a new tradition grew in and around The Netherlands to the effect that St. Nicholas would return each year to bring gifts for well-behaved children on the eve of hid 6 December feast day - a tradition which has long been acted out in places such as Denmark, Holland and Belgium.

The origin of the modern Santa Claus story is often attributed to 17th-century Dutch settlers in America (in New York to be precise, which was called New Amsterdam until the 1700s). They are said to have taken the St. Nicholas tradition across the ocean with them, but tis is completely untrue. The Dutch colonial settlers were, in fact, members of the Protestant Dutch Reform Church, who had no empathy whatever with Catholic saints. Santa actually emerged from a character introduced to Pennsylvania by the German settlers - a character called Pelznichol (meaning Furry Nicholas) and sometimes referred to as Old Nick. He was reckoned to be a mischievous hobgoblin (akin to Hodekin and Robin Goodfellow) and by 1827 he was firmly established in the Philadelphia Yuletide festivals.

Reminiscent of Enkidu in the old Mesopotamian legend of Gilgamesh, Pelznichol was a somewhat wild, hairy individual who was noted for playing tricks on people once a year - a tradition which was transformed into gift giving. The Dutch of Pennsylvania, along with various other settled families, became attached to the custom of Pelznichol (alternatively Belsnickle), but they gave his gifts a Christian flavour by relating them specifically to children and calling them Krist-kindle ('Christ-kin'). By the 1840s this definition was adapted for Pelznichol himself, who became known in some communities as Kriss Kringle. Alternatively, from around 1823, it was reckoned that Kriss Kringle actually was the Christ child who, with no real explanation, appeared as an old bearded twin of Santa Claus. To differentiate between the two, it was said that, while Santa came down the chimney, his Christian twin came in through the keyhole.

To discover the true identity of Santa Claus, we shall return again to Pelznichol. Meanwhile, though, we should take a look at some other events which established the character in the guise that we know him. In doing this, we can go back to early 17th-century England, where we discover the first use of the Father Christmas name in connection with the Holly King tradition. This occurred in the year 1610 when Father Christmas, in a tall hat bedecked with holly, made his first ever appearance by that name in the Christmas Masque productions of William Shakespeare's colleague, the playwright Ben Johnson. Making his stage entry at the same time with a group of children was Cupid - a name eventually used for one of Santa's reindeer.

In 1822 the next major step came when the American writer Clement Clarke Moore penned a Christmas poem for his own children. It drew upon various traditions, especially that of the Russian Grandfather Frost, who had a sleigh and a reindeer (unlike St. Nicholas who always rode a white horse). It related also to the fur-clad German Pelznichol, whose signature was said to be Thunder (Donner) and Lightning (Blitzen), which provided two more reindeer names for Moore's poem - along with Cupid, Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, and Comet. (Rudolph did not appear until as recently as 1939 in a story by Robert L. May) In spite of the anomalies, Moore's poem was entitled A Visit From Saint Nicholas - soon to become widely known in publication as The Night Before Christmas, which begins:

'Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house,
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.

Not only were the now famous reindeer introduced in this poem, but it established the first known link with stockings and chimneys, while giving a description of the newly developing Yuletide Elf character:

He was dressed all in fur, from his head to his foot,
And his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot;
A bundle of toys he had flung on his back,
And he looked like a peddler just opening his pack.

His eyes - how they twinkled ! His dimples so merry !
His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry.
His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow,
And the beard of his chin was as white as the snow.

The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth,
And the smoke it encircled his head like a wreath.
He had a broad face and a little round belly,
That shook when he laughed like a bowlful of jelly.

He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf,
And I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself.

Thus, the modern Santa was beginning to evolve, although one would hardly recognise him from the strange little fellow depicted in the 1848 edition of Moore's poem. In 1869 a colour edition was released, with pictures by an unknown artist, which brought the character a little closer to today's image. Oddly, though, this chubby elf with the red bobble-hat and pipe was still called St. Nicholas in the poem, although being as far removed from the historical bishop as one could possibly stray. But nowhere yet was this character called Santa Claus.

The magazine Harpers Weekly had, by that time, commissioned the political cartoonist Thomas Nast to produce a series of drawings of the popular elf for the annual covers of their Christmas editions, and these developed the character still further, making him a little larger and less elfin. Meanwhile, the separate Father Christmas (looking more like a druid with holly in his hair) was pursuing his own rather more wiccan career in England, appearing in 1888 in Thomas K. Hervey's The Book of Christmas not with reindeer, but riding on the back of a goat and carrying a wassail bowl.

To complete the picture of Santa in America, along came Haddon Sundblom who (from 1931 to 1964) created a new representation each Christmas for the Coca-cola advertisements which appeared worldwide in The Post and National Geographic magazines. And so the familiar modern Santa portrayal finally emerged in true Disney style - but why was he suddenly called Santa Claus ? And why were the folk in Denmark now calling their one-time Saint Nicholas by the new name of Sinterklaas ? Had some other tradition perhaps become interpolated during the early decades of the 20th-century ? It certainly had.In fact two other traditions had become merged with that of the American Yuletide Elf - the first being England's own druidic Holly King, Father Christmas. More importantly, though, was the re-cementing of the original Pelznichol culture - by then widely recognised as that of Kriss Kringle - for it was actually Pelznichol, the wild hobgoblin (a counterpart of Hodekin and Robin Goodfellow, or Puck) who carried the alternative name which became Santa Claus.

To understand how this transpired, we need to go back in history again to Europe, where Pelznichol was so called because he was a nick (a sprite). Consequently, one of his familiar names was Old Nick. So, from the moment that Clement Clarke Moore's Christmas character appeared, 'dressed all in fur, from his head to his foot', the beginning of a merger was apparent between his St. Nicholas and the other Furry Nicholas.

Old Nick, meanwhile, had been the very figure most associated with Pope Gregory I's description of the devil, taking over totally from the earlier fallen angel depictions in medieval times, so that the devil was (and still is) often referred to as Old Nick. Where did this devil live ? Apparently, he lived in the far North according to the churchmen who quoted the Old Testament book of Jeremiah (1:14): 'Then the Lord said unto me, Out of the north an evil shall break forth upon all the inhabitants of the land'. So the legendary Old Nick (Pelznichol) supposedly came from the North Pole, just as Santa does today - having no geographical relevance whatever to the historical St. Nicholas.

The rest of the story follows from this very root, and from the appearance of Pope Gregory's Satan (Old Nick) character in European Passion plays from the 12th century. It is, however, from the writings of Jacob Grimm (of the Brothers Grimm fairy tale fame) that the puzzle is finally pieced together. In his comprehensive research work entitled Teutonic Mythology Grimm explains that, in the course of the Christian plays of the Middle Ages, it was common for a famous saintly bishop (generally St. Nicholas) to develop a split personality within the plot. While the traditionally benevolent saint would remain in character, his alter ego would degenerate into an additionally scripted figure of opposition akin to Pelznichol - a wild satanic creature called Claus.

And so it was that, when the Holly King, St. Nicholas, Father Christmas, Kriss Kringle and Pelzb=nichol finally merged into the one all-embracing character, it was the Old Nick alter ego from the Christmas plays who finally reigned supreme. It was he who determined the Yuletide Elf's name for all time - for he was the 'Satan Claus', or as he has become better known (by the way of a strategic anagrammatical switch from the original satanic definition to a more acceptable saintly style), Santa Claus.

Realm of the Ring Lords
Beyond The Portal of the Twilight World
By Laurence Gardiner
(Pages 177-183)

... some myths are obviously myths. Even those that are "based on the story of a real" individual are still myths. They are hardly "based on reality" as you suggest.