A critical analysis of the existence of Santa Claus
December 22, 2006
Is There A Santa Claus?
No known species of reindeer can fly. But there are 300,000 species of living organisms yet to be classified, and while most of these are insects and germs, this does not completely rule out flying reindeer which only Santa has ever seen.
There are 2 billion children (persons under 18) in the world. But, since Santa doesn't (appear) to handle the Muslim, Hindu, Jewish and Buddhist children, that reduces the workload to 15% of the total - 378 million according to Population Reference Bureau. At an average (census) rate of 3.5 children per household, that's 91.8 million homes. One presumes there's at least one good child in each.
Santa has 31 hours of Christmas to work with, thanks to the different time zones and the rotation of the earth, assuming he travels east to west (which seems logical). This works out to 822.6 visits per second. This is to say that for each Christian household with good children, Santa has 1/1000th of a second to park, hop out of the sleigh, jump down the chimney, fill the stockings, distribute the remaining presents under the tree, eat whatever snacks have been left, get back up the chimney, get back into the sleigh and move on to the next house. Assuming that each of these 91.8 million stops are evenly distributed around the earth (which, of course, we know to be false but for the purposes of our calculations we will accept), we are now talking about .78 miles per household, a total trip of 75-1/2 million miles, not counting stops to do what most of us must do at least once every 31 hours, plus feeding and etc.
This means that Santa's sleigh is moving at 650 miles per second, 3,000 times the speed of sound. For purposes of comparison, the fastest man-made vehicle on earth, the Ulysses space probe, moves at a poky 27.4 miles per second; a conventional reindeer can run, tops, 15 miles per hour.
The payload on the sleigh adds another interesting element. Assuming that each child gets nothing more than a medium-sized lego set (2 pounds), the sleigh is carrying 321,300 tons, not counting Santa, who is invariably described as overweight. On land, conventional reindeer can pull no more than 300 pounds. Even granting that "flying reindeer" (see point #1) could pull TEN TIMES the normal amount, we cannot do the job with eight, or even nine. We need 214,200 reindeer. This increases the payload - not even counting the weight of the sleigh - to 353,430 tons. Again, for comparison - this is four times the weight of the Queen Elizabeth.
353,000 tons traveling at 650 miles per second creates enormous air resistance - this will heat the reindeer up in the same fashion as spacecraft re-entering the earth's atmosphere. The lead pair of reindeer will absorb 14.3 QUINTILLION joules of energy.
Per second.
Each.
In short, they will burst into flame almost instantaneously, exposing the reindeer behind them, and create deafening sonic booms in their wake. The entire reindeer team will be vaporized within 4.26 thousandths of a second. Santa, meanwhile, will be subjected to centrifugal forces 17,500.06 times greater than gravity. A 250-pound Santa (which seems ludicrously slim) would be pinned to the back of his sleigh by 4,315,015 pounds of force.
In conclusion - If Santa ever did deliver presents on Christmas Eve, he's dead now.
David L. Dupont Test Engineer Bay Networks
revival is just the beginning
September 27, 2006
"To those of us who consider ourselves Christians, our task is to live in protest against everything that opposes God in this world. So poorly have we Christians filled this role that the question must be asked: Are we Christians at all?"
- Eberhard Arnold, 1919
their god is their stomach
September 26, 2006
six years ago, I read that phrase in the midst of a 40-day fast. and so it was that I learned I was a glutton.
six years later, I'm going to try it again. this is probably the sixth time in a row that I am trying to repeat what, apparently, was a monumental achievement. I was gunning to change the world; instead, I changed me. just a little.
turns out, I'm still a glutton. and since I heard that clearly and distinctly from God the first time, why not set up the circumstances to hear from God again?
and so tomorrow, I will make another go of it. I would very much like to think there's no pride invovled here. but I daresay I'll find out around week 2 if that is really the case. it sure seems that my role as a leader in my church is to humiliate and/or undignify myself in an effort to demonstrate to others it is not my strength or wisdom that brings me success, but rather, God's grace.
I have a strong feeling that is the point of revisiting my gluttony.
easier than love
July 28, 2006
[I wrote this in 2003, but seems I didn't actually ever post it. -ed. ]
who am I to compare my pain to yours? suffering is sweet agony - plumb
sex is currency - switchfoot
there is a formula for today's pop music that is not lost even in the contemporary christian (ccm) market. as stated by creed: sex sells and the whole world is buying.
juxatoposed with my domain name, and the vast majority of those who surf here, the irony is not lost on me.
what I rarely hear discussed in the context of sexuality and spirituality is the very strong duality of the two. the interlock, the symbolism of sexuality and relationship with Christ, is not often addressed. the closest we might come to a holy, righteous airing was written by solomon, and more often than not is interpreted strictly as a marriage primer. or worse, not given its due as a masterpiece of, if you will, wholesome sensuality at all.
too many evangelical christians preach against sex, as if saying "no" to anything ever stopped us from tasting the forbidden fruit. the importance of the "no" is not the definitive, defensive posturing of the language. it is understanding the reasons why it (sex, in this case), is good, but in context.
there was a divine purpose to our humanity, as designed and constructed in the garden of eden. while there is a distinctly anti-spiritual tone to most humanistic endeavor, God truly designed human beings to be ... human. put another way, we are spiritual beings having a human experience. we are meant to experience life and humanity as it was originally conceived: for our pleasure, for our utility, for our growth as humans and recognition of the spirit nature within us that allowed us communion with God Almighty.
when we use sex, the divine right of humanity in marriage to sell our own creative product, we cheapen the gift God gave us. sex, in proper context, is within marriage, because it was designed to show us the pleasure of spiritual union and intimacy with Christ. what it has devolved into is an extreme sport. an obsessive-compulsive disorder.
and the fact that one might as easily see the subtle undertones of using sex to push product in ccm is now but an inevitability. for within the evangelical community, divorce is more prominent than without. we have forgotten why people marry, given away our right to procreation by turning it into a sex act, only to turn and rail against those who have followed our model and only served to perfect the pervsion.
our human nature, in its original form, was neither perverse nor sinful. it was God-ordained. given the choice, humanity allowed it to become sinful. and with our act of defiance, the cost was seeing the interlock of humanity and spirituality as hopelessly fractured, ever mutually exclusive.
it is no wonder there are so many repressed churchgoers.
to an unnamed friend
May 10, 2006
People ask what makes you special
I turn, unsure of what to say
You are this all I know
Sometimes the Lord places people in our lives
We don't know why
But we're glad they're there
We don't even realize the influence and joy
That is dripped from their lives to ours
The laughter, the tears, the memories
I often wondered what made you so special to me
Perhaps it's the journey we've taken together
An unexpected adventure
Down a road filled with life's residue
life is good
April 15, 2006
what do I want out of life?
what do I want out of life?
what do I want out of life?
how long do I want to do what I am doing?
do I want to do what I'm doing?
is it something I need to stick out, or is it enough that I tried?
what happens if I need what I'm learning right now more than I need to do something "fun"?
is this where God wants me?
what does God want for me? from me?
what is my purpose?
grace thy name is levi
March 28, 2006
my senior year of college, I did a radio show on campus. all contemporary christian stuff. even got the "primetime" spot.
at the time, the "cool" dj`s were those who played classic rock. in the late 80`s stations like wnew-fm were trendsetting, and classic rock was the bomb. scott muni of the dozen-packs-of-marlboro`s-a-day was a god. john was one such disc jockey cut from the cutting edge cloth. he had the whole rebel/bad boy/long hair thing going on, and I admired him for his rebellious act. behind the "look" I knew him to be a thoughtful, thought-provoking kind of guy. part of his persona was intentional -- to tweak people. part of it was, it just didn`t fit the norm, and he preferred it that way.
playing ccm makes it really easy to strike up conversations on religious and spiritual themes, and back in the day, I was no stranger to sharing my faith story. how much easier could it have been, really?
anyone on campus: "what do you do on campus?"
me: "I`m a dj for the radio station."
them: "oh yeah? what music do you play?"
me: "contemporary christian. the show is called tunes of the times."
them: "contemporary what?"
me: "well, I`m a born-again christian, see, and ..."
one day in the station lounge, john and I were talking about my show, his perception of my "religion", and me countering with my "faith." he told me stories of what phillip yancey calls ungrace -- self-righteous, legalistic and/or graceless christians who believe their salvation is more works-based than it is faith in God`s unending love. he told me stories all too familiar: of "christians" who put him down, belittled, made him feel unworthy of human love and compassion, much less the unearned gift of an eternal life of perfection with a holy God.
finally, he asked me how I could call myself a born-again christian. it was as though he were astonished by my profession of faith. I didn`t understand his frustration, and so I asked him what he meant.
"you`re not like any of them. you can`t be one of them. you wear jeans."
this thought has stuck with me for some 14 years; how can I be real with people if I refuse to admit I am just like everyone else? I am human. frail. I have a wandering eye (sometimes wondering, too). I anger easily; much more easily than I ought.
what then is it about my "conversion" that makes me feel superior?
Jesus said the first in his kingdom would be last, and those who wished to be great for him would be the servant of all. when did we as Christ followers let this most basic truth of God's upside down kingdom slip away? when did we buy into this notion that the `heathen masses` of the world were somehow morally inferior?
more pointedly, what had I done to make john feel we were equal, if philosophically separate?
this is all I know of my friendship with john: it continues, a dozen-plus years hence. though he is more apt to call me than I him, it is testament to our mutual love and respect, in spite of our differences on spirituality, faith, and the afterlife. truth be told, we are much closer than whe would have cared to admit back in the day; but the pain of past rejection continues to run deep.
and so it does too with my fellow Christ followers: there are past hurts that do not heal easily. or quickly. and the pain and emotional scarring that caused them to turn away from church comes back to the surface when they encounter those who should openly embrace them. instead, they hear words of judgement and intolerance -- even of our own -- and the past throbs in their hearts and spirits.
we all ache for a welcome touch, a knowing smile, a compassionate tone of voice. when we encounter ugly, unkind, bitter words of the graceless, we cringe inside. we shrink back, hide, bury the soft places of our hearts and let the wounds fester. or worse, callous ourselves to the point where feeling is lost and we are no more gracious in our thoughts and actions than those who hurt us.
it is a vicious cycle, if we wrap our hearts in the clothing of ungrace.
I do not know what made me special to john, but I know we found in each other a respect that has not diminished over the years. we are not especially close, but john knows of me, as I know of him, that we are friends. we do not believe the same, we do not profess all the same values, we do not necessarily even believe the same things. but we are kinsmen.
Jesus did not look down on those who needed him most. He did not judge them for their unbelief, their ignorance of Him or their lowly circumstances or station in society. He loved them, as His Father loves us.
it wasn`t really the jeans that made john think me different from others who professed a freakdom in Jesus. it was the unspoken recognition that we were in the same boat: sinners saved by grace, if we chose to accept it. and if we choose to accept it, we are duty-bound to wield that grace as a weapon of love.
I chose to accept john for all his human frailty, just as he chose to accept me for mine.
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