Is Santa Claus a Cargo Cult?

[Xipe Totec]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_cult

Discuss..

[pkdu]

1. Quite possibly .... But belief in trickle-down economics certainly is. Nt

[Xipe Totec]

3. We need a comparative religion forum to discuss the relative merits

of Santa Claus, the Three Wise Men, and Tinkle Down Economics.

[pkdu]

14. Yes we do....and my bad, Tinkle-Down is totally a better descriptor! Nt

[Tikki]

2. Under that definition....yes.

Tikki

[arely staircase]

4. kinda

good post.

i'll get back to ya

[Cleita]

5. Considering cargo cults were invented by native people in the

South Pacific as a result of World War II, that would be a stretch.

[Xipe Totec]

6. Too parochial

aside from geography, what other differences are there?

[arely staircase]

10. that

is the question.

again

awesome post and great thesis question. so awesome, i have to educate myself first.

[wandy]

7. The entire republican/Romney circus show was a metaphorically use of a cargo cult.....

The term "cargo cult" has been used metaphorically to describe an attempt to recreate successful outcomes by replicating circumstances associated with those outcomes, although those circumstances are either unrelated to the causes of outcomes or insufficient to produce them by themselves.

This nicely explains the whole drive to portray President Obama in a "Carteresq" light.
Like primitive natives who could not understand airplanes, the Teapublican alternate reality did not allow them to understand that "the times they are a changing".
"Free Stuff" was their cargo. The 47% became their evil foreigners. Benghazi was the crude landing strip constructed in the desert.

Sort of scary that they live amongst us.

[Posteritatis]

8. No. (nt)

[Xipe Totec]

9. Thanks (nt)

[Posteritatis]

12. De nada! (nt)

[Xipe Totec]

13. ...

[PufPuf23]

11. Santa? A cargo cult? Yep. Could be Aliens or

other praeter-human intelligences.

One could hypothesize that all the great and not so great religions of recorded human histories are:

1. Cargo cults from Aliens.

2. Humans with good imaginations that realized great power to control and social engineer.

lolol Merry Christmas and Happt Solstice and 2012 planetary alignment that ends the Mayan calendar.

lolol