Alan B said "It is said and unchallenged life is not worth living. And equally an unchallenged/untested belief system, is not worth believing!"

Answer- Socrates "The unexamined life is not worth living."

The evidence for the existence of Santa Claus is irrefutable, the cookies and carrot left out on Xmas Eve have gone, and presents are now under the tree. Santa has been and gone, anyone who doubts that has a predisposed bias against Santa. More evidence is contained in the writhing of the Xmas scholar Francis Pharcellus Church in his message to Virginia in the year 1897. "Yes, Virginia there is a Santa Claus".

["Is There a Santa Claus?" is commonly reprinted during the Christmas and holiday season, and has been cited as the most reprinted newspaper editorial in the English language. It has been translated into around 20 languages, and adapted as a film, television presentations, a musical, and a cantata.]

I've never quite understood the reluctance of some Christians to acknowledge that their sacred festivals have antecedents in pagan culture. At least the time of those festivals.

There's no way that Jesus was born in late December. The celebrations of that date are clearly related to the summer solstice. Equally the timing of Easter is based on the timing of Passover which in turn is likely based on a Canaanite festival. Indeed festivals around this time proliferate throughout the northern hemisphere and occur to celebrate the first bounties of the coming of spring. The birds were laying, fatted calf was fattening, the barley was ripening. What's not to celebrate. The egg, a symbol of rebirth, ,merely continues that theme.

Even so, the fact that timing of the commemoration is borrowed from antiquity doesn't, or ought not, diminish the raison d'etre for the celebration. Jesus was born. That he might have been born in October rather than December is a minor issue and ought not detract from the celebration of the actual birth. Equally he died during Passover. That the timing of that event coincides with festivals from other cultures with differing traditions which have been incorporated into the Christian tradition, ought not detract from the actual commemoration of the crucifixion.

My kids and, now, grandkids always get chocolate eggs. They also get a lecture on the other part of the celebration. The two can easily co-exist.

Alan B write "And given the first council of Nicosia was when the current official bible was recorded in print, and given that took place some 350 ad I stand by my assertions." [those assertions being that "story of an alleged crucifixion was written some 350 years after the event".]

The bible was COMPILED at the council of Nicosia. But it was compiled from books already written, and most of them were written within the lifetime of those who witnessed crucifixion event. The books weren't written 350 years later.

I have a volume of selected works of Shakespeare. It was COMPILED in the 1990's. That doesn't mean Hamlet was written in the 1990's.

Struth.

My grand-daughter who's only six once asked me to
take down the crucifix from my bedroom wall. When
I asked her why - she said - how can I keep a man
nailed to a cross in my bedroom? I explained to her
who that man was and that he had died for our sins.
"What sins?" she asked. And added - "I'm only six
years old - what possible sine could I have?"
"What does that even mean?"

The conversation continues to this day.

Come on, Foxy.

A child says:

"I'm only six
years old - what possible sine could I have?"

Six year olds just don't speak that way.