Yes, Virginia, there is a Jesus...
Posted by: homenews <homenews@...>
My Uncle Dick and Aunt Fay sent this to me. I don't know where they got
it, but I think you'll like it. Pass it on! (Fay shared the Good News
with me 26 years ago, and I'm forever grateful.) ~~ Virginia
~~
"YES VIRGINIA, THERE IS A JESUS"
It is truly heartwarming to know that millions of people around the world
believe in Santa. Sure, most are under four feet tall, but still it's
amazing that so many believe in the big guy in the red suit. Consider the
following:
Around the globe, today, live approximately two billion children (persons
under 18). Santa doesn't visit all of them, of course. Subtracting the
number of Muslim, Hindu, Jewish, or Buddhist children reduces Santa's
Christmas Eve workload to 15 percent of the total, or 378 million
children
(according to the Population Reference Bureau). At an average (census)
rate
of 3.5 children per household, and presuming that there is at least one
good
child in each home, Santa must visit about 108 million homes.
Santa has about 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 967.7 visits per second.
That means that at each household with a good child, Santa has around
1/1000th of a second to park the sleigh, hop out, jump down the chimney,
fill the stockings, distribute the remaining presents under the tree, eat
whatever snacks have been left for him, and get back up the chimney, jump
into the sleigh, and get on to the next house.
For the purposes of our calculations, we will assume that each of these
108 million stops is evenly distributed around the earth (which, of
course,
we know to be false). We're talking about a trip of 0.78 miles per
household; a total trip of 75.5 million miles, not counting bathroom
stops
or breaks. To cover that ground in 31 hours, Santa's sleigh moves at 650
miles per second--3,000 times the speed of sound. By comparison, the
fastest
man-made vehicle, the Ulysses space probe, moves at a poky 27.4 miles per
second, and a conventional reindeer can run (at best) 15 miles per hour.
The payload of the sleigh adds another interesting element. Assuming that
each child gets nothing more than a medium-sized Lego set (two pounds),
the
sleigh must carry over 500 thousand tons, not counting Santa himself. On
land, a conventional reindeer can pull no more than 300 pounds. In air,
even
granting that the "flying" reindeer could pull 10 times the normal
amount,
the job can't be done with a mere eight or nine of them--Santa would need
360,000 of them. This increases the payload, not counting the weight of
the
sleigh, another 54,000 tons, or roughly seven times the weight of the
Queen
Elizabeth (the ship, not the monarch).
Six hundred thousand tons traveling at 650 miles per second creates
enormous air resistance--this would heat up the reindeer in the same
fashion
as a spacecraft reentering the earth's atmosphere. The lead pair of
reindeer
would absorb 14.3 quintillion joules of energy per second each. In short,
they would burst into flames almost instantaneously, exposing the
reindeer
behind them and creating deafening sonic booms in their wake. The entire
reindeer team would be vaporized within 4.26 thousandths of a second, or
right about the time Santa reached the fifth house on his trip.
Not that it matters, however, since Santa, as a result of accelerating
from a dead stop to 650 miles per second in .001 seconds, would be
subjected
to centrifugal forces of 17,500 g's. A 250-pound Santa (which seems
ludicrously slim) would be pinned to the back of the sleigh by 4,315,015
pounds of force, instantly crushing his bones and organs and reducing him
to
a quivering blob of pink goo.
Considering all this, it's amazing that some children (and even a few
adults) have no problem believing in Santa. By comparison, the story of
the
little baby in the manger is relatively easy to believe. The life of
Jesus
Christ is a fact, recorded not only by biblical writers but by secular
historians as well. Some historians declare that there is more evidence
for
the birth, death, and resurrection of Christ than there is evidence that
Julius Caesar ever lived at all.
Even in the face of the written testimony of eyewitnesses, many people
refuse to believe in Jesus. They consider him nothing more than a myth.
But
for those willing to believe with childlike faith, Jesus promises an
inheritance of the kingdom of God (Mark 10:14).