Is it PC to say Merry Christmas if you're not a Christian or should we be saying Happy Holidays and not offend other religions?
If we're going to have a Christmas tree shouldn't we also have symbols from other religions?
Blah Blah Blah ….
I sit there listening to all these various and sundry Media types thinking:
What planet did they come from?
Do they apply these research methods (none) to other topics they talk about?
Why does it seem that Everyone is talking out of their ass on this one?
Everyone appears to be operating from the basic fallacy that Christmas is a Christian religious holiday. A fallacy perpetrated by the Christian church with their "Let's put Christ back into Christmas" campaigns.
The fact is that it makes absolutely No Sense that Christians celebrate Christmas.
1. Christ (assuming that he existed) was Not born in December. The closest date they have to his birth is sometime in the early spring, some say early September. What is known is that he wasn't born in December.
2. The Christmas story (Nativity story) is questionable even in Biblical terms. It's only spoken of in one place in the Bible and is one of the major Biblical stories that remains unconfirmed anywhere, including anywhere else in the Bible.
3. All of the traditions associated with Christmas are Pagan with origins in ancient German (Geol or Yule) and Roman (Saturnalia) festivals.
4. All of the recent (last 100 years) traditions, Santa Claus, etc. are secular and were promoted by the retail industry.
5. Even the blessing of Peace and Goodwill came out of the politics of the Industrial revolution and was directed at strikers, and Not the Bible.
I think it's time that Christians recognized that the current tradition of Christmas is not a religious, but a secular holiday, based on pagan traditions. Perhaps they should find a day closer to the day that Jesus was actually born and celebrate that day more in accordance with their biblical and religious traditions? Just a suggestion.
This is precisely the reason that the Puritans refused to celebrate it. They knew that celebrating Christmas was inconsistent with their Biblical belief system. They were smart enough to take the Christ Out of Christmas, unlike certain Christians today, who for reasons known only to themselves, want to put Christ back into Christmas.
So why did the ancient churches want to hijack these pagan traditions and celebrations? Because they couldn't convince the populace to stop celebrating them. Once the church realized that, they went with option 2, call the holidays christian, get people to include the church in the celebrations, and gradually take them over presumably in the hopes that people would eventually abandon the pagan part.
Unfortunately for the church, this plan only worked periodically, and today we're back to celebrating Christmas with an emphasis on those evil Pagan traditions.
Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not being a Scrooge here.
I love Christmas with all its trimmings and have celebrated it all my life.
For me, Christmas is a time for family and friends to get together, to share in the joys and pleasures of the season, to remember that kindness, love, and sharing are paramount ... and to just have some fun.
I also love seeing people from All beliefs and religions celebrating this secular Christmas.
Secularist Atheists (like me), Sikhs, Hindus, Jews, Christians, etc. can get together on this one, holding hands around the Christmas tree and singing Jingle Bells :)
Would keeping Christ out of Christmas be such a bad thing? It would certainly make more sense to me!
Merry Christmas, one and all :)
9 comments:
Good comment and analysis Kitty! Something I've been saying for half of my life already too! Thank you.
The fact that Christ probably wasn't born in December isn't exactly some big church secret. I first learned about that factoid in a church pamphlet.
I wasn't saying it was. Just stating a fact that a lot of people don't seem to know.
Dere wudnt be any christmas without christ... i think that is ridiculous...i doesnt matter the date the significant thing is that christ was born and came to save us!!
i wish i did know when christ is born but i think people use that excuse as a way of avoiding the real reason behind christmas... it has been so commersialised and now even other religions partcipate in the festivities of christmas!
its our fault the real meaning of christmas has been lost. the center of christmas is christ Jesus so... lets keep it that way!!
You are stupid,, A secular atheist? But you're a sikh. How could you say such dangerous words. Sikhism forbids the use of words "secular' and 'atheist/atheism'
Are you a troll?
Troll said:
"Sikhism forbids the use of words "secular' and 'atheist/atheism'"
My response:
Sikhism has no such restrictions except perhaps in the minds of lunatics who fabricate such nonsense to villify, persecute and harass anyone who doesn't agree with them.
May I also point out that there are those who argue that Sikhism is a pantheist belief system which would make it atheistic by definition.
The Christians ended up with the 25th of December because the king of Babylon let the king of Israel out of prison on, depending on which of two books of the Bible you read that describe this, on the 25th of the 12th Month, or the 27th of the 12th month.
However, if you translate this into the Hebrew calender (I don't know about the Babylonian one) you get pretty close to the late summer date when a lot of scholars think Jesus was really born, anyway. It's symbolic of release from a cruel ordeal.
If Christmas was intended solely to take over the winter solstice, one would expect it to actually be on the solstice and it isn't.
The only Christian festival whose date of celebration has any spiritual meaning is Easter. otherwise it's a matter of teaching the same lessons at the same time and is fairly arbitrary.
In the Anglican Book of Common Prayer, it's the St Stephen's day service that's particularly solemn and important. (On the 26th December or near to.) That's all about punishment and requital for sin, and ought to be a day of concern for trolls and stalkers everywhere.
"That's all about punishment and requital for sin, and ought to be a day of concern for trolls and stalkers everywhere."
:-D
I must say I like that one!
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