Why is Christmas no longer allowed to be Christmas?

The world's smallest violin wrote:

Oh, how cruelly oppressed you are!!!

If only you had had the luck to be born into another religion. Then everyone would be so much kinder to you.

Not for the first time, but again just now on my Facebook feed a friend sent this message: "Happy non-denominational seasonal greeting to one and all!".

I'm all for separation of church and state and I am not religious at all, but, tell me what other religion's holiday are greetings like that sent out? During Diwali my feed is gets a bunch of "Happy Diwali" messages, but no "happy non-denominational seasonal greetings" messages to avoid the risk of offending the non-Hindu's who celebrate a secular Diwali.

Like it or not, what has happened to Christian's Christmas celebration is pretty unique. I'm not saying it's wrong or right or that I personally care, but it is has for sure been taken over as a secular event and it is now mostly no longer acceptable to make religious references to Christmas. Yes, people still can, but, it's definitely not PC and the vast majority of people keep religion out. Name me one other religion's celebration where it is no longer seen as socially acceptable to refer to it in anything other than a non-secular way so as to avoid offending other religions.

Your friend was actually wishing everyone a Happy Hanukkah but trying his best to avoid hurting your Christian feelings. How come you were unable to pick up on that?

Liberals believe the universe was created from nothing, breaking their oh-so-special first rule of thermodynamics that matter can be neither destroyed or CREATED.

Pointing Out the Obvious wrote:

Your friend was actually wishing everyone a Happy Hanukkah but trying his best to avoid hurting your Christian feelings. How come you were unable to pick up on that?

I guess you missed my point. I said I'm not religious. I was trying to be non-argumentative and neutral with that description. The truth is I think all religions are mostly evil and it is ridiculous to believe in a god or gods. It has caused a whole lot of harm. But, it is what it is. Just because I don't believe in any god or religion doesn't mean I can't listen or read other people's views and consider why they would feel the way they feel. So, while I think all religious holidays are crap - I can see that Christmas does get treated differently from other religions holidays, as stated. I don't care that it does. It just does. Banging on about disliking Christian's, or leftists, or republicans, or whomever is totally irrelevant.

Serious Answer wrote:

Bad Wigins wrote:

Because it's a stolen holiday. It's Yule, or midwinter, not the imaginary birthday of the alleged jesus.

If there ever were a jesus, his fanatic followers would have started a tradition of marking the day every year and never forgotten it, instead of making shit up more than a thousand years later.

This is a revisionist history of a revisionist history.

No, it's not. It's facts bub.

Hope you have your safe space ready and a box of tissues nearby on Jan 20th.

Bad Wigins wrote:

Serious Answer wrote:

This is a revisionist history of a revisionist history.

No, it's not. It's facts bub.

Error with your "thousand years later" statement, bub.

Dumb Wigins wrote:

Bad Wigins wrote:

No, it's not. It's facts bub.

Error with your "thousand years later" statement, bub.

So many people complain about age cheats, and Wigins is gonna complain about Jesus lying about his birthday.

Howthough wrote:

Liberals believe the universe was created from nothing, breaking their oh-so-special first rule of thermodynamics that matter can be neither destroyed or CREATED.

You're right!! Wow did you study cosmology or astrophysics? Oh wait you just read a meme on facebook posted by your bible study group.

So if nothing can be created then that MUST mean the a giant man in the sky made the universe and everything it contains in 6 days and thought earth would be a cool place to put some people on! Then a garden with two people who had sons, then just a bunch of incest to continue populating the planet. Etc, you know the ridiculous fictional stories.

And why do you use "liberals believe"? Is liberalism some sort of religion?

So, you just really don't get things. Got it.

Bad Wigins wrote:

Serious Answer wrote:

This is a revisionist history of a revisionist history.

No, it's not. It's facts bub.

Don't "bub" me, son.

Christmas is revisionary. The birth of Christ was always celebrated, however, the date of the celebration was changed to correlate with a Pagan holiday. The best way to make sure pagans don't revolt against the new religion you impose on them is to make sure they still get to party when they are used to partying.

Your portrayal of Jesus as a fictional character, or that the celebration of his birth doesn't date back to the very early church, is also revisionist.

Your post was a revisionist history of a revisionist history, as I said. You are like the person who fabricates stories about the political candidate they disagree with. Don't you see there is enough to disagree with on its own merit without making sh!t up?

Happy Dieting.

Serious Answer wrote:

Bad Wigins wrote:

No, it's not. It's facts bub.

Don't "bub" me, son.

Christmas is revisionary. The birth of Christ was always celebrated, however, the date of the celebration was changed to correlate with a Pagan holiday. The best way to make sure pagans don't revolt against the new religion you impose on them is to make sure they still get to party when they are used to partying.

Your portrayal of Jesus as a fictional character, or that the celebration of his birth doesn't date back to the very early church, is also revisionist.

Your post was a revisionist history of a revisionist history, as I said. You are like the person who fabricates stories about the political candidate they disagree with. Don't you see there is enough to disagree with on its own merit without making sh!t up?

Happy Dieting.

The question as to whether or not Jesus was an actual person who walked this Earth or was actually a fictitious character is certainly not settled among those who study the topic. Many folks who know a whole lot more about the topic than either you or me come down on the side of "fictitious character". Many others come down on the side of "real person".

(I hope I didn't mix up attributions. The default quoting wasn't working properly.)

That wall is a wall to keep government from interfering with religion, but not the other way around. The right exists to inform and advise the government on a religious basis (or non-religious, for that matter). The trend has been to disallow this free speech (in truth protected by the first amendment) when it is religious, in particular if it is Christian, as if it violated the first amendment. This trend has gone so far that any expression of Christianity is to some offensive. I think the original poster was lamenting how far the trend has gone.

Anyone can make a decision that a Charlie Brown poster is inappropriate. That's okay. But if it's a prejudicial decision, made after the fact solely because Christian content is present, then it amounts to a violation of the first amendment, which protects free speech.

This poster incident is a sign of the times, reflecting the larger fact that the first amendment is being turned on its head and used selectively to repress the free exercise of Christianity.

Don't get me wrong: the posting of the poster is not required by Christianity, and if it were forbidden to post a poster, there is no need to post it to maintain the free exercise of the Christian religion. This is more about an anti-Christian bias, which is seeping into the (mis)interpretation of law.

Christians are so oppressed in this country. Maybe one day there will be a Christen president, or maybe they will allow Christian churches to be built...

CatlitterHotub wrote:

Christians are so oppressed in this country. Maybe one day there will be a Christen president, or maybe they will allow Christian churches to be built...

Oh, but I AM such a victim! Woe is me!

At the risk of repetition, I included a pertinent part of the Everson ruling above.

It is certainly the case that Christianity should not be singled out. But it is also the case that neither Christianity nor any other religion should somehow be *exempted* from the above definition of the Establishment Clause.

No religion should be favored by government (and *nor should irreligion*). The entire topic simply should be kept out of government property/funding.

It's one of those interesting historical ironies: many have suggested that the USA stands alone (among developed nations) in its degree of religiosity, *precisely* because it has never had a religion associated with the state. IMHO anyone who is sincerely religious should work strenuously to keep religion (no, not religious *people* but religion *itself*) out of government--because if religion is in government it simply is not possible to keep government out of religion. And what sincere religious person wants that?

If the wall be permeable, it is (by the nature of government and human beings) permeable in both directions. And that is unconstitutional.

but then this wrote:Christmas does get treated differently from other religions holidays

Mainstream American Christians, at least the ones in my neck of the woods, are in no position to complain about this. Christians themselves laid the foundation for Christmas' transformation into a somewhat secular event by emphasizing Santa over Jesus. Personal experience suggests that inside most Christian homes, Christmas is a celebration of materialism and wealth first, a celebration of family second, and a celebration of Jesus' birth a distant third.

Pointing Out the Obvious wrote:

So, you just really don't get things. Got it.

Yeah. Too funny. He totally missed that you are a massive idiot and replied to you anyway.

you got it wrote:

Pointing Out the Obvious wrote:

So, you just really don't get things. Got it.

Yeah. Too funny. He totally missed that you are a massive idiot and replied to you anyway.

I can see that you have been seriously butthurt.

Don't worry, I'm not laughing with you. I'm laughing at you.