The Issue of Christmas (Joe Gandelman)
Joe Gandelman
The issue of Christmas has come to the forefront. Bill O'Reilly and some others say there's a concerted movement to try to basically take Christmas away via political correctness, banning the phrase "Merry Christmas," purging mention of the holiday at schools and in cities, etc.
Others complain that the real push is on the part of those who want to force everyone to celebrate their holiday — and contend that those who are making an issue of this are essentially suggesting that Democrats, Jews and gays are trying to destroy the holiday. (If Democrats were trying to take Christmas away why did Bill Clinton, Jimmy Carter and LBJ make a big event of lighting the White House Christmas tree?).
Is there a middle ground in this debate or — as in most issues in 21st Century American — is this a case where there must be absolute polarization with a single winner takes all? Here are some extended thoughts on the issue (written by someone whose last name suggests he is Christianity Challenged).
I think the article hit the nail on the head with, "Has the quest for inclusiveness gone so far down the road of sensitivity that children might be forgiven for not knowing what holiday many Americans will celebrate on Dec. 25?"
Even if you tolorate Christmas because it's tradition, void of any real meaning, or because Grant made it a Federal holiday - it's still a religious day full of meaning to adhereants of that religion.
I've asked non-religious friends who celebrate Christmas why they do so and I get the answers you'd expect. However I wonder what a Jew would think of someone who celebrates Chanuka who isn't Jewish for those same reasons? Or the non-Muslim who celebrates Ramadan? Heck, you don't have to be religious to know that would be a bit odd. So, then, why is it normal with Christmas?
I'm just wondering.
Oh, its not like I was religious at the time. Thing is, I was a retail manager for Barnes &Noble.
Christmas started planning in August. Christmas started in September/October. Christmas music blared in my ears for hours upon nauseating hours- and then I was expected to shop for gifts for other people, decorate my house, and be f-ing merry about it. No way.
And no, the religious aspect was no consolation either. Just made it worse, since it gave me a 'socially accepted' target to vent at. I used to make up sarcastic carols after-hours in the store, singing: etc., over the loudspeakers. Didn't end there, either. Our collective revulsion reached epic proportions and none of us could be civil after the holiday rush, since none of us enjoyed it.
So for me, it was an emotional, knee-jerk over-exposure kind of thing. Bearing in mind that we're now a high-falutin' "service" economy, I do wonder if thats part of the present reaction.
Why do non-Christians celebrate Christmas? For the same reason that pre-Christians were celebrating Christmas (even if they called it something else such as Yule) thousands of years before Jesus was born. We celebrate Christmas because it is an ancient and beautiful tradition.
And we, all of us, Christians and non-Christians alike, will go on celebrating Christmas because it is an ancient and beautiful tradition long after Political Correctness has ceased to be even a bad memory.
Down with Big Brother. Merry Christ's Mass!
The U.S. Supreme Court has never ruled that public schools must ban the singing of religious Christmas carols or prohibit the distribution of candy canes or Christmas cards.
School officials may refer to a school break in December as “Christmas Vacation” or as a holiday without offending the Constitution.
School officials do not violate the Constitution by closing on religious holidays such as Christmas and Good Friday.
No court has ever held that celebrating Thanksgiving and Christmas as religious holidays requires recognition of all other religious holidays.
The "Three Reindeer Rule" used by the courts requires a municipality to place a sufficient number of secular objects in close enough proximity to the Christmas item (such as a crèche) to render the overall display sufficiently secular. Although the overall display must not convey a message endorsing a particular religion’s view, Christmas displays are not banned as some people believe. Simply put, the courts ask, “Is the municipality celebrating the holiday or promoting religion?
And a Christmas tree is a secular expreession of the holiday.
If you're not Christian then why call it Christams? Why not, as you noted, call it a Yule celebration? Christmas is not an ancient and beautiful tradition dating back thousands of years. Christmas is the celebration of the birth of Jesus - the fleshly incarnation of God. As you also noted, it's "Christ Mass," a mass for Christ. The very word is seeping with religious meaning. And yet this can all be divorced from the celebration? Okay, then, what are you celebrating? That's a better question. If not the birth of our Lord and Savior then what? And if you're celebrating anything but that then why are you insulting Christians and calling it that?
I'm not trying to be obtuse but I am seeking a rational answer. You want to throw a party in December in celebration of something other than the birth of Jesus? Go right ahead but just don't call it Christmas.
I celebrate Christmas not because I believe it was Christ's birthday, but because most of my friends and family celebrate it. It's for the same reason that I celebrate Halloween even though the spiritualist aspect of that holiday also has no meaning for me.
It's a tradition, and that's all I need it to be. If for others it's something more, that's okay too. No skin off my nose.
My neighborhood is well populated with asians. They have more lighted reindeer, nine foot Santa's, three foot lighted candy canes on the lawn, lighted tree spirals, and lights all over the house and the bushes. They will celebrate Christmas because its a fun time for them and their children and it is also their national holiday. And they will wish me a Merry Christmas.
Others are free to celebrate it as a holy day
if they so choose but to limit it to that scenario
is not in the american tradition.
Christmas for everyone. Isn't that the spirit of it all ? Except for Bah, humbug, Scrooge.
Of those who do see it religiously, most would probably be offended if I refused to have anything to do with the Christmas celebration. And, really, why should I? It's a tradition I grew up with and have celebrated most of my life, even if around age 11 or 12 I affirmed to myself I wasn't a Christian.
You want me to give up something I"ve been celebrating almost 3 decades as a non-Christian? Well, sorry, but I won't. There was a time when I obstinately refused to celebrate Christmas, but I finally realized it was much easier to just go ahead and celebrate.
Besides, my wife and son are Catholic. It would seem rather odd if I refused to celebrate with them.
I can look upon other people's religion with tolerance and as an opportunity to understand and appreciate them without sharing their faith.
followed me around for about 4 hours. We're friends.
We talk a lot. He spent a considerable amount of time telling me about Christmas and that he'd seen Santa at the mall. So I suppose I should tell this kid, if its not about Jesus just move along.
Bah, humbug.
And by the way, Merry Christmas
So, no, I'm not some Scrooge when I insist that people at least know what Christmas is really about. It's not about friends, family, presents, egg nog, Santa or anything else. It's about the birth of Jesus and you're doing a diservice to that child by not telling him that. But, you didn't even bother doing that did you? Didn't think it was a good idea to tell him the reason behind it all? Give him a little historical context (as the secularists would call it).
So, good for you for passing the PC line. Keep up the great work.
Merry Christmas.
I still haven't settled on what I'll say when he finally gets around to asking me what I believe about God. Hopefully he'll be older, since I don't like lying to the kid.
I will grant you that the Church did make the 25th the date to compete with the pagan celebrations of old but if evidence suggests that this is about the correct time anyway then that all is secondary.
I think Jesus will excuse me for giving him some free advertising as I sing Silent Night at the office xmas party. I also think he'd probably give me a pass on letting the poor Buddhist kid have his fun without sitting him on my knee and hitting him with some dogma I don't beleive in.
Geez, Kevin, do you really want to keep Christmas all to yourself like some reward for being true to your faith?
I don't want to be flip, but that's just rough man.
I dunno, you know me: "celebrate diversity" and all that crap. ;-)
People rarely require good reasons to have fun.
This is true in other religions too.
I don't like non-Jews celebrating
Hannukah only because it rarely seems sincere. They don't even seem to pay attention to when the holiday occurs (it's over now, so you can all concentrate on Christmas). It looks like most of them mention Hannukah because it's PC. Maybe I should be flattered but all I can think is: Who needs that?
Of course, anyone who wants to join in the tradition of eating deep fried foods for 8 days is welcome!
Just don't blame the Jews if you feel kinda queasy afterwards :)
That's just the blunt truth of it. It's not even a particularly important holiday. This is why I try to remember Rosh Hashanna for my Jewish friends. I don't always manage to but I try.
The only Christmas display that is truly Christian is the nativity scene.
Basically Christmas has returned to its Saturnalian (Winter solstice) roots ie: over-eating, over-drinking and over-indulgance. Its a pagan holiday as it always was...and I find the return to the old ways just deserts for Constantine hijacking it. Why don't Christians put the celebration of Christ where it belongs...ie in March. (Its estimated that thanks to the three changes in calender that this is about the time of Christ's birth.)
PS: I do wish Fox would get rid of that frothing at the mouth pro-IRA moron O'Reily he brings the whole thing down.
If you want to be technical, then a pegan celebration did precede celebrating the birth of Jesus.
If you want to be technical, then commercialism has taken control of the celebration - at least in this society - over the last 50 years.
But then again, looking at the last three sentences, I see humanity's footprints all over the place - and very little of God's.
That's sad.
Now, I was raised Catholic, had differences with them because of wanting to remarry (once again humanity putting their footprints on whatever God says), and yet here's what I always thought summed up Christmas:
"Peace on Earth, and goodwill to all men."
But damn, reading through these comments one wonders if I'm wrong. Surely I am, because it ain't PC to not include all genders when I speak of goodwill to all men!
Peace.
Would he be offended if wished a Merry Christmas by a non-Christian? And unless there was some sort of shibboleth imployed, how would he know he was speaking to an authentic Christian and not someone who was just pretending? Should we make sure, then, who in fact is wishing us a Merry Christmas and how they are celebrating? And then should any Christian be offended when wished a Happy Festivus?
In reality, Christmas means many different things to many different kinds of people. That's cliche, I know and not very original. One cannot complain that Christmas is under siege and then go about telling the world that the way they celebrate the Holiday is not only incorrect, but the fact that they are celebrating at all is offensive.
As someone who, in matters of spirit, considers himself to be part of the "loyal opposition, I continue to celebrate Christmas because it pleases me. And Kevin, there always is the possiblilty that the act of celebrating may lead some to want to know more about the origins of the Holiday. This may bring more people into the welcoming arms of Christian love. If that happens, isn't all the tinsel worth it?
I'm not at all uncomfortable with the jesus folks, the mary folks, the moses folks, the muhamad folks, the buddha folks, the wotan folks, the wicca folks, the joseph smith folks, the yamato folks, the vishnu folks -- plus anybody I couldn't think of off the top of my head -- getting their spiritual jollies and a sackful of shopping mall presents too, on whatever day of the year trips their triggers. It certainly is good for the economy, if you're a retailer or someone whose living depends on how well retailers do at least once a year, and I suppose it smooths you over spiritually. Which it's all about, isn't it?
About this inclusiveness crap. Just because I liked to listen to BB King or Nat King Cole didn't especially mean I wanted to -- or needed to -- be black. And just because Beethoven has always turned me on didn't mean I either have to be German or feel like I was one of Alex de Large's droogs whipping ass in the streets of London.
You like burning candles in memory of Yehuda Maccabi and family beating the shit out of the ancient Syrian Greeks? Go to it.
You want to get with Jesus (on the day the first christians stole from the ancient Roman festival of Lupercalia -- a sort of societally sanctified fuckfest for young men and women of two millenia ago -- then once again, go to it.
You want to combine the two? Some folks already do that. Made it into a sort of chrisnuka, chanumas, or something on that order. (Why not? Who says you can't waste a fir tree in one part of the living room, and burn candles in another part? (Never in the same place, or you'll burn down the house.)
But just remember. The whole idea of religion is supposed to be about exclusiveness, rather than inclusiveness. In other words, you celebrate your particular deity this way or that; cross two fingers over your chest or three fingers; wear your tfillim and tallit in one specific way or another; bend your head to the floor five times a day facing Mecca; clap your hands in a particular way in honor of your dead ancestors. And everyone else is supposed to go to hell, or something on that order.
So why would any of you even want to slop all these observances together into one big, fat, greasy ecumenicism stewpot? If you're going to do that, why bother with any observance at all?
Anyway, celebrate each of your your own way, according to your own fashion. You won't get into my head, nohow and never. But religion is about each of you, not necessarily about all of you.
Right?
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
The others have answered you very well. But just to humor you: Are you a Catholic or a Protestant? If you are a Protestant, then how dare you celebrate Christ's Mass? Do you celebrate Easter? Do you call it Easter (after Ostara, a Norse fertility Goddess)? What names do you give to the days of the week? Sun's Day? Moon's Day? Tyr's Day? Odin's Day? Thor's Day? Frigga's Day? Saturn's Day? Are you an Asatruar? What do you call the months? January (month of Janus)? February (month of purification)? March (month of Mars)? April (month of Aphrodite)? May (month of Maia)? June (month of Juno)? July (month of Julius Caesar)? August (month of Augustus Caesar)? Are you a Roman?
You'd better invent new names for everything if you insist on being so Politically Correct. And I note that the only Christian here or anywhere else who is at all offended by my celebrating Christmas and calling it that is you. Not Catch 22. Not Mark Noonan. Not Wince and Nod. Not Jane M.. Nobody but you. Stop claiming to speak for all Christians. That is insulting to Christians.
As for me, I have always celebrated Christmas and I always will because that is the tradition of my family and friends and of our whole Western culture, and I love the style of it: the tree, colored lights, Santa Claus and his reindeer, giving and getting presents, Nativity scenes, all of it, the whole kit and kaboodle.
I don't celebrate Jewish holidays because that is not the tradition in which I was raised, and a fortiori for the holidays of non-Western religions. I celebrate very few holidays, and I don't celebrate nor refrain from celebrating any holiday in order to be Politically Correct. That's the way I am.
Down with Big Brother. Merry Christ's Mass, 2004 Anno Domini!
That's the classic conumdrum, isn't it. God (and yes, by capitalizing the word I mean to imply I believe in this entity) is something a human being simply cannot fully comprehend. Yet we strive to, and create religions because of it. A religion based on humanity's interpretation of something a human can never full conprehend.
If one believes in the New Testament, or at least believes that Jesus' words hold alot of value, then one has to accept that those words - and actions - literally SCREAM for inclusiveness! Yet humanity somehow always manages to shoot itself in the foot, time and again, and it comes out as being exclusive.
Guess that's what makes God immortal and human beings merely mortal.
But all the rest of us are only mortal.
(At least until someone figures out not only how to clone our bodies, but to transmit all the data in our memories to a replacement brain that would first have been wiped clean, like a reformated hard drive of very large capacity and very great complexity.)
That being the case, it's always going to hard for us mortals to get together with anyone or anything that's immortal. Sort of like the Highlander eternally wandering the streets of this or that city with his hidden sword of all but magical powers.
And if this god idea made man in his own image, why is he immortal and the rest of us are doomed to die, just like so many salted mackerel?
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
I am fed up with political correctness.
A Fuckfest Arnold? You managed to offend me. I like a nice fuck with a man I love. I don't like to have a man I like for his excellent writing style come in and lay down your thoughts like that of Jesus, Mary and not even capitolize their names like you would my name, Mary Janelle. Nor do I personally, think some other christians, and faith believer's care about, what I believe you menat by Soddom and Gohmorra, or when Moses came down to the calamity after receiving, The Ten Commandments. That got to me in a bad way. I know you do not believe in God as many others but offend!?!
Being inclonclusive can be a legal term many times, and I think we are heading into a bad final result if this political correctness of buffalo dung doesn't STOP!
It took a while for Christmas to get it's roots here in America. A christian man, Christopher Columbus, bible believer, that believed in Jesus brought the bible over. He didn't get the tradition or his belief in the birth of Jesus started, but passed his thoughts to his Indian maiden about Christmas. It took years to come about in America and it was Pegans and christians/protestants and catholics to get it going. It had taken hold as mentioned above back in Rome and then of course it was thought the birth of Jesus was around the 25th, but quickly spread like grass a fire! WE, THE PEOPLE started a date we felt was good and yes I mean before AD and the Pope. But us mere humans made that the day we would celebrate.
Is it no wonder each of our parents generations wish their kids didn't have to go through things? Well, we do and I feel I owe it to my parents rather I believe in God or not to fight this. I was a believer as a young child and then had my periods where I simply didn't know, or did not believe in God. This holiday tradition, celebration and yes, to Catholics and Protestants and even Jews for Jesus, we hold this day dear to us.
I'm like a few here that have been bold and said they were christians or catholics and it is not just them that I am taking an issue for keeping Christmas. We do have to draw lines. Gosh, I've got little grandchildren that love Christmas, some think of Christ and some do not and I am fif, ahh, fif...ty somehtin' and that is still young as far as I know. I do not like this political stuff and buffalo dung raining on any of my grandchildren or children that do believe in God, Jesus/Christmas, oh and parents that still love talking about Santa Clause on December 25th!
This angers me big time like taking God out of courts, hallways of schools and our money. GADS, STOP and Think about Christmas from just 50 years ago. Sure the beautiful Christmas songs are played over and over and over to much and waaaayyyy tooo early but the economy is on people minds even in August. I do feel for you if you work retail and have to listen all that time, I do really. Hope you can listen and go home and just play things that ease you other than the music until maybe Christmas Eve.
If this gets out of hands and starts rolling like a snowball we will have the politically correct running around like the democrats and republicans stealing Santa Clause, reindeer's, lights, ornaments from homes like we saw in this last election with politicians sign in peoples front lawns.....I ain't follin! Stop and think about the words Joes used caused I agreed, if that matters cause people,...
.... I am mad and tired of this nonsense!!
The reason that this bothers me isn't really the battle over Christmas, though that's when it reaches its fever pitch- but rather, the rest of the time. Children are taught that America was settled by people seeking freedom-but it is rarely said that it was religious freedom- and never said that they were Christians. People are becoming more and more ignorant of the fact that the Constitution was based on a country built on a common morality, not to mention Western civilization itself being preserved in tiny niches of monastic learning all through the Dark Ages. How can Augustine and Kant be interpreted if taken out of historical (religious) context? Or are they just explained away as dead white Christian men?
Like it or not, if one wants to know how we got where we are, Christianity is central. Jesus believed in the individual, in equality, in human rights, in helping those less fortunate. Why the ACLU doesn't make him their poster boy is beyond me.
I don't have kids but raised my sister and don't remember the schools hiding the fact that the Mayflower hit Plymouth Rock to avoid religious persecution.
But Western Civilization being preserved by the Church during the Dark Ages? !!! The church precipitated the dark ages by sequestering learning behind it's walls. It took heroes like Martin Luther to bring it back to light.
Steven and Arnold, once again, you've said it for me.
I do believe the sacking of Rome and the gradual fall, which happened CA 475 AD would be the cause of the Dark Ages, my friend. In the early Middle Ages, only the religious could read and write, and the Dark Ages lasted nearly a millenium. Give 'em some credit- yes the Church was corrupt before the counter reformation and Martin Luther was much needed, but I think I like English more than Arabic. However, I wouldn't give Martin Luther so much credit as I would Gutenburg and Caxton. After all, there wasn't much to read prior to that. But Luther was a Christian, so my point is still valid. It was good that the Bible began to be printed freely, so people could think for themselves, don't you agree?
You must be one of those who attended a university where Western Civ wasn't required. Also, you might need to check out more than one public school textbook. And, if you "raised your sister", you might wish to check out something more recent, since that implies your sister is grown, or close to it.
Thanks to Gutenburg, Caxton, Luther and a host of others for bringing the bible into the light. Thankfully that light spilled onto Galileo and Socrates, too. They are heros.
Gabi, I made it through Western Civ, World History, World Lit and about 120 more hours of liberal education at Auburn. I'm certainly no longer a scholar, but I remember a thing or two.
What is it that you require in the text? Do you think that they should teach about religion or promote it? I don't think they are avoiding any mention of Jesus. I think they're avoiding holding Jesus above Buddha. Religions are safely taught as social movement in our schools. I don't want Jesus stricken from the dictionaries. I don't think anyone reasonable wants that. I just don't want a textbook serving as a billboard for him.
Thankfully that light spilled onto Galileo and Socrates, too. They are heros.
Excuse me but Socrates lived 400 years BC.
1) I capitolize your name because your are a specific person. But if you suddenly acquired followers who thought you were the messenger of one or more deities, then I would refer to them as the maryjanelle folks. But I'd still refer to you as Mary Janelle. So I'm just being consistent here, like you'd expect of a guy like me.
2) I referred to the lupercalia as a fuckfest. Which is more or less what it was in ancient Rome. My most honest appraisal of what christmas is all about is a shoppingfest. You know me; I calls 'em as I sees 'em. Besides, I wasn't the one who told the early church fathers to swipe a particular Roman holiday and make it over into the faked-up date of birth of their savior.
Here's looking at you, kid.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
I will still tell you Christopher Columbus and the names Dani mentioned are very well known indeed for their pivitol roles in world history. Many fine men and women are of a christian family. It's bad that all of this is going on and yes, it is more than Christmas but the politically correct is gone overboard.
Dani, if you go to the ACLJ, you will find men and women doing what they can to preserve our christians roots and yes, Jesus is there. I listened to a great program about the trees in Florida in one county that could not be put up and Joe brings up what is going on in New Jersey. Could this be a stupid political bunch of horse manure? I don't know, it just has me mad because what in the world is wrong with learning things like, The Ten Commandments and other decent morals we find in the bible???
What would you do with priceless books that had to be copied by hand on animal skin under candleight, Brannon? Would you use those books to teach the masses, or only those who come seeking to learn? Especially when most people were just trying to get enough to eat? Also, I am not referring to the great cathedrals and their pomposity, but the little monks toiling away in the monasteries. There is a big difference.
I would accept teaching about the major religions equally. However, to delete references to Christianity from our history is to not understand it. Why does our money say "In God we Trust"? What do teachers tell the kids when they read the Declaration of Independence? Even if the Founders were not all Christian (most were, some were Deists, some atheist), they believed that a moral foundation was essential, and for all practical purposes, it might as well be Christianity.
There has to be order. I'll take Jesus's version over a state-imposed variety any day. Remember, autonomy means self-rule. If we don't rule ourselves, the government will.
Thankfully that light spilled onto Galileo and Socrates, too. They are heros.
Ha ha ha ha ha haha, hahahaha... Ahh... Ha ha ha, hahahaha, HA!
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!! HAHAHAHAHA HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! HAHAHAHA!
Ha, ha, ha... <pausing to catch my breath>
Ahaha, hahahahahaha, ha... Whoof! Ha, ha, ha, ha...
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! Oh... Oh, Lord... Ha, ha, ha...
Oh... Ha, ha, ha, haha... Can't... stop laughing... HAHAHAHAHA!!
Apart from that... ummmmm, What Catch 22 said.
(Ha... Ha, ha, ha... Oh... HAHAHAHAHA!)
Since it's you, arnold, I'll let you get away with it, in contravention of ordinary English usage. I wouldn't let anyone else get away with it. But I am willing to make certain allowances for arnold harris, who does in such instances come across rather like a cross between H.L. Mencken and ee cummings. :)
It also astounds me that people don't think they're being bigoted or prejudiced when they say things like that off the top of their heads--as if religious bigotry and prejudice were never a force for evil in the world, so they figure they can just say flip things like that about Christianity and no one will call them on it.
Christianity did not cause the dark ages. Period. Christianity was the only force that kept civilization alive for over a thousand years of darkness in the West.
Jesus wept.
How do you even start to unravel a statement like that?
Now, to delete references to Christianity would be a travesty no different than hiding Plato away in a locked box. I'm not asking for a reverse rennaissance. Christians deserve credit for correcting many of their own mistakes and they deserve their due for founding the greatest nation in history. I wouldn't dare suggest we re-write that history.
You said, "There has to be order. I'll take Jesus's version over a state-imposed variety any day. Remember, autonomy means self-rule. If we don't rule ourselves, the government will."
Are you suggesting that we should pick a state religion and follow it? I'll take any state before I see state imposed religion, but that's just me. I just want to make sure that kids are taught religion in a historical perspective. If a teacher can sell it, I guess he's got a right to his opinion. I just don't want to see a Hindu teacher forced to promote Christianity at the behest of the state.
Even if you're not Irish, read "how the Irish saved Civilization". You'll laugh at some points, be shocked at others (the Celts were, uh, straightforward in their ideas of sexuality!) It helps put the whole thing in perspective. Two other books by Thomas Cahill that are really accessible are "the Gifts of the Jews" and the "Desire of the Everlasting Hills". I think he has a gift from removing the politics and dogma from the facts and feelings that go straight to the heart of the matter.
If Dean doesn't award you a green border for that last comment of yours, I will. That has got to be one of the finest statements I've ever seen here on Dean's World of... well, of how [o]ur Western civilization, like a cathedral, is an intricate structure built on many such butresses and foundations, layers upon layers, the Greek and the Roman, the Jewish, the Catholic, and the Protestant, the Celtic, the Norse, the Germanic, and the Anglo-Saxon...
Now if only someone could explain to me why so many of the other commenters in this thread talk as if those various layers of Western civilization either could or should have grown up in hermetically sealed isolation from one another. As if somehow the Christian feast of Christ's Incarnation were diminished because its history as a holiday is not hermetically sealed off in grand plastic-bubble-world isolation from all other historical layers and currents.
Seems to me that's not a very incarnational attitude to take toward Christmas and its history. Indeed, it seems quite docetic. I heartily dislike the commercialization of Christmas. But if, as I maintain in faith, the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, then I see no reason to expect that the Christian holiday celebrating that incarnation should somehow have arisen and developed in a manner docetically aloof from world history.
(And folks, if you don't know what the word "docetic" means, or what it connotes when used more broadly in a theological context, well, go look it up yourself, don't pester me. I've about had it with people who make the same old cheap shots over and over and over again, as if they (and we) didn't already know better.)
Steven, once again, thank you: you deserve a green border for your comment.
Like my dear old Dad used to say, a dyed in the wool Slovenian Catholic coal miner (you had to believe in God to go into Hell every day)- "Any religion that teaches good, is a good religion." As Dean stated above (and he's not Christian) we're just tired of being cast as intolerant and cruel. I'm on the board of a Catholic hospital where everyone works their tails off to make enough money to take care of the uninsured and I am absolutely sick to death of people blasting Christians. We don't ask for an "I'm a Believer" card when a trauma patient rolls through the ER door.
I won't let them off the hook for it. It's astounding to me that there's not more mistrust for the current religious weather in the country. But hey, you guys have already outed me as an alarmist.
First forum I've delved into where I've been put in the corner as the idiot/whipping boy. It is a good thing to be confronted with reasonable arguments unaccompanied by a rash of scripture which is what I'm used to, honestly. It's good. But it ain't been fun all the time.
Paul, you wound me.
Paul, you wound me.
No, you've been shooting yourself in the foot, repeatedly and quite effectively, with no help from me. :)
I'm guilty of throwing around some gross generalizations to make a point. Chalk it up to poor writing. I'm wise enough to know that Christians are responsible for wonderful works. You can see it everywhere. I've said myself, that if you follow what you believe Jesus says to do, what can you do but good? It's when men decide that they know what he says for me to do that worries me.
I don't necessarily ascribe to the idea that if you remove religion you get communism or some such. I could easily argue that when you put it in, you get Iran or Afghanistan and I am not picking on Muslims when I say that.
I think the democratic process, the constitution and the bill of rights, does a wonderful job of making sure that guys like me get a say and you get to keep Christmas if you want to. I don't think it necessarily needs any more religion than it's already got, though.
If you were taught this at University, Brannon, then it only illustrates just how strong and pervasive the Christian-bashing bias has become at our major universities.
Let's start unravelling this, shall we?
1) There was never any point in history when "the masses" could read--either before or after Christianity. Bringing literacy to the masses became a mission mostly of Protestant missionaries, and we almost certainly wouldn't have near-universal literacy in the U.S. were it not for Christian influence.
2) Prior to the printing press, just having written tomes of any kind was only possible for an elite few. Accusing the church of "locking away" books is rather silly; when any book was worth a king's ransom, what did you expect them to do, leave them laying around for just anyone to maul?
3) It is certainly the case that the church did at times destroy tomes it did not like. You will, however, find that every major civilization has had people guilty of that same thing. It's hardly unique to Christianity, and it's not even unique to secular societies. Sometimes, those in charge had an agenda and they wanted to destroy writings that conflicted with that. It is HARDLY something you can blame on religion in general or Christianity in specific.
4) The simple fact of the matter is that Christian monks were the people primarily responsible for the preservation of practically ALL we have of the ancient Greek and Roman and Egyptian scholars. Without them, almost all of those works would have been lost to humanity forever. Not becuase they were "locking them up to keep them from the masses," but because they were the ONLY PEOPLE IN THE WORLD who were actively making any effort to preserve them.
We'll get into the subject of torture and crusades and such some other time. But that anyone isn't aware of these basic facts of history, once again, speaks VERY poorly to just how rabidly anti-Christian so much of our university system has become.
It's not just you. I've seen this rabid anti-Christian, anti-religious ideology up close and personal in modern universities. It's disturbing--in fact, it's downright Orwellian.
We likely would have little of Aristotle, Plato, Homer, Socrates, Livy, or countless other scholars of antiquity were it not for the Christians.
Clearly he points out the reality of the Promethean will in today’s society and the notion that the liberty of personal volition is the only absolute to which any “value” higher than personal choice must be relegated as well as any notion of any possible transcendent Good.
Surely, he feels society must thus be secured against the intrusions of the Good, or of God, so that its citizens may determine their own lives by the choices they make.
The scenario that he describes however may well be the abyss, over which presides the empty, inviolable authority of the individual will, whose impulses and decisions may well have lost their own moral roots. None-the-less, he marches on with his negativity.
So while Arnold is volleying off his philosophy of do whatever you wish, i.e. I, Arnold hereby proclaim…” the christians stole from the ancient Roman festival of Lupercalia -- a sort of societally sanctified fuckfest.” to “chrisnuka, chanumas, or something on that order,others do not share those values and that they are not Christians does not indicate vindictiveness toward society at large nor or do they proclaim a nihilism of despair toward the negative values Arnold holds most dearly while at the same time announcing he has significant things to offer the reading audience.
This brings up the subject of Christmas. Curiously, it is the one national holiday celebrated throughout this nation that honors the birth of a man who dared remind us of the first commandment, “I am the Lord thy God. Of course that’s not in the Constitution. So who cares about that stuff.
Charles Dickens, “Christmas Carol” seems to express the mood of our national holiday in its secular aspects.
In Dickens story, “the Ghost of Christmas Past” reminds Ebeneezer Scrooge that though his sister died young, she never stopped loving life…
Later, the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come arrives to embark another scenario. Finally, Ebeneezer mends his ways. In the end,
"it was always said of him, that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge. May that be truly said of us, and all of us!
And so, as Tiny Tim observed, God Bless Us, Every One!"
Merry Christmas to All
One notes that doctors under the National Socialist regime in the 1930s and 1940s had a very similar protocol, in part to help purify the German race but also in part because they thought it was cruel to allow the deformed to live.
Some would say they were right about the cruelty part. You make your own call on that; apparently they have in the Netherlands.
My experience, honestly, is that most online forums are a magnet for people who like to bloviate. Bible verse spouters annoy the crap out of me, but so do secularists who cherry-pick the worst examples of Christian word or deed and generalize from there. Most forums wind up dominated by one such party or the other precisely because the loudest and most partis and most obnoxious voices drive everyone else away.
I don't put up with much of that here. And as a liberal (in the classic sense anyway) I simply refuse to put up with excessive generalizations about any group--Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Jewish, Buddhist, atheist, whatever.
Some regulars to this establishment get cut a little more slack than others, I freely admit, but I try to call on people to be reasonable in their argumentation and tolerant of dissent. But if all someone's got to say is that, oh, Bush is a big fat liar liar pants on fire, or atheists are all going to Hell, or Christians are the forces of darkness, or whatever, well, you won't last long here I'm afraid....
I did in fact spend one grand semester on the dark ages, but most of my attitudes were spawned in world literature classes and I guess it shows. There are plenty of folks in the ivory tower very pissed at the church for excising some works they'd like to get their hands on from history.
You're right, it ain't just me. This I know. In my world, I can find more supporters than detractors. I don't want to get voted off the island, here, though! It's your world. I'm just visiting.
Dani: Link works just fine for me. :)
By which I mean, we know Socrates only through the writings of Plato. Sorry, when I start writing in telegraphese which is intelligible only to myself, it's time for me to go to bed.
BTW, Dean, I'm afraid you'll have to— as you put it— "cut me a little more slack," since I freely concede that, in the post above where I was alluding to Socrates and what Catch 22 said, I was indulging in a rare burst of sheer ad hominem laughter. As you well know, I am ordinarily one of the most civil and courteous of the longtime regulars here on Dean's World; but once in a blue moon I do encounter a level of sheer dumbth up with which I will not put.
'Night, all.
Of course, it's not about eliminating suffering. It's economics. It goes without saying that many times I've heard frustrated physicians say, "If this family had to pay for this fruitless care, they would pull the plug". Well, in this case, it's the Netherlands who's paying the bill, and they don't want to. Still, they're not simply "pulling the plug". They are actively killing, and (except for Oregon) we do not accept that here.
Thank God, we still mostly have a culture of life. For the most part, we try to make the best of an often very bad situation. It's a PERSON for Pete's sake! Since when do we take the innocent and say, hey, you're not worth having around? How does that make the rest of us feel? All this talk about abortion being the slippery slope to infanticide, I thought was far-right rhetoric. Not so.
Perhaps "rabid" is the wrong word. Perhaps it should be "dogmatic," or " "closed minded." Or something. All I know is, people in our institutions of higher learning who fancy themselves to be liberals quite frequently say the most vile and vicious things about Christianity that would get them pilloried (or quite possibly suspended or even ejected from the campus) if they said them about just about any other religious group on the planet.
It's pervasive and it's disturbing.
Here you have a religion that is the bulwark of most of the values we hold dear in Western society. From my own philosophical frame of reference, Christianity is ultimately just a marriage of the Hellenistic values of old married to Jewish pragmatism. But to it we must credit much of the greatness of Western civilization: the rule of law (rather than rule of the strong), the concept of mercy, the concept that our rulers themselves have a higher authority they must answer to, the inheritance of the great literature of old... oh Hell I'm just babbling now. What Steven Malcolm Anderson (our resident polytheist who hates extremist Christians like Falwell as much as you do) said it well.
Phrases involving babies and bathwater come to mind here.
There is a very old streak of anti-Catholic bigotry running throughout much of America that we often see at work among today's so-called "liberals." On top of that we have an extreme fear of some extremist Christian groups even though practically everyone knows they're a small minority.
I would fully grant that the likes of Falwell have done much to frighten and offend a lot of people. That said, I think it's important to recognize that his brand of Christianity is hardly orthodox; indeed, it's an almost entirely American form of radical protestantism that the likes of Martin Luther would barely recognize. It has its roots really in a man named John Wesley, an Englishmen whose radical theology made only small impact on the Brits but struck deep roots in America--although Wesley's direct heirs were the rather placid mainline Methodists we know today (a denomination which manages to encompass both Hillary Rodham Clinton and George W. Bush), his style and his general mentality of individuals reading the Bible and making up their own minds about everything struck deep roots in the American heartland.
And note that it is this rather radical liberal tradition on the Bible--the notion that anyone could just pick up the Bible and, absent any historical context, interpret it correctly--is what resulted in the tent-show revivals, the Mary Baker Eddys, and what we generally call "fundamentalism" these days.
Interestingly enough, it has become generally accepted wisdom that this radical fundamentalism (ala Jerry Falwell) is something new to American politics, and a looming threat. Well, threat I suppose it may be (depending on your perspective) but it's hardly anything new. I would argue that this movement saw its real political apogee at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th, when the Democratic Party thrice-nominated the great William Jennings Bryan. It kind of petered out for a while, but sprang back to life with the advent of the televangelist.
The greatest irony of all being that these people are so frequently called "conservative" when in fact their views are quite radical. The true conservatives are the faithful Catholics, the faithful Orthodox, and the faithful mainline Lutherans, Presbyterians, Methodists, and related denominations. The radicals are the Baptists, the Pentacostalists, the Quakers, the Christian Scientists, the Jehovah's Witnesses, and so on.
And the point is, this level of Christian involvement in our politics has always, always, always been with us. It's never gone away. Jimmy Carter was a Baptist minister for God's sake, and embraced radicalism to the point where he was the first President to openly proclaim himself "born again." But he wasn't our first Baptist President--I believe that would have been Harry Truman, who all but had the Bible memorized and could spout chapter and verse to suit almost any occasion. Then of course there was Bill Clinton, who seemed to spend at least half his life as a politician in churches and couldn't get enough of praying in public while he was President.
Our whole view of the role of Christianity in our politics throughout history has gotten really badly futzed up these last few generations. I think it really started in the universities in the mid-20th century and has only grown since then.
Dani, that is troubling and the best argument I've seen yet. That kid had every right to throw up the nativity scene when a menorah is right down the hall. I think the kid has a right to throw up what he wants. If all the kids were expected to throw up a nativity, well that's different.
That being said, what do we do if he wants to throw up a swastika on the wall?
For the record, I'm amazed that you guys caught me on that bit about Socrates. Didn't change the message, but did make me look silly. Thanks for keeping me humble. Now let me go brush up on my Greek literature...
Dean, I'll try not to bloviate and, obviously, I won't dominate. Smarter men than me abound here.
Thank you!
Brannon:
Thank you, too. It's good to see you here. You're coming from a quite different angle than most of us, but we're converging on the point of individual freedom. This is a wonderful dialectic going on here.
As to a swastika, that would be a difficult question. As you may or may not know, Hitler did NOT invent the swastika but appropriated it for his profane purposes. The swastika is an ancient symbol, used in every culture, on every continent, in every age, since prehistory, including by the Jewish people. It symbolized the revolution of the Sun, the union of male and female, many things. It was venerated as sacred. It is still in use in many cultures today.
I can picture with ease, therefore, a Hindu, Buddhist, or Native American youth using the swastika in a painting. He or she would inevitably be misunderstood, perceived as anti-Semitic, perhaps with tragic consequences. The teachers would have to deal with the situation with utmost skill. The solution is difficult.
Hitler's main innovation--if you can call it that--was to tilt it 45 degrees and put it inside a white circle. Oh, and he standardized bending the arms clockwise instead of counterclockwise.
I would think it would be a wonderful educational opportunity if a kid put up a swastika that was a genuine cultural indicator for his family and religion. Great way to educate kids on the nature of symbols and how a lot of their meaning is imposed by culture rather than anything innate in them. The truth of the matter is the swastika is a very neat-looking emblem--although I don't expect any Holocaust survivors to see it that way (too emotional and too personal) but almost anyone else can see that, purely as a symbol, it's kind of cool looking and not inherently evil.
Twas' the night before Christmas and all through Dean's house, many a commentor were stirring around Dean's blog, with just a little click from their mouse...
The thoughts and the sentences were written with care in hopes of Da Dean would come along and be there...
All of their children, or little animals, we felt they were all nestled in bed, so we could do writings out of our heads...
Then as each one sat back, to make sure what they said, some had sugar plum fairies in their heads... and some wore long a winter's cap...
When all of a sudden...
Paul said to Steven- You deserve a green bow, cause you are never a heathen!
I got up from my old lazy boy chair, to give a brush to Major Pips hair...
All of a sudden I just knew I had to get back and... Away to my chair I flew like a flash,
I'ts not very funny to see a cat crash...
When what to my eyes should appear? There was Dani to say, "Now you kept me up, I just said good night.
Well, I just knew there would be no reason to figure who was right....so I whistled and shouted through the sphere...
Now Dani, now DavidD, now Catch22, now Monomer, now DanD, now Janelle, now Dean and you too Red Nose arnold, Let's dash away, dash away back in time to Galileo, Soccrotes for a short stay and blast to the present and ALL SAY, Merry Christmas to ALL and To ALL A GOOD NIGHT! AND MAY CHRIST-MAS STILL BE HERE IN ANOTHER YEAR, SO WE CAN ALL DRINK A LITTLE CHEER!
The thoughts of the commentor's
Turn it into whatever you like but unless you are celebrating the birth of Christ you're not celebrating Christmas. Go ahead and and celebrate whatever secular holiday (if that isn't a contradiction in terms I don't know what is) or pagan festival that Christmas somehow ripped off - but it ain't Christmas. And since I'm not celebrating a pagan belief, even if my religious holy day happens to be in the same general time frame, the "Christians ripped off (blank) holiday" is irrelevant.
So, again, if you're not throwing a birthday for Jesus on the 25th it isn't Christmas. Period.
I picked the swastika because when I lived in Korea on one of my working vacations, I was surprised to see it all over the place.
I'm sure the situation exist where a Korean kid could put up his swastika and cause a real stink. It's not the symbol that causes the problem, it's the sentiment behind the symbol. Just like profanity.
Kevin, I tell you what, I'm going to wrap gifts and give them away in pretty paper on the 25th and call it Christmas because I don't have anything else to call it and I'll tip my hat to the fact I've co-opted your holiday. I feel bad that you feel bad. Festivus would be great name for it, but Kramer already thought of that one...
I've got a little bit each of HL Mencken, EE Cummings, Philip Wylie, and Damon Runyon too. Plus a lot of other original sources whom most people with short memories wouldn't know about.
I'm really not trying to dig into anybody's particular religion by tagging them as jesus folk, mary folk, moses folk, muhamad folk, buddha folk, vishnu folk, wotan folk, joseph smith folk, yamato folk, or whatever. It's just that I have what I hope is the orderly mind of a typologist or database programmer. So for convenience sake, I categorize each group by whomever they talk about the most in their holy literature, services, cosmology, whatever.
Seems to me after about 70 years of working with, serving in the army with, being related to, and sometimes arguing with numbers of these folks of all types, that roman catholics talk mostly about Mary, ostensibly the mother of the son of their god, while protestants talk mostly about Jesus, the son of their god. And that jews talk mostly about Moses, the prophet of their god; and that muslims talk mostly about Muhamad, the prophet of their god; and that latter dsy saints (mormons) talk mostly about Joseph Smith, the prophet of their god. So that's the way I try to non-discrinationally tag all you guys and girls.
Do I have any favorites among them? Well, yes and no. Strictly because I'm still basically a jacksonian kind of guy, I favor the jesus folks over the mary folks because they tend to emphasize the free will that all people have to get salvation through their own actions or lose it through their own failures; something about that attitude reminds me of the hardscrabble kind of people who built this country and made it great. That, plus the fact that the priestly hierarchy of the mary folks turn me off by the way so many of them cheat their own vows to sexually molest children. I also admire the joseph smith folk; a know a lot of them and I like the way they keep their families together and don't get hooked by hooked by drugs, or even Coca-Cola.
Now, about the ancient chiefs of the mary folks taking over the Roman lupercalia by simply saying, "Children, henceforth, December 25 shall be considered the birthday of our lord and savior, Jesus". (Or something on that order.) You are undoubtedly a better historian of religion than anyone else on this blogsite. And you ought to be, because you're an ordained and practicing minister. So tell me if I'm very much wrong about the way the old time church fathers copped lupercalia from the vestal virgin folks.
Brannon, you've got a pretty good handle on the history of civilization as affected by the rise to supreme power of the church hierarcy all over Europe, before Hus, Luther, Calvin and the other greats of the protestant reformation could blow away papist control from much of western and northern Europe. So instead of repeating what you wrote, I'll just say "amen".
Now for the rest of you. What's so bad about christmas, chanuka, and all the variants and combinations of these being an excuse for a vast annual shopping fest? It's the American thing to do, isn't it? Or do you want 30 days of churchly solemnity, no retail sales (and no production and no paychecks) and no fun?
As for the Lupercalia (the real thing). My understanding of it was that it was a sort of Latin Oktoberfest, without the bayerische bierstuben, combined with ancient open-air versions of the modern dances that utilize strobe lights, hot music and dark settings to facilitate modern preparations for hot sex and other aspects of mating.
In short, a fuckfest. Which was exactly what drove the early leaders of the jesus and mary folks right up the wall with grief, shock, indignity, anger, and determination to clean it all of the public slate. Because they didn't like sex of any kind. Which, I think, is part of the reason they stole the festival and worked to change its meaning.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
BTW, arnold, when you say you're not doing it as a dig, I sorta suspect you're pulling my leg. Oh, well. I guess the leg-pulling is mutual. ;)
(Oh, and on a completely different tangent... brain "wiped clean, like a reformatted hard drive"? I think I have to claim priority on that idea, by a good 36 hours...)
Back for more again, I see. Well, I'll just repeat what I said: By your logic, if you aren't worshipping the Moon, you can't call today Monday. And if you aren't worshipping the One-Handed God, you can't call tomorrow Tuesday. Nor is this actually the tenth month. And on and on and on and on.... Anyway, I'll wish even you, Mr. Scrooge, a Merry Christmas!
Arnold Harris's taxonomy of religions is extremely interesting. I'm stylistically closer to the Mary folk myself, as well as a lot of my family on my Mama's side in that particular faith. About that free will thing: Ironically, Jean Calvin's singular contribution to Protestant theology was his systematic denial of free will, his doctrine of predestination. I've always been fascinated by Calvinism, one of the things I most love to hate. It's what Dean once called "maltheism".
Anyway, Merry Christmas to Dean and to the Queen (and to their Princes), to Arnold Harris, to Janelle, to Paul Burgess, to Brannon, to Catch 22, to Dani, and each and all of you who who have been writing or reading this wonderful thread!
On the other hand, one ought not to carry this to far, and being a Menckenite, sort of, I am mindful of his admonition:
"The advantages of spelling reform have always been greatly exaggerated by its exponents, many of whom have been notable over-earnest and under-humorous men," noted H.L. Mencken in an extended review of the movement contained in his "The American Language" book series. Many of their new formations looked more to the public like ignorance than innovation, Mencken observed, while their precise estimates of labor reductions and savings in the costs of paper and printing materials that would result from simpler spelling were "so feeble as to be silly."
(From an online review of the efforts of Joseph Medill and Colonel Robert R McCormick, long-time editors and publishers of the Chicago Tribune, to simply spelling of the English language. McCormick was one of my favorite great men when I was growing up in Chicago, but if they had followed his own spelling rules, he would have been known for eternity as Kernl Robert R McKormik.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
I haven't stumbled into a nest of better read people than me since I climbed out of the ivory tower 9 years ago. Very instructive you have been.
Dean, Arnold, Steven, Dani, Kevin one and all. Merry Christmas. Paul you, too...I think. ;-)
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
By the way, you're right about those Wisconsin goodies...
Brannon
Fox Lake, IL
Or perhaps (idea stolen, I think, from C.S. Lewis) I should wish a Merry Christmas to those of us who will be celebrating the day as the feast of the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ; and to everyone else, a Merry Xmas! ;)
Arnold: Mencken's three volumes on the American Language reside on my shelf of favorite books, and I sometimes dip into them as bedtime reading material. Fascinating stuff! In a small but real way, we would be living in a better world today if more of today's English professors were more like Mencken, and less like the latest trendy import from Paris.
Brannon: Welcome to Dean's World, and I hope no hard feelings. Many of us here are longtime commenters— Arnold Harris and I have been regulars here for over two years now, and many of the others for almost as long. In the usual scheme of things (of which this thread is somewhat atypical) Arnold Harris is the hardheaded and bluntly spoken one; Steven Malcolm Anderson is the master of colorful statements of nigh-incantatory force and style; I am the (usually!!!) unfailingly civil efflorescent noneuclidean right-wing refugee from the Sixties; and so on. This is a great site, with a great host and a great cast of supporting characters. Hope you enjoy it!
I'm an agnostic originally from South Alabama raised in the Church of Christ by a deacon and his wife. Believe me, the skin is thick.
In the scheme of things I'll probably wind up with the hard-headed, opinionated, redneck who shed his skin status but for now I'll take FNG. Here but to learn, go I.
Arnold:
"Paul, one of things I thought was neat about Israeli Hebrew alphabet that Stefi and I studied in Jerusalem was not only that it lacked vowels but also differentiation between capital and lower case letters. I thought that represented a grade-A improvement in orthography."
With all due respect... I simply don't believe you're being sincere here.
Why? Because you don't practice what you preach. Or at least you are not very consistant - and only refuse to capitalize when it suits you. Why do I say that? Because I've noticed that every single one of your comments is signed by you - and capitalized. "Jesus" and "Mary" are referring to specific human beings - like yourself.
When a person speaks in very thoughtful ways (like you) yet throws out such an constant inconsistancy (now Kevin, THERE'S a contradiction in terms!)... when a person capitalizes other specific names like H. L. Menckin, Joeseph Medill, et. al. but yet still refuses to capitalize others... well, I suspect you and Clinton would have gotten along very well! Sorry sir, but just because you say it - even say it enough times - it does not follow that you are telling the truth.
Again Arnold, I say this with respect. You're too smart to be doing these things unconsciously.
Kevin:
Believe it or not, I side with you on this issue. in MY life, Christmas is all about celebrating the birth of Jesus. But Jesus also spoke at length about two things: tolerance and acts of charity. How best to celebrate it than by acting in accordance with what he preached?
WWJD? (For those who have never seen this acronym it means "what would Jesus do".) Or more to the point here - what would Jesus feel?
A human being simply cannot say with certainty. After all, in human terms Jesus died almost two millenia ago. In superhuman terms it should be even more appearant that a human cannot speak for Jesus. But he did leave clues... and I'd suspect his primary emotion would be one of sadness over the commerialization of his birthday. But I also suspect there'd be quite a bit of tolerance too. Remember Kevin, the greatest gift God gave humanity is free will.
Again, peace. And Merry Christmas to all. Oh, and Happy Holidays too!
I think that in describing christians, muslims and jews, this descriptive typology makes sense grammatically. For example, there are how many branches of christianity, judaism, islam? You have catholics (multiple kinds), protestants (numerous kinds), orthodox christians (one separate church body for each orthodox country), judaism (three main branches), muslim (at least two main branches), etc.
And yes, I think catholics focus mainly on mary and that protestant christians focus mainly on jesus. Maybe that's part of the reason the jesus folks consciously broke away from the mary folks 500 years ago.
So I write about these religious and other devotional phenomena more or less the way archaeologists and prehistoric cultural anthropologists write about a battle-axe culture, a beaker culture, etc. If I were referring generically to people like us doing what we are doing on this particular blogsite, I'd refer to us as deansworld folks.
When writing about the various world religions, a typologist describes organized phenomena in which he or she may or may not share any belief whatsoever. And why not? I think that if any of these deities were likely to exist, then multiple gods would be just as valid as a single omnipotent one.
And no, I don't do much of anything unconsciously except breath, sleep, dream and enjoy Point Special beer (when I don't have to drive somewhere to drink it).
One more thing. Anyone of a number of deansworld folks who have read my comments over the past couple of years could assure you, that if my intent were to insult you about religion, politics, or anything else, you wouldn't have to decode my stuff for hidden intent. I'm about as up-front as they come.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
Enquiring minds want to know.
Touché! I think on this issue of decapitalization, Arnold is just pulling our legs. With a very straight face.
And I think DaveD, up above, sums it up very well. Whether Arnold is willing to admit it openly or not, Arnold decapitalizes pretty much when and only when it fits his agenda.
Paul, thanks for agreeing with what I said. Like you, I believe Arnold has an agenda. We all do. It's quite alright too.
On the matter of agendas and listening, my rules are usually this:
(1) As long as the words and tone are not offensive or antagonistic, I listen and try to understand what the speaker is saying. Once that line is crossed however, I have every right to simply shut the speaker off.
(2) Everyone has an agenda. Everyone has a "spin". The trick is to cut through that BS - properly, with mutual respect, but still calling it for what it is - and listen to the other person while trying to put yourself in their shoes.
In Arnold's case? He is WELL within those boundaries. Believe me, I know I can learn alot from him.
"Ayn Rand authored 'the Fountainhead'."
And no, I don't worship her or her stuff either. She's just one of my many strong influences.
Paul, if I really wanted to pull your leg, I'd send all of you guys Lupercalia cards, (or lupercalian cards, if you want me to be really consistent).
(Maybe I'd better shut up about that, or SMA the polytheist will design one, and in no time at all, we'll be out battling you all with some good old fashioned roman rationality.
Dave, why in hell would I want to act offensively about what anyone else thinks, as long they don't try to crowd me with their own values, beliefs and dreams?
Besides, there's a lot I admire in the value systems of most of you.
The jesus folks were the ones who largely crossed this continent when it was raw and sometimes dangerous, and fought to build a free commonwealth here under the aegis of a great age of reason.
The mary folks, despite their hierarchy, served to keep classical civilization alive throughout the centuries following the collapse of roman civilization.
The moses folks introduced banking to Europe in the middle ages, and had the tenacity to re-establish their ancient homeland and to learn to fight for it.
The joseph smith folks are the closest american equivalent to the moses folks, and built their own Israel in the heart of the Wasatch mountains after 1846, following vicious persecutions in the midwest.
In any case, who am I to say there could not in fact be a god or a bunch of gods that really put all this together? When you start saying "that's impossible" is when you get into intellectual trouble. "Likely", "unlikely", "unknown under present circumstances"? That's more my temperament and style.
The funny thing is, all the dreams of the believers seem to have the same threads of the overwhelming desire for human redemption. And perhaps finding grace in death that they never achieved in life.
Even if there had never been a Moses, a Jesus, a Muhamad, a Buddha, a Joseph Smith, et al, their stories and the retelling of those stories through time, would have been among the most powerful dramas ever absorbed by human minds.
And what this tells me is that most humankind, in the end, seeks to do good and to overcome evil. Even if they frequently create more evil in the process of following their dreams and aspirations. So even for those of us who have no particular beliefs, this tells us something powerful about our extended family of humankind.
So merry Christmas, happy Chanuka, overwhelming shoppingfest, gratifying Lupercalia. Or whatever in particular trips each of your triggers in late December.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
By the way. I've seen hundreds of churches of St Mary of the the this or that. But never an RC church of Jesus. So I have to assume that's purposeful and not accidental.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
*In Catholic theology as I understand it, Mary was not the Co-Creatrix of the Universe, but She is the Co-Redemptrix with the Christ, sharing in His Passion, and She is called the Queen of Heaven as well as the Mother of God. That's good enough for me. I love the _style_ of that. Catholics should stop apologizing to Protestants for the way they exalt Mary.
By the way, "Xmas" is not a modern atheistic invention but was rather a medieval shorthand for Christmas, the "X" symbolizing the Cross of Christ.
Anyway!.... Once again, Merry Christmas! to each and all of you....
"Arnold, if you wrote a book, I'd buy it."
So would I.
What more could you ask for?
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb
That it means the cross of Christ is very highly speculative if not outright erroneous.
In greek, the term XPI means Christ or Christos.
Thence abbreviated XPI = X
Merry X-mas means Merry Christ-mas.
N'est pas ?
Very good. My faux pas. I had thought it stood for the Cross. I stand corrected. Thank you.
Thence X-mas.
May the Peace of Christ be with you.
Ah hell. Who cares? Merry Christmas.