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Last , and most important to me personally, is that ending Christmas as a legal holiday would force those of us who are Christians to identify ourselves as such. All Christians - practicing or nominal - would be faced with the decision to take Dec. 24 and 25 as personal days. How many would honor their faith and respect their traditions by doing so?

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Originally posted by Causal:
Speaking as a Christian, I would say, no, I probably would not. And here's why: Christianity (Biblical Christianity, that is) doesn't have special days. Yes, that's right: no special days. You will not find a New Testament reference to celebrating Christmas, or Easter, or Good Friday, or any other special day. That's because Christianity as biblically expressed isn't a ritual-heavy religion. The only real rituals prescribed are baptism and communion.

Reason 2: Christmas isn't about Jesus--it's about putting down pagan religious practices (historically speaking) and about consumerism (speaking contemporarily). Most scholars (conservative and otherwise) agree that Jesus was not born on December 25th. But guess who was? Sol Invictus, the Roman God of the Undefeated Sun, whose birth was celebrated every December the 25th in a celebration called Saturnalia, during which Romans gave gifts to one another and decorated their temples with greenery. So if you've recently been named the official state religion of the Roman Empire (380 CE), and you want to stamp out the pagan religions, do you persecute them? Of course not! That will only encourage them. Instead, you co-opt their holidays and make them your own.

So, I guess, no, I would not take days off work. Because biblical Christian doesn't command me to. It's a made up holiday meant to help the Roman state consolidate power between the failing Empire and a corrupted church. And it's continued into this century and our culture as an excuse for an orgy of consumerism. I aim to follow in the example of Jesus, and that's got nothing to do with ritualizing days and feasts. It has to do with loving those who are unlovely and reaching out to the poor, the oppressed and the lost.

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Originally posted by citizen:
Hammer meet nail head.

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Originally posted by Amiton:
That being said, all of this talk about the historical symbolism that's associated with December 25th outside of Christianity is nonsense. The holiday being observed is the birth of Christ, whether it happened on that day or not. If there was an actual attempt to nationally or internationally designate *that day* as a generic, non-christian observance would result in a massive backlash, in my estimation. We don't observe Yule (though the term has been bastardized into the Christmas holiday) and we don't celebrate Sol Invectus, despite the reality of the origins of the holiday.

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Originally posted by citizen:

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Originally posted by Amiton:
That being said, all of this talk about the historical symbolism that's associated with December 25th outside of Christianity is nonsense. The holiday being observed is the birth of Christ, whether it happened on that day or not. If there was an actual attempt to nationally or internationally designate *that day* as a generic, non-christian observance would result in a massive backlash, in my estimation. We don't observe Yule (though the term has been bastardized into the Christmas holiday) and we don't celebrate Sol Invectus, despite the reality of the origins of the holiday.

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Except most of the traditional Christmas rituals are actually traditional pagan rituals and nothing to do with Christianity, so are we really celebrating yule and others as much as Christ?

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Originally posted by Amiton:
If you could find ten percent of the population that was aware of that history, then I would be highly impressed. I think I'd still be impressed if you could find that ten percent in western culture five hundred years ago.

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The observance of the holiday in modern culture is an observance of a Christian Holiday. I don't see a way around that. It was the intention of the celebrants and the government. There are people that write the holiday as xmas, not as shorthand, but out of disdain for the use of the title Christ. Wait, that's right...we *refer* to the holiday as Christmas.

The observance is of a Christian event. Even if you ask most of the non-believers, the day is in observance of the birth of Christ in spite of their beliefs. I would argue that those who observe the holiday as something else are doing so in an effort to not partake in a religious, or at least Christian, tradition, not because it's been that way from the beginning.

Amiton.

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Originally posted by Amiton:
If you could find ten percent of the population that was aware of that history, then I would be highly impressed. I think I'd still be impressed if you could find that ten percent in western culture five hundred years ago.

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Originally posted by Amiton:
The commercial impact

Blaablabla blaa blabla blaaaa Blaablabla blaaa
HAPPY KWANZA

I like Santa

"Battle of Serenity, Mal. Besides Zoe here, how many-" "I'm talkin at you! How many men in your platoon came out of their alive".

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Originally posted by JonnyQuest:
Most of the Christiness was taken out of Christmas long ago with the--dare I say it?--advent of the Saint Nicolas legend, which itself has morphed into a grotesque parody of itself. I'm sitting in the car this morning and again this evening listening to a radio station that has played nothing but Christmas music since before Thanksgiving, and heard one actual Christmas Carol. Hark, the Herald Angels Sing sung by Nat "King" Cole.

You can't on the one hand bemoan it's commercialization and turn around say it's still "Christian".

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Originally posted by Amiton:
I'm not contesting that the application of the holiday hasn't been bastardized. It's been bent, and twisted, and mangled. In spite of all of the non-related traditions that have now been attributed to Christmas, it doesn't change the holiday. There are four December holiday observances, right? (Christmas, Channukah, Ramadan, and Kwnazaa). Why is Christmas special? I don't know.

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Originally posted by Amiton:
I do know that when little kids ask their parents what Christmas is for, and what all the presents are about, they get the Jesus story, even in most non-religious families. That story even probably gets to be a little embellished when the kid starts asking uncomfortable questions like where does Santa come in, and what about the North Pole.

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Originally posted by Amiton:
Maybe I live in a fantasy world, but I've never been able to really find any other instance in any of the cities that I've lived in or visited during the holidays. And I don't think it should be that way. I don't think non-Christian families should be put into that situation. I would be *perfectly* happy not having Christmas as a federal holiday (which is more reasonable than having time-off style observance of all of the major groups' holidays), and perhaps having a neutral, generic "Holiday" observance that can have all of the commercialism and trappings that we associate with it now. There's no reason to single Christmas out above all of the other holidays.

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Every Who down in Who-ville, the tall and the small,
Was singing! Without any presents at all!
He HADN'T stopped Christmas from coming!
IT CAME!

Somehow or other, it came just the same!
And the Grinch, with his grinch-feet ice-cold in the snow,
Stood puzzling and puzzling: "How could it be so?
It came without ribbons! It came without tags!
"It came without packages, boxes or bags!"
And he puzzled three hours, `till his puzzler was sore.
Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn't before!
"Maybe Christmas," he thought, "doesn't come from a store.
"Maybe Christmas...perhaps...means a little bit more!"

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Originally posted by Amiton:
I think we'll have to agree to kind of disagree, Finn. It (kind of) seems like we're making the same arguments, only on different sides of the debate - i.e. you're saying it's this way and it works for these reasons, while I'm saying it's broken, or at least a misapplication, for those same reasons.

Machiavelli v. Michelangelo, Sartre v. St. Francis, it breaks down to a matter of perspective, I guess. Then again, I guess most debates do, don't they?

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Originally posted by Finn mac Cumhal:
It’s just baffling to me that anyone would have such a problem with Christmas, of all things. In the end, you’re argument basically boils to the idea that people who practice Christmas should be apologetic for it because there are more of them. But why? It doesn’t make sense to me.

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Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Wow.... another thread about another topic about destroying life as I knew it growing up.

Let the Atheists and Pagans and Muslims have it. I don't want to be around here much longer anyways.

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