| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"L. Raymond" |
| Date: |
25 Dec 2004 11:42:25 PM |
| Object: |
Letter to the editor conundrum |
Boy, I've been really getting steamed over these smarmy, arrogant
editorials about how great Christmas is and how loathsome people who
can't just sit back and enjoy it (like rape) deserve to be spat upon by
the ever-so-wonderful religious folks.
I went through four or five versions of a letter to the newspaper
about these nasty, gibbering apes, trying to get my point across without
being so confrontational that they wouldn't even consider publishing it.
So having done violence to my emotions in print, now I'm just venting.
Anyone else here ever get frustrated, knowing that if you express
yourself against religiosity half so firmly as others promote it you'll
never stand a chance of getting a word in the local paper? One of the
more restrained passages I had to cut was in referring to Christmas as
the "orgiastic display of a religion" which I went on to describe in
rather harsh terms. It made me feel better, but it also guaranteed the
paper wouldn't even touch it.
Well, here's hoping one little voice of dissent will be heard
--
L. Raymond
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| User: "Witziges Rätsel" |
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| Title: Re: Letter to the editor conundrum |
26 Dec 2004 08:20:37 AM |
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Boy, I've been really getting steamed over these smarmy, arrogant
editorials about how great Christmas is and how loathsome people who
can't just sit back and enjoy it (like rape) deserve to be spat upon by
the ever-so-wonderful religious folks.
<snip>
Well, here's hoping one little voice of dissent will be heard
Here's hoping they don't start burning us at the stake like
they did the last time they were in uncontested power.
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| User: "chibiabos" |
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| Title: Re: Letter to the editor conundrum |
26 Dec 2004 05:37:15 AM |
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In article <1kjevedv2mqj8$.pm4f2dsy9zad.dlg@40tude.net>, L. Raymond
<badaddress@mylinuxisp.com> wrote:
Boy, I've been really getting steamed over these smarmy, arrogant
editorials about how great Christmas is and how loathsome people who
can't just sit back and enjoy it (like rape) deserve to be spat upon by
the ever-so-wonderful religious folks.
I went through four or five versions of a letter to the newspaper
about these nasty, gibbering apes, trying to get my point across without
being so confrontational that they wouldn't even consider publishing it.
So having done violence to my emotions in print, now I'm just venting.
Anyone else here ever get frustrated, knowing that if you express
yourself against religiosity half so firmly as others promote it you'll
never stand a chance of getting a word in the local paper? One of the
more restrained passages I had to cut was in referring to Christmas as
the "orgiastic display of a religion" which I went on to describe in
rather harsh terms. It made me feel better, but it also guaranteed the
paper wouldn't even touch it.
Well, here's hoping one little voice of dissent will be heard
Here's one that says it nicely, published in my local fish-wrapper on
Christmas day. I'm posting the whole thing here because you have to
register to read the original:
.......................................
Piggybacking on the winter solstice
Complaining about the secularization of Christmas, as some sources do
in your lead story about "Chrismukkah" (Dec. 19), is like griping about
spirituality lacking in the sunrise siege of stores the morning after
Thanksgiving.
The original celebrations at the end of what we call December have
been, for thousands of years, of the winter solstice. Most serious
scholars agree that if the baby originally known as Yeshua ben-Yussuf
Halevi actually existed -- a big if -- he was almost surely born around
the time we call March, or "spring."
Astronomers agree that the likely explanation of the "Star of
Bethlehem" was a conjunction of two or three planets, Venus most
conspicuously, in the spring of approximately 3 C.E.
The Bible describes shepherds keeping watch over their flocks by night,
something necessary only at lambing time in the spring, to protect the
ewes and their offspring from predators.
Assuming the baby existed, it was born in an outpost of the Roman
Empire, which celebrated the solstice with Saturnalia, a joyous pagan
festival. Poor struggling Christianity, like the cuckoo, laid its
doctrinal eggs in another's nest, to piggyback on the publicity; and
after three or four hundred years, their pope settled on December 25th
as an exploitable date for the birthday.
Solstice has always been the real "reason for the season," but we
atheists -- unlike so many of our religious compatriots -- are a
tolerant lot, and welcome the Christian latecomers to our happily
secular celebration.
James E. Brodhead , Santa Barbara
.......................................
-chib
--
Member of S.M.A.S.H.
Sarcastic Middle-aged Atheists with a Sense of Humor
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