True atheists will not celebarte Christmess...Neither would true Christians

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Topic:	Religions > Atheism
User:	"Rey Deletrina"
Date:	18 Dec 2005 10:19:08 AM
Object:	True atheists will not celebarte Christmess...Neither would true Christians

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*Pagan Feast Day, Mr. O'Reilly*
*Why the right chose the wrong side in the war on Christmas*
*By Kel Munger<http://www.newsreview.com/issues/sacto/authors/kelmunger.asp=

*
Illustration By Mike Gorman
*Santa Claus and his elves probably came from pagan Scandinavian
traditions. The Swedish Julbukk (yule goat) started out as a beast of burde=
n
for Thor, the god of thunder; eventually, it became the transport for the
yule elf, who exchanged gifts for a serving of porridge. Now Santa leaves
presents and takes his milk and cookies.
"Yule" is generally believed to mean "feast." The yule log was a special
piece of wood selected to kick off the winter-solstice feast by lighting a
fire to symbolically encourage the rapid return of the sun. Bits of ash and
burnt wood were saved as talismans to protect the house throughout the next
year.
The Old Testament prophet Jeremiah warned the Israelites against decorating
their homes with cut trees as the pagans did: "Thus saith the LORD, Learn
not the way of the heathen, and be not dismayed at the signs of heaven, for
the heathen are dismayed at them. For the customs of the people are in vain=
;
for one cutteth a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the
workman, with the axe. They deck it with silver and gold; they fasten it
with nails and with hammers, that it move not." (Jeremiah 10:2-4, King Jame=
s
Version) *
*When the sweet, high-pitched voices* of children unite for "You better
watch out / you better not cry" this year, it won't necessarily be because
Santa Claus is coming to town. It's more likely that they're concerned abou=
t
what will happen if the Christmas police catch them saying "Happy Holidays"
or "Season's greetings" instead of "Merry Christmas."
Yep, Bill O'Reilly--he of the "no spin zone"--has his head in a twirl and
his Underalls in a twist over the so-called war on Christmas. He's not
alone, of course; he's been hyping a book by Fox News colleague John Gibson
called *The War on Christmas: How the Liberal Plot to Ban the Sacred
Christian Holiday Is Worse Than You Thought*. O'Reilly's been suggesting to
his faithful viewers that Christians should avoid doing their holiday--oops=
,
I mean Christmas--shopping at stores where employees are encouraged to say
"Happy Holidays" while taking credit cards from consumers who are spending
money they don't have on goods made anywhere but the United States to
celebrate a holiday that's never had a doggone thing to do with
Christianity.
O'Reilly is joined by none other than Jerry Falwell, who's joined with a
conservative legal outfit called the Liberty Counsel to promote the "Friend
or Foe Christmas Campaign" (because if you're not with them, you're against
them; there's no such thing as the holiday equivalent of Switzerland). The
Alliance Defense Fund, best known for fighting any hint of equal rights for
gay folks, is busy promoting its slogan--"Merry Christmas: It's okay to say
it"--while the Committee to Save Merry Christmas is trying to keep the
Christ in Christmas--at least in major department-store advertising.
The good news is that, at least for the time being, O'Reilly is more
interested in what we're saying as we run into friends during the close of
the year than in issuing continued calls for terrorists to bomb San
Francisco's Coit Tower. The bad news is that he is perpetuating a public
fraud. Jesus was *never* the reason for the season, and there are a whole
bunch of perfectly good Christians who don't celebrate this holiday.
For instance, the Puritans--they of the "pure" religion, albeit a bit quick
to light fires under uppity women--outlawed the celebration of Christmas in
Massachusetts Colony. None of that pagan stuff on their watch; Christmas
trees were, quite rightly, relegated to the same heathen pile that containe=
d
maypoles. Jehovah's Witnesses are among the modern-day Christian religions
that do not celebrate Christmas.
See, some Christians actually have the good sense to look into the origins
of holidays before rushing willy-nilly to celebrate them. They know that
whatever modicum of Christian trappings have been used to decorate the
Christmas tree, the holiday itself is the same old mid-winter celebration
using the same old pagan traditions that a whole boatload of pre-Christian
and non-Christian religions have celebrated worldwide ever since people
crawled out of caves long enough to figure out that the sun would come back
in the spring.
My Bible-believing mother would be happy to whack O'Reilly upside the head
and point out that Jesus wasn't even born in December; anybody who can read
a Bible and do simple arithmetic can follow the two methods used to
calculate Christ's probable birth date as occurring much earlier in the
fall. (If you believe Bible accounts: Luke puts the shepherds in their
fields, which would put Jesus' birth in early through mid-October at the
latest; calculating his birth as following that of John the Baptist, which
also uses the book of Luke, also sets it in the fall of the year, providing
that both Elizabeth and Mary had nine-month pregnancies.)
And Jesus never says anything about celebrating his birth. It's all about
the death; his instructions concern commemorating his betrayal, crucifixion
and resurrection.
So, how'd we get Christmas? Well, sometime around the fourth century, churc=
h
fathers decided to celebrate Jesus' birth near the time of the winter
solstice. It might have had something to do with the fact that they couldn'=
t
get the recently converted former pagans to stop decking their halls with
boughs of holly, holding feasts, exchanging gifts, lighting yule fires,
drinking toasts from wassail bowls, kissing under mistletoe and putting up
trees decorated with candles. Folks were in the habit, whether in
celebration of the solstice or remembrance of the birth or rebirth of
deities ranging from Attis to Dionysus to Osiris to Mithra (for those who
don't know their gods, these belong to pre-Christian religions from Roman,
Greek, Egyptian and Persian cultures). Those habits were hard to break, and
the early church decided to take an "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em"
attitude. They dressed the pagan holiday traditions up in Christian clothes
and called it good.
So, what are O'Reilly and his fellow travelers really upset about?
Inclusion. It's that simple. The only way they're happy is if someone gets
left out. Taking it upon themselves to separate the sheep from the goats--a
job Jesus reserves for himself, thank you--they have to keep Christmas all
their own. Never mind that they stole it from pagans, and those are the
people who really ought to be hiring lawyers and screaming bloody murder
about the watering down of their traditions in the name of Christian
supremacy.
It's this commitment to excluding from the holiday everyone who doesn't
match their idea of good Christian Americans that takes O'Reilly and his
minions into the most offensive place of all. If the only way to celebrate
the end-of-the-year holidays is to dress them up in pseudo-Christian
trappings, a whole lot of folks are going to be left out--including some
Christians who refuse to participate in the Christmas mania. And that's the
way O'Reilly and clan like it.
Of course, that's precisely why I hate it.
I was probably 10 or 11 years old before I figured out that "Hark" wasn't
the name of a "hairy angel" who sang. I'd been sitting in the hall outside
the classroom reading a book every December while my classmates practiced
their Christmas carols; through the door, it was easy to misinterpret some
of the lyrics. I got a new coloring book every October so that I'd have
something to do while my peers were using up their orange crayons on
jack-o-lanterns and gluing white cotton for beards to their drawings of
Santa.
It's not that observing and respecting the beliefs of my family was too muc=
h
to ask--but the crap I took from other kids was certainly unnecessary, for
the insistence on singing "Silent Night" during school hours ensured they'd
know I was different. "Different" means "less than" in grade-school
language; kids are like that.
And my family members were Christians. I can only imagine the hell endured
by the lone Muslim, Jewish, Hindu or Buddhist child--to name just a few
possibilities--in a classroom dominated by Christians in a Christmas frenzy=
..
That's precisely the reason that the framers--those folks who put together
the Constitution--wanted to keep religion out of the public sphere. Places
like schools, libraries, city halls, courtrooms and public squares belong t=
o
everyone; we all have a right to feel at home there. And that's what freaks
out O'Reilly and his companions, I suspect; they're afraid that, if their
belief system and culture is just one among many, then it's not the right
one. Emotionally stuck in grade school, they still think "different" means
"less than."
Of course, there could be something else entirely behind the move to put
Christ into a holiday that was never his. It might be that, if we all get
caught up in discussing what Christmas ought to be, we won't notice all the
rest of the stuff that's going on: more Americans dead in Iraq, as well as
even more Iraqis; jobs disappearing with regularity; consumer debt
increasing as quickly as the deficit rises; an impending energy crisis that
will make the '70s look like *Happy Days*; health-care costs spiraling out
of control; an education system that's leaving children behind every which
way; and a president who's out of touch with it all.
But these *real *Christians wouldn't try to distract us like that, would
they?
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Pagan Feast Day, Mr. O'Reil=
ly Why the right chose the wrong s=
ide in the war on Christmas=20
<font size=3D"2"=

By <a class=3D"AuthorLinksOff" onmouseover=3D"this.className=3D'Aut=

horLinksOn';" onmouseout=3D"this.className=3D'AuthorLinksOff';" href=3D"htt=
p://www.newsreview.com/issues/sacto/authors/kelmunger.asp">
Kel Munger</a> <=
/font>

<table cellspacing=3D"0" cellpadding=3D"0" align=3D"right">
<tbody>
<tr valign=3D"top">
<td align=3D"right" width=3D"300">
<table cellspacing=3D"0" cellpadding=3D"0" width=3D"300">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td><img height=3D"292" alt=3D"" src=3D"http://www.newsreview.com/issues/sa=
cto/2005-12-15/essay-1.jpg" width=3D"300" border=3D"0"></td></tr>
<tr>
<td align=3D"right"><font face=3D"arial, helvetica, sans-serif" size=3D"-2"=

Illustration By Mike Gorman </td></tr>

<tr>
<td></td></tr>
<tr>
<td>
<table cellspacing=3D"0" cellpadding=3D"6" border=3D"1">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>Santa Claus and his elves probably came from pagan Scandinavian tradi=
tions. The Swedish Julbukk (yule goat) started out as a beast of burden for=
Thor, the god of thunder; eventually, it became the transport for the yule=
elf, who exchanged gifts for a serving of porridge. Now Santa leaves prese=
nts and takes his milk and cookies.=20
"Yule" is generally believed to mean "feast." The yu=
le log was a special piece of wood selected to kick off the winter-solstice=
feast by lighting a fire to symbolically encourage the rapid return of the=
sun. Bits of ash and burnt wood were saved as talismans to protect the hou=
se throughout the next year.=20
The Old Testament prophet Jeremiah warned the Israelites against decorat=
ing their homes with cut trees as the pagans did: "Thus saith the LORD=
, Learn not the way of the heathen, and be not dismayed at the signs of hea=
ven, for the heathen are dismayed at them. For the customs of the people ar=
e in vain; for one cutteth a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands =
of the workman, with the axe. They deck it with silver and gold; they faste=
n it with nails and with hammers, that it move not." (Jeremiah 10:2-4,=
King James Version)=20
</td></tr></tbody></table></td></tr></tbody></table></td=

</tr></tbody></table>

<table><tr>
<td></td></tr></table>

When the sweet, high-pitched voices of children unite for "You be=
tter watch out / you better not cry" this year, it won't necessarily be bec=
ause Santa Claus is coming to town. It's more likely that they're concerned=
about what will happen if the Christmas police catch them saying "Happy Ho=
lidays" or "Season's greetings" instead of "Merry Christmas."

Yep, Bill O'Reilly--he of the "no spin zone"--has his head in a twirl an=
d his Underalls in a twist over the so-called war on Christmas. He's not al=
one, of course; he's been hyping a book by Fox News colleague John Gibson c=
alled=20
The War on Christmas: How the Liberal Plot to Ban the Sacred Christian H=
oliday Is Worse Than You Thought. O'Reilly's been suggesting to his fai=
thful viewers that Christians should avoid doing their holiday--oops, I mea=
n Christmas--shopping at stores where employees are encouraged to say "Happ=
y Holidays" while taking credit cards from consumers who are spending money=
they don't have on goods made anywhere but the United States to celebrate =
a holiday that's never had a doggone thing to do with Christianity.

O'Reilly is joined by none other than Jerry Falwell, who's joined with a=
conservative legal outfit called the Liberty Counsel to promote the "Frien=
d or Foe Christmas Campaign" (because if you're not with them, you're again=
st them; there's no such thing as the holiday equivalent of Switzerland). T=
he Alliance Defense Fund, best known for fighting any hint of equal rights =
for gay folks, is busy promoting its slogan--"Merry Christmas: It's okay to=
say it"--while the Committee to Save Merry Christmas is trying to keep the=
Christ in Christmas--at least in major department-store advertising.

The good news is that, at least for the time being, O'Reilly is more int=
erested in what we're saying as we run into friends during the close of the=
year than in issuing continued calls for terrorists to bomb San Francisco'=
s Coit Tower. The bad news is that he is perpetuating a public fraud. Jesus=
was=20
never the reason for the season, and there are a whole bunch of perf=
ectly good Christians who don't celebrate this holiday. 
For instance, the Puritans--they of the "pure" religion, albeit a bit qu=
ick to light fires under uppity women--outlawed the celebration of Christma=
s in Massachusetts Colony. None of that pagan stuff on their watch; Christm=
as trees were, quite rightly, relegated to the same heathen pile that conta=
ined maypoles. Jehovah's Witnesses are among the modern-day Christian relig=
ions that do not celebrate Christmas.

See, some Christians actually have the good sense to look into the origi=
ns of holidays before rushing willy-nilly to celebrate them. They know that=
whatever modicum of Christian trappings have been used to decorate the Chr=
istmas tree, the holiday itself is the same old mid-winter celebration usin=
g the same old pagan traditions that a whole boatload of pre-Christian and =
non-Christian religions have celebrated worldwide ever since people crawled=
out of caves long enough to figure out that the sun would come back in the=
spring.=20

My Bible-believing mother would be happy to whack O'Reilly upside the he=
ad and point out that Jesus wasn't even born in December; anybody who can r=
ead a Bible and do simple arithmetic can follow the two methods used to cal=
culate Christ's probable birth date as occurring much earlier in the fall. =
(If you believe Bible accounts: Luke puts the shepherds in their fields, wh=
ich would put Jesus' birth in early through mid-October at the latest; calc=
ulating his birth as following that of John the Baptist, which also uses th=
e book of Luke, also sets it in the fall of the year, providing that both E=
lizabeth and Mary had nine-month pregnancies.)

And Jesus never says anything about celebrating his birth. It's all abou=
t the death; his instructions concern commemorating his betrayal, crucifixi=
on and resurrection. 
So, how'd we get Christmas? Well, sometime around the fourth century, ch=
urch fathers decided to celebrate Jesus' birth near the time of the winter =
solstice. It might have had something to do with the fact that they couldn'=
t get the recently converted former pagans to stop decking their halls with=
boughs of holly, holding feasts, exchanging gifts, lighting yule fires, dr=
inking toasts from wassail bowls, kissing under mistletoe and putting up tr=
ees decorated with candles. Folks were in the habit, whether in celebration=
of the solstice or remembrance of the birth or rebirth of deities ranging =
from Attis to Dionysus to Osiris to Mithra (for those who don't know their =
gods, these belong to pre-Christian religions from Roman, Greek, Egyptian a=
nd Persian cultures). Those habits were hard to break, and the early church=
decided to take an "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" attitude. They dresse=
d the pagan holiday traditions up in Christian clothes and called it good.

So, what are O'Reilly and his fellow travelers really upset about?
Inclusion. It's that simple. The only way they're happy is if someone ge=
ts left out. Taking it upon themselves to separate the sheep from the goats=
--a job Jesus reserves for himself, thank you--they have to keep Christmas =
all their own. Never mind that they stole it from pagans, and those are the=
people who really ought to be hiring lawyers and screaming bloody murder a=
bout the watering down of their traditions in the name of Christian suprema=
cy.

It's this commitment to excluding from the holiday everyone who doesn't =
match their idea of good Christian Americans that takes O'Reilly and his mi=
nions into the most offensive place of all. If the only way to celebrate th=
e end-of-the-year holidays is to dress them up in pseudo-Christian trapping=
s, a whole lot of folks are going to be left out--including some Christians=
who refuse to participate in the Christmas mania. And that's the way O'Rei=
lly and clan like it.

Of course, that's precisely why I hate it. 
I was probably 10 or 11 years old before I figured out that "Hark" wasn'=
t the name of a "hairy angel" who sang. I'd been sitting in the hall outsid=
e the classroom reading a book every December while my classmates practiced=
their Christmas carols; through the door, it was easy to misinterpret some=
of the lyrics. I got a new coloring book every October so that I'd have so=
mething to do while my peers were using up their orange crayons on jack-o-l=
anterns and gluing white cotton for beards to their drawings of Santa.=20

It's not that observing and respecting the beliefs of my family was too =
much to ask--but the crap I took from other kids was certainly unnecessary,=
for the insistence on singing "Silent Night" during school hours ensured t=
hey'd know I was different. "Different" means "less than" in grade-school l=
anguage; kids are like that.

And my family members were Christians. I can only imagine the hell endur=
ed by the lone Muslim, Jewish, Hindu or Buddhist child--to name just a few =
possibilities--in a classroom dominated by Christians in a Christmas frenzy=
..=20

That's precisely the reason that the framers--those folks who put togeth=
er the Constitution--wanted to keep religion out of the public sphere. Plac=
es like schools, libraries, city halls, courtrooms and public squares belon=
g to everyone; we all have a right to feel at home there. And that's what f=
reaks out O'Reilly and his companions, I suspect; they're afraid that, if t=
heir belief system and culture is just one among many, then it's not the ri=
ght one. Emotionally stuck in grade school, they still think "different" me=
ans "less than."

Of course, there could be something else entirely behind the move to put=
Christ into a holiday that was never his. It might be that, if we all get =
caught up in discussing what Christmas ought to be, we won't notice all the=
rest of the stuff that's going on: more Americans dead in Iraq, as well as=
even more Iraqis; jobs disappearing with regularity; consumer debt increas=
ing as quickly as the deficit rises; an impending energy crisis that will m=
ake the '70s look like=20
Happy Days; health-care costs spiraling out of control; an education=
system that's leaving children behind every which way; and a president who=
's out of touch with it all.
But these real Christians wouldn't try to distract us like that, =
would they? 
------=_Part_34678_4090122.1134922748978--
.

User: "Tim K."
Title: Re: True atheists will not celebarte Christmess...Neither would true Christians	18 Dec 2005 10:25:18 AM

"Rey Deletrina" <Use-Author-Address-Header@[127.1]> wrote in message
HTML-posting fuckwit.
Plonk
.

User: "Opie"
Title: Re: Re: True atheists will not celebarte Christmess...Neither would true Christians	18 Dec 2005 11:19:46 AM

On Sun, 18 Dec 2005 16:25:18 GMT, "Tim K."
<timkozz@cfl.rr.com> wrote:
"Rey Deletrina"
<Use-Author-Address-Header@[127.1]> wrote in
message
HTML-posting fuckwit.
Plonk

Your mother must be proud.

People who want to share their religious
views with you almost never want you to
share your views with them.

.

User: "Tim K."
Title: Re: Re: True atheists will not celebarte Christmess...Neither would true Christians	18 Dec 2005 01:12:45 PM

"Opie" <O_Taylor@MayberryRFD.com> wrote in message
news:eg6bq1p46v7hpiuukff8lmcqtmklq0vr4u@4ax.com...

On Sun, 18 Dec 2005 16:25:18 GMT, "Tim K."
<timkozz@cfl.rr.com> wrote:

"Rey Deletrina"
<Use-Author-Address-Header@[127.1]> wrote in
message

HTML-posting fuckwit.

Plonk

Your mother must be proud.

It's well-known "netiquette" not to post HTML on usenet.
.

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OT or not OT: Hey Christians who insist posting here
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It is true that many Christians do not practice what they preach.Same with Jews, Hindus, Muslims as well as Atheists... Why should that be asurprise...they are all imperfect humans?
Re: Atheists and Christians do not have scientific evidence.
Irony Meter test: Islam should not be imposed on Christians
Re: Christians Really *ARE* Nazis (was Re: The really remarkable thing about the definition of intolerant is that those who say we Christians are intolerant and should not express our religious beliefs are the ones who actually fit the definition.

attn christians: GOP not 'right' enough?
Not all Christians are YECs
Atheists and Christians do not have scientific evidence.
Non-Christians Need Not Apply
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pg.3585 pg.2749 pg.2106 pg.1612 pg.1232 pg.940 pg.716 pg.544 pg.412 pg.311 pg.234 pg.175 pg.130 pg.96 pg.70 pg.50 pg.35 pg.24 pg.16 pg.10 pg.6 pg.3 pg.1

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