Are you trying to get on the list? 
No, it doesn’t. But the guy is probably a sucker for going on O’Reilly’s show in the first place.
I think it does, because I see how my conservative friends and family react to issues like this, and also some of the more off-the-track stuff the ACLU does.
I consider myself conservative, but I’m a raving liberal compared to these friends and family.
Hard to believe there’s any intelligence there, unless it was brought in by the tides along with the flotsam.
Apparently being a moron, an idiot and a blowhard is a prerequisite for having a TV show.
The situation for nonbelievers in America is slowly getting better over time, so it’s hardly possible for it to be set way back every time some non-Christian group “goes after” Christianity or Christmas or is accused of doing so. And I think you’re putting the blame in the wrong place: it belongs to the Christian groups who demonize nonbelievers because it’s a useful and expedient way to rally the faithful, not with nonbelievers who ask the government to follow its own laws (even when they go a little too far in that effort).
More from the same O’Reilly episode: he also had to chew out the governor of Rhode Island for calling the state’s Christmas tree a holiday tree. And I agree it’s ridiculous to call it a holiday tree. O’Reilly started doing this whole War on Christmas thing in, I think, 2006 and every holiday season since then he’s spent a lot of energy trying to drum up outrage at the idea that somehow, somewhere, liberals and atheists are trying to suppress Christmas by doing awful things like remembering that other holidays exist. The basic problem is not ‘people like Silverman arguing against traditional holidays.’ It’s people like O’Reilly. Religious leaders have long understood that nothing rallies the flock together like the threat of attack from outsiders, and it’s not hard to find cynical religious people doing just that today. It goes without saying that the attack is almost always a work of fiction. But some people know the idea is useful and some believers need to believe they’re being persecuted. It’s not every religious leader or believer, but it’s not an uncommon tactic.
I have no love for O’Reilly or his conclusions. (Atheists are “fascists”?)
But him and his arguments aside, isn’t there some truth to the idea in the thread title? Every year we have a thread debating whether Christmas isn’t more or less a secular holiday by now. Christianity acts as an actual religion for some people, but lots more practice it as a self-defined philosophy with a little religious window dressing for good show. “I believe that Jesus really wants me to be like this…” Seems like a lot of people choose whatever ideas they like, tack on Jesus, and call it a day.
Anyway, even if all that’s true it doesn’t change much about how the government should react to Christianity, or any other religion.
Substitute other names for “Jesus” and that’s how it is with every religion.
Beg to differ. Thor doesn’t give two shits about the way his followers act. He just makes the lightning, day in, day out, like a regular godly working stiff. Sometimes he rogers Sif, too.
It seems that by saying “happy holidays”, you are acknowledging the existence of other holidays celebrated by non-Christian religions. How is this acknowledgment an “attack”?
To make an extreme point, if you refuse to join a mob who is burning down a mosque, or refuse to participate in kicking over tombstones at a Jewish cemetery, are you “attacking Christianity” by your refusal to participate?
I think you could make a better case for this in Europe than the US. People identify as Christian, and many countries have a “nominal” state religion, too. But it’s more of a cultural thing than a religious thing. The US is kinda sorta getting there, but we still do have a very large segment of our population that are true believers.
Now, I’m not saying people who make arguments like this should be arrested and imprisoned, because that would be wrong. That would be a violation of our Constitution.
I just think the government should send men with guns to forcibly seize such people and take them and put them in concrete rooms with bars on the windows and doors which lock from the outside and keep them there.
When it’s a central feature of your religion/subculture that your god is the only god, that all other religions are utterly evil, and that anyone who is different from you in even the smallest way is evil. The beliefs of right wing American Christian fundies, in other words. The sort of people who protest Halloween.
Yeah, but Christmas = / = Christianity.
Cite?
Feed the poor, heal the sick. Love thine enemy. I’ll agree that it is a philosophy if the US government agrees to do those things.
I do not recall Thor have the position of primary deity. Yes, he got his day of the week, but it was kind of a weak one, following the prime deity’s day, but not as widely celebrated as the next day, the one they gave to Frei. Thor was in fact a working stiff of a god, so it is entirely natural that he should act like one. And be surly because that one-eyed guy gets to have all the fun.
Ever heard of the teachings of Thor ? That’s 'cause there ain’t any. Only thunder smites ! 
That and getting punked again and again and again by Loki, yes. It’s a drag having an jerk who thinks he’s funny for a brother, I’m sure many Dopers can relate 
That being said and on a more serious note, on the surface at least the Norse religion(s), the Celtic religion(s), the Roman and Greek religions etc… seemed to involve gods that, while they ostensibly meddled in people’s lives (sometimes extensively), didn’t particularly expect their believers or supplicants to be doing anything, behaving any specific way, thinking in this or that fashion and so on.
You sacrificed/feasted to placate the ornery motherfuckers and keep them off your case, or because you wanted some thing to happen and they might do it for you if you buttered 'em up, or to thank them for doing you a good turn/doing the other guys a bad one, and in the most extreme cases you did it because the world might just end if you didn’t ; but I shouldn’t think priests of Odin went around telling people that the Allfather didn’t want them to be gay or expected them to be good persons, things like that. The various pagan cults seemed to me to consider their gods as prospective allies or friends rather than lords, masters - or even exemplars.
I guess there’s the “you won’t get past Valhalla’s bouncer should you die in your bed like a pansy” thing (no wound, no axe, no service !), but that’s about it - and when you think about it that is more of a global, metaphysical “principle” or fundamental law re: how the Universe works than an actual directive, really. Kind of like “hey, there’s a big old tree and each of its branches is a different world and we exist on one of them”. Okay, cool. I’ll put the kettle on then, shall I ?
You might want to re-read your quote. Buddha sidesteps and denigrates the first 2 types of supernatural power, essentially declaring them off-topic rather than get into a rancorous debate with a crowd of Swamis. And the last supernatural power that he acknowledges is the power to teach. That’s a poetic way of saying that communication and learning is the real miracle.
I’ll buy this though. The core tenets of Buddhism don’t depend upon supernatural assumptions, but there’s been a lot of stuff tacked on over the ages (and probably starting from the beginning). And if reincarnation doesn’t exist, the philosophy becomes less compelling, though certainly not unimportant IMO. I would quibble though and say there’s a purely secular version of karma, though in practice it may and probably will reflect some extra-empirical claims.
Absolutely.
Yes, much of Europe is further along in that process. But I think more self-described “Christians” in the US fall into that category than they even know or admit to themselves.
Sure, but it’s a Christian holiday and the degree to which it’s been stripped of its religious meaning is kind of a bellwether of the general diluting of Christianity.