I tell people that I (an atheist) celebrate Christmas, because Christmas for the most part has lost its religious aspects and is pretty much secular now.
And there’s an additional twist. If you accept the reality of suffering, no-self, and karma -and there are sound secular reasons for all three- then a form of reincarnation becomes a logical conclusion. Tamping down suffering becomes a project crossing all sentient agents, and just as we over-weight the link between our current self and that which existed say 3.2225 years ago, we under-weight our causal linkages with others in the present and future. Take an objective stance for a moment and relax one’s attachment to one’s own suffering and one is left with indifference between more or less local suffering. Reincarnation in this view represents shared experience, something which while not directly observable is mostly reasonable.
The preceding follows from the Buddhist framework. I have no idea the extent to which it operates in actual Buddhist practice. I understand that some of the latter contains supernatural elements.
Or maybe it’s a Pagan holiday and the degree to which it has been stripped of its religious meaning is kind of a bellwether of the general diluting of Paganism.
I would be ok with that if they’d support their opinion with evidence or when proven factually wrong they didn’t just retreat too how dare you can’t denigrate my faith!
Christmas is both a religious holiday and a secular holiday – with some pagan traditions thrown in. Most Christians seem to choose a combination of the two. I don’t think it’s losing its religious meaning at all – at least to those people who choose to take some time to focus on the religious meaning.
And those who view it as secular only in their lives are not diluting Christianity in any way. Individuals have personal choices about how or if they want to observe Christmas. They just can’t force their views on anyone else and expect much success. I think a lot of the problem is that some Christians (those who buy into the War on Christmas BS) want to force their religious viewpoints onto everyone else.
There is no War on Christmas. Those who think there is should make a list of the ways that other people’s individual viewpoints have somehow suppressed or damaged them as individuals.
By the way, I don’t know when “Happy Holidays” or “Season’s Greetings” was first used, but those words were on a lot of the Christmas cards we got back in the Forties and Fifties. This was in a town of 2,000 people consisting of mostly Christians of different denominations, a very few atheists, some agnostics, and one person we called “the Catholic woman.” We often said, “Merry Christmas,” but when we chose one of the other greetings, it was a normal and natural thing to do. We didn’t change it to be polite and more enclusive. Everyone knew what “holiday” and “season” that people were referring to. (I do approve of using those phrases to be considerate of other people’s feelings now, but I live in an ethnically complex city.)
Merry Christmas, y’all.
And to think it was centuries before there was a celebration of the Birth of Jesus, I wonder how Christianiy survived?
As another atheist, this sentimental little tune pretty well sums up my take on Christmas:
I wonder how it would go over if we decided to take him at his word and remove the tax exempt status from all the churches, eliminate military chaplains, etc. I’m sure a lot of Christians might have a problem with that.
Well, yeah, except that it isn’t. Christmas is primarily about shopping, and was never really about religion (or at least not about Christianity) anyway.
Christianity is still primarily about accepting Jesus as one’s lord and savior and all that stuff.
Where I live if non-Christians didn’t do any Christmas shopping the malls would be in deep doo-doo.
I agree that there is now an almost total disconnect between the religious holiday and the secular holiday. People are allowed to go to church even if they haven’t bought anything. And plenty of people who never set foot in a church buy Christmas presents also.
I guess the war on Xmas people are saying that the true meaning of Christmas is the sales figures.
I want to know what the secular support for the reality of karma is supposed to be.
Whatever Christianity is, it is no philosophy. Some religions could make an arguable claim to that status, but not Christianity.
I grew up in a slightly larger town in the 70s, and I don’t remember if I heard the phrase then or in Sarasota FL in the mid 80s, but I never took it to mean anything but a shortened way of saying “Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!” The thought that it was meant to extend to Festihannukwanzaa never occurred to me really.
Purge the heretics!! Unclean! Unclean!
I don’t get the argument at all. I can’t find any mainstream definition of Christianity that doesn’t prominently use the word “religion.” What am I missing?
That’s what you get for using left-wing liberal mainstream dictionaries.
Setbacks don’t mean there is no progress. Silverman is a whacko who does more harm than good for atheists and agnostics. He does’t represent me, that’s for sure. Nonetheless, there is progress for us atheists and agnostics.
Not much intelligence on display on either side, in that particular battle. But I’ve heard him speak intelligently, and I liked his book “Killing Lincoln”, which I think hit its mark very well (intending to read more like a thriller and less like a historical tome).
He co-wrote that book, and his co-author Martin Dugard has written several history books.
Partial transcript of Billo’s remarks, courtesy of Steve Benen:
Sounds like something a deist Unitarian with an attitude would say.
If it sets atheists back a decade every time someone supposedly attacks Christmas, there shouldn’t be any progress. My point is that your comment is total hyperbole (and it does blame the wrong person).