XJETGIRLX, I think you need to calm down. You’re getting more irate over this than he is. I assume you’ve never been on the receiving end of a family that constantly tries to convert you and change you and think they know better than you.
He wasn’t just pitting the Christmas card. He was pitting how all the time they try to convert him, even at Christmas, which is the time you’re supposed to love one another and forget and forgive eash others’ trespasses. It seems like another way to separate the family instead of bringing them closer together.
Homebrew, my family does the same thing - only they want me to go back to Hinduism.
My family was very close. We lived blocks away and attended the same church. She knows I know the message. Hell, I used to believe it myself and was even a youth leader. This card is not subtle. Did you read the quotes I gave? It is specifically a hamfisted attempt to offer proof for their POV and convert people. Whether she has boxes of these cards or bought one just for me, it’s not the kind at Wal*Mart or Hallmark. It has to be sought out. Have you ever seen one this preachy? It’s annoying that they are constantly disrespectful of my beliefs. I don’t try to mess with their faith, I wish they’d leave my lack therof alone.
I think the only appropriate response, Homebrew, would be to send them a Saturnalia card, complete with lots of references to the pagan gods and rituals that Christianity co-opted for Christmas. Turnabout’s fair play - they seem to be trying to educate you, so I would suggest educating them in turn.
I’m not the least bit irate, I just think it’s rather stupid for him to get upset about his family’s religious bent over a Christmas card. I mean, c’mon. For fuck’s sake, christmas is a religous holiday. If he wants to get bent at a truly out-of-line proselytizing from his family, so be it. But it’s a christmas card. A card meant to spread a religious sentiment. If he can’t take it in the nature it was intended then all he had to do was say, “I’m sorry, I don’t celebrate christmas”
On the whole, I think it’s just rather stupid in general to get riled up about christmas cards and holiday greetings anyways. This time of year it seems everyone goes batshit with self-righteous indignation if they’re not wished the very specific, exact form of holiday greeting that conforms to their beliefs (or lack thereof). It happens every year, and there will be about a half dozen more threads like this before the end of the year from people who are pissed off that someone dared to wish them well.
I’m with those who say you are making a mountain over a molehill unless you know for certain that your relative targeted you specifically for this overly evangelical card and sent cards with a simpler message to others. Do you know that? If you don’t, then just chalk it up to yet another Christmas mass mailing.
I think you’re doing an awful lot of presumption on the part of the motives of others. So she thinks she’s doing the right thing - is it really that threatening to you?
Just send her a card that says “I’m glad I don’t believe in a giant sky pixie - hope you get over your disillusionment!” and be done with it.
How do you know that’s her motivation? It’s Homebrew’s aunt. He knows her better than you do, and he’s probably got a better handle on why she’d send him that particular card. As stated in the OP, this isn’t the first time his aunt has tried to witness to him, and she must know that he doesn’t really appreciate it (I’m suspecting there’s a strong, “You’re going to burn in hell if you keep being a homo” component to said witnessing, but I could be wrong). If he’s not been receptive to her proselytizing in real life, a polite person would back off and respect his differences. Instead, she keeps trying, this time disguising her witnessing as a holiday greeting card. That’s not only rude, it’s disgustingly passive agressive. I’d be pissed, too, if one of my relatives acted like that. Probably quite a bit more pissed than Homebrew was in his OP.
I like that you didn’t read the second part of my reponse. Let me repeat: He isn’t just pitting the card. He’s pitting the entire mindset of his family, culminating in a card that doesn’t express the sentiments of the holiday! Rather than saying “You’re gay, *and atheist, but we love you at Christmastime anyway” they sent a card that says, essentially, “Haven’t you decided we’re right, yet?”
*Homebrew, I don’t know that you’re gay, but **Miller ** thinks so, so I’m going with it.
And I like how you completely skipped over the title of this entire thread ‘EVANGELICAL CHRISTMAS CARDS’
The thrust of the OP was aimed at the card, and why his family couldn’t just send him a religion-free card. Apparently he has other issues re: religion and his family, and it seems that he’s incredibly threatened and touchy about the subject as a whole. But he was pitting the fact that they sent him a religious christmas card. In celebration of a religious holiday.
All his other issues aside, he’s making a big fuss over nothing.
I agree that it’s apparent there are issues between him and his family with regards to religion. But to get pissed off at someone who is admittedly religious for sending a religious card on a religious holiday? Gimme a break.
Well, for one thing, Christmas is as much a secular holiday as it is a religious one, so stop acting as you Jeezers won Christmas because you don’t. His aunt could have sent him a Santa card or even a mild Jesus card–sending a hardcore preaching is deliberately aggressive and disrespectful.
Second, Homebrew has every right to vent about his anger at his aunt’s relentless witnessing. The cards may not bother XJetgirlX, but it wasn;t sent to her, was it? Homebrew is entitled to his feelings.
See, I didn’t get that. I didn’t think that he was pitting a religious card in celebration of a religious holiday - I understood that he was pitting his family taking yet another opportunity to try to shove their beliefs down his throat when they know that Homebrew doesn’t share them and isn’t interested in them.
It’s like me being very interested in, let’s say, unicorn collecting. If somebody tells me they’re not interested in unicorns, but I keep giving them unicorns as gifts in the hopes of converting them to my point of view someday, that’s my problem, not theirs for not liking unicorns. It’s not about the unicorns, in other words.
I get actual religious Christmas cards from a few acquaintances, and I think, “oh, how cute,” and put them up with the rest of my cards.
My mother once got a Christmas card from a coworker, who wrote inside that she hoped my mother saw the light and came to Jesus before she died, or her soul would go to hell. Now, that was a bit de trop.
They’re not trying to be nice. If they were trying to be nice they’d think "hey, Homebrew is not religious. Why don’t we send him a card he’d actually like . Ya know, something that would actually make his Christmas merry . "
I was expressing mild annoyance at the fact that yet again, my family can’t leave their prostylizing out of a single interaction. Yes the card is the object du jour, but it’s just the latest annoyance.
In fact I’m more pissed by your continued attempt to paint me as an intolerant, thin-skinned jerk for venting on an anynomous message board that they’ll never see than I am at them. Would you rather I write them back with the cites that gobear provided? Or that I tell them to fuck off? I get the feeling that you’d send one of these cards to someone if you had one and taking my reaction personally.
Wait, you’re basing this whole thing on the *title * of the thread, rather than what is in the body of the OP? How much info could he have put in the title? That’s why we explain ourselves.
I’m going to ask you again: have you ever been on the receiving end of this kind of constant gnawing at you, this constant worrying for your soul?
Besides I do not believe that a Christmas card with a whole bunch of Scripture is in any way indicative of the season. A loving note would be a whole lot better.
No, he didn’t, that’s what the OP is about, NOT that it’s a Christmas card, and he specifically SAYS (paraphrased) "I wouldn’t mind a “Reason for the Season or some such”.
He’s talking about the “shove it down your throatness” of the 900 bible verses etc contained in this PARTICULAR card.
Because, the card contained, NOT a simple declaration of the reason for the season, but a whole ton of Tract like verses and such. A BIG difference between that and a mere “God Bless You”.