Originally posted by Joel
Actually, It’s incredibly rare if I talk about Jesus at all. And I didn’t say I thought that we have to talk about Jesus during Christmas.
My point was, people often defend things like nude magazines, shock jocks, TV shows like Jackass and Jerry Springer, yet, they seem to be the ones who then turn around and tell people not to say Merry Christmas or talk about Jesus.
quote:
Nor did I say anything about the government posting a sign saying that Jesus is Lord.
Yes, I’m perfectly clear on that. Now it’s time to make a clarification myself.
You said “We’re talking about commercial enterprises making a choice not to talk about Jesus, because they are smart enough and sensitive enough to realize that there are Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, atheists, etc., who are ALSO consumers.”
That’s what I see as the problem. If one group feels excluded, you don’t exclude everyone else to level the playing field, you include others. If a Jew goes into a store and sees only Christmas cards, instead of asking the store to get rid of them, he/she should ask to have a Chanukah section added. If a Muslim comes in and feels left out because of no Ramadan cards, he/she should ask for a section for that as well.
I knew there was a reason I was in attendance at that brainwashing seminar earlier this month. I was ‘treated’ on my birthday (dec 6th) to a suprize show of “The Singing Christmas Tree”. Let me tell you, America has not forgot about the wonders of taxation which is the Bible.
Miss America, is actually from Oregon - and wonders never cease, she came to her home town to make an earnest attempt at converting our lowly wretched non-miss-amaricain souls to the splendors of christianly bliss. If it wasn’t for the understanding that retarded folks use this system to prove to themselves the meaning of their abuse of other human beings, probably would have vomited from this display of sheer dehumanization contradicting every word being uttered that evening. Since the holiday is truly about selfishness, I suppose that slim reason kept my mind from spinning into pure insanity and a denial of all logical purpose for being.
Aparently, Miss America is kind enough to berate the lowlings again next year, so if that’s your thing, please do attend. One doesn’t even have had to watch the Miss America Pagent to understand why this one ‘won’, she’s a walking zombification of capitalistic propoganda and the excuse to commit violence without consent.
>> I think that the Christmas holidays started out as Christian, but they have slowly morphed into a general celebration.
Not really. For some centuries early Christians did not celebrate the birth of Jesus at all and theiur main religious observation was Easter, which is why Easter is reckoned on the lunar calendar.
The winter celebrations were a pagan thing and centuries later the Christians took them over by declaring them to be a celebration of the birth of JC.
Keeping with the Christmas spirit I see. It was much less efficient to draw taxes through a central filter when resource was being devoted to a plethora of dieties; many of which demanded items which weren’t of much particular worth. Monotheism was instituted as a technological advance to the use of currency (so as to avoid having to throw away a rotten carrot that was offered to some God) to truly facilitate the most powerfully efficient taxation structure known to human beings.
“Give currency (learned from past mistakes) to this ONE God, and make it at least 10%, for love and charity.”
Then the state collects all of this money and buys prostitutes and slaughters millions of human beings who protest to their their indescretions with this money which was supposed to be for the deties. It was quite a remarkable invention, and invariably the sole reason why the ‘west’ procures so much dominance to this day. The west perfected consentual slavery of it’s population for the benefit of the whim of an unaccountable elite who had a thirst for the honor of bathing in the blood of natives.
The point being; Christmas always was a capitalistic invention.
It was the equivilent of other innovations known as corperate take-overs, global banks and stock markets etc…
It’s awefully difficult to rise to the challenge of the true original source of slavery through disinformation though. Christianity will hold a special place in the hearts of the truly demented for generations to come.
I was being facetious, Rampistad. Israel is a state in which only one religious group is permitted to have citizenship, and where it is widely believed that God has granted that group a special permanent sovereignship. There are also hardline orthodox in conservatives in Israel who do not want any distinction between secular and religious law. There is a word for these kind of people. They’re called theocrats.
Diogenes the Cynic - if I insulted you, I apologise. I have a horrible tendency to underestimate the ability of Americans to misunderstand irony and jest! (If that’s an insult, Mr Moderator, I have cites to back it up).
Factually incorrect
define “widely”. There are people who believe the earth is flat in the good ole USA - I can even say this is a “widely” held belief, since the term is meaningless. In any case, having a belief system has nothing to do with being ruled by a theocracy.
Agreed. There are also died-in-the-wool liberals who want to chuck out out the religious law.
None of your statements can hide the fact that Israel is one of the most vigorous democracies in the world, nor that your calling it a “theocracy” is both factually incorrect and a misuse of the term.
Who, exactly is “telling people not to say Merry Christmas or talk about Jesus”? Certainly not ME - if you look at my previous posts, I said I don’t particularly mind if people say Merry Christmas. The O.P. seemed bothered that people talk about “Christmas” all the time, but don’t talk about Jesus enough. He didn’t mention anything about being prevented from doing either. As for talking about Jesus, I don’t think your comparison is apt. There’s a difference between allowing Howard Stern to say “bukakke” on the air, for example, and The Coca Cola Corporation deciding to go with Santa and Polar Bears as advertising symbols, rather than Jesus. I just don’t see how anyone is censoring Coca Cola. They could talk about Jesus, but wouldn’t that be kind of silly? Isn’t that what you go to church for? Why do you have to see it on T.V. all the time, too? And by the way, just last night they were playing an episode of Walker, Texas Ranger that was an allegory of the birth of Jesus. For that matter, they’ve done entire T.V. movies about Jesus. In fact, I would venture to guess that Jesus gets talked about WAY more on television than any other religious figure. And you know what? That’s fine; I don’t have a problem with that. It’s just that it never seems to be enough for some people. I get the feeling some people wouldn’t be happy unless we had nationwide forced attendance at church.
I’m pretty sure that stores DO sell Chanukah cards.
Hmmm…I haven’t ever looked for Ramadan cards, so I don’t know about that one.
But using my Coke example again, they could have an ad with Jesus drinking a Coke, another ad with Vishnu drinking a Coke, Moses drinking a Coke, Mohammed drinking a Coke, etc., but it’s probably a lot easier and more sane not to do ANY of those. And to be honest - if companies DID advertise like that, I have a sneaking suspicion that Christians would still bitch about it.
I had always heard that only Jews were allowed to have citizenship and vote in Israel, after doing some googling around, I see that this is misperception (albeit a common one, at least in the U.S.). I withdraw my charge of theocratism. Furthermore, although I must reiterate that there is a definite theocratic political wing in Israel, it is also true that there are plenty of more moderate and liberal Jews who find this position as objectionable as I do.
Finally, after noting that you have “sicced” me on at least two typos, I should inform you that a “sic” belongs in brackets, not parentheses.
You, Sir, have just made my day. If I can get just one person to discover the truth about something, in place of “misperception” (no joke intended :p), then all the time I spend in this forum is justified a hundred times. This of course is even more the case where the “misperception” is very widespread, and leads to life-threatening political stances.
I would like, if it’s appropriate and not PIc, to wish you a very merry Christmas, and if we do no cross swords again in the next few days, a happy New Year.
<hijack in response>
Also, 18% of the population of Israel is Arab. Despite a general boycott of the last election, they have 6 members (out of 120) representing their own parties, and 4 Arabs (or Druse) who are members of the mainly Jewish parties. While the numbers may not be strictly proportional, it’s not uncommon for minority population groups to be under-represented … compare the USA, with about the same proportion of Blacks and Hispanics, where there are 21 Hispanic Members (5%) and 38 Black Members (9%).
:eek: And only 14% women :eek:
Unless, of course, you are arguing the the USA is not a vigorous democracy either
[kidding]What I don’t understand is why many Christians would celebrate the birth of Jesus, when to many Christians birth is such a totally unimportant and morally meaningless moment in the human life cycle. Shouldn’t they celebrate the day of conception of Jesus instead?[/kidding]
The misperceptions in this thread between public and private, between free and coerced, are key to Bill O’Reily’s yearly rants against the supposed “Anti-God-Squad” conspiracy.
