I am okay with political correctness as long as they go the whole way. When I was in high school 4 years ago, we had not Christmas Break but Winter Break. I was okay with this until I realized that we had off for Rosh Hashanah (sp?) and Yom Kippur and it was not Fall Break or anything like that. Also only about 1 % of the students were Jewish but about 75% of the school board was Jewish. And If I come off as Anti-Semitic, I am not. I just want to point out how PC is only being applied to mainly Christian or Traditionally White Traditions.
Comments Appreciated
The plural of anecdote is not evidence.
Also, as winter break doesn’t only last during Christmas, I don’t see that as PC.
Then How about Easter Break becoming Spring Break?
No, but he’s not entirely crazy, Finn.
My school district was also about 75% Jewish, give or take. Since the school was in southern California, they took both snow days for the High Holidays; one day for Rosh Hashanah and one for Yom Kippur. The rationale for this was that since most of the kids and a lot of the staff would be out for the holidays anyway, it made no sense to open and give everyone an absence that had to be reported to the state. Calling these days a “break” would’ve been wrong since they were taken one at a time, not as a block. Conversely, my high school did the same for Good Friday. I’d moved, Jews were in the minority (boy, were we!), and most students went to church on Good Friday. The few non-Christian kids appreciated the “free” day off as much as the few non-Jewish kids had appreciated the two days off for the High Holidays.
That said, we also called it “Winter Break” and “Spring Break” for the same reason: We were mostly Jewish and didn’t celebrate the Christian holidays associated with them. The Christian kids may have called it “Christmas Vacation”, but we Jewish kids sure didn’t.
That said, I agree with the side that says that the pro-Christmas side is small and vocal. I also think it’s a non-issue. We’ve got so many more things to worry about than a petty, small-minded semantic argument.
Robin
And as usual monavis penetrates swiftly to the core of the argument. :dubious:
One may further God’s purposes even in the doing of evil; what is God, that his purposes should be easy to thwart? But the evil-doer’s intent is evil nonetheless and cannot be dismissed simply because the end result was the working of God’s will; the evil-doer intended nothing of the kind.
But:
Jesus, at the very place of execution, prayed to His Father to forgive his executioners. Who am I then, that I should hate on His behalf those who called for his death?
Maybe 'cause Easter isn’t the only holiday in April?
6 Ramanavami (close of Ramayana) - Hindu
11 Mawlid an Nabi - Islam
13-20 Pesach (Passover) - Jewish
13 Hanuman Jayanti - Hindu
13 Baisakhi - Sikh
13 Therevadin Buddhist New Year - Buddhist
14 Baisakhi (Vaisakhi) - Sikh
16 Easter - Christian
21 First Day of Ridvan - Baha’i
25 Yom HaSho’ah - Jewish
And there ain’t no Islamic/Jewish/Hindu/Sikh/Buddhist/Baha’i people in America right?
Or, is it that their holidays just don’t count?
It isn’t?
This is true, but I also think it’s somewhat premature to talk about what the entire country does based on one or two schools. Besides, as most Jews in this country are white, saying that PC only applies to traditionally white holidays seems false to facts.
That’s pretty much what I was thinking about in response to alien’s examples. If most of the school (students and/or teachers) is going to be out anyways, it makes sense to take off for the day. Heck, at some schools in nothern NY they take off for the first day of hunting season because the kids wouldn’t be in class anyways.
I guess if people really had their panties in a twist over those days, they could just be called “day off number one” and “day off number two”.
Yeah, I do find it a bit odd, and even that phrasing seems a bit strange. If they’re pro-Christmas, does that make their opponents anti-Christmas?
This entire brouhaha really does seem to be over a non-issue; one gigantic smoke screen. I mean, heck, this all started when some of the religious right went batshit insane because some folks used a holiday greeting which, at the very least, took Thanksgiving, New Years, and Christmas into account, and perhaps a few more holidays to boot. From that, they claimed that Christmas Is Under Attack![sup]tm[/sup] It does indeed seem that we could be spending emotional energy on something that isn’t so silly.
crowmanyclouds, Islamic holidays are not tied to the seasons, but migrate all around the solar calendar. Islamic dates keep moving backward in comparison to the calendar eleven days per year. In 32 years, it travels all the way around the seasons.
I’ve been getting my dates from here and I didn’t see that mentioned!
But I hope my point stands.
Btw, my public school had a big enough Jewish population to warrant closing for the High Holy Days too. They just called it an Institute day or something. And in my kids’ school Good Friday is off without saying that it is off for Good Friday. As a matter of practicality you don’t hold school on days that either a large percentage of your staff or students won’t be there.
-
Winter break encompasses more than one holiday. It usually includes New Years Day, so calling it “winter” break rather than “Christmas” break makes more sense.
-
“Traditionally white religions?” WTF? Do you think Jewish people are “non-white?” Do you think that all Christians are white? Where do you get “traditionally white” from?
:: plays violin for all the poor, persecuted white Christianswho have to live with the words “Winter Break” on their school calandars ::
I hope you’re aware that this is complete nonsense. If it’s “God’s will,” then, according to your own beliefs, it can’t be “evil.”
No, it’s not complete nonsense. My shooting you for no reason at all would be evil. An outpouring of public compassion inspired by the senseless murder would be an example of God bringing good out of it. I believe, however, that I have the free will not to murder you (*), and that any putative good God can bring out of it is not evidence that it was God’s will that I should do so.
If it’s complete nonsense, then Lewis perpetrates it in Perelandra, when the Un-Man is trying to persuade Tinidril that the bringing of sin to Earth was good because it resulted in the Incarnation. Ransom makes much the same point that I did; God is not so limited as we are, that he should be unable to bring good out of evil; nevertheless that does not make it less evil. I understand that Feliciter peccavit Adam (**) is generally disregarded these days. Thanks to the Fall, Christ came to Earth. But who knows how wonderful an unFallen world would have been? (Literality of Genesis assumed for the purpose of this statement; metaphorise as necessary.)
- Practical considerations alone would make this implausible, even if I were crazy enough to possess such an intent or announce it to the world in general. I harbour no great ill-will for Dio.
** Hope I got the Latin right.
Thanks for the comments . I knew there was more to it than what I was thinking. Thank Og for the SD message board.
In Christian salvation theology the crucifixion, in itself, is a specially orchestrated act of God. It is not about making good from bad. The crucifixion per se is God’s will. It is logically contradictory to say that doing God’s will can be evil
An idea which is straight out of Augustine. I always did think his felix culpa was kind of silly, though.
But like I said, the role of the crucifixion in Christian soteriology is in itself (pardon the pun) crucial to God’s plan of salvation. It’s not about making lemonade out of lemons. The lemons themselves were God’s idea. *
And this is exactly what distinguishes the fall from the crucifixion. The fall was (ostensibly) an event contrary to God’s will. The crucifixion was God’s own idea.
[Colonel Kurtz] The horror. The horror[/Kurtz]
And you know these percentages how? Do the Jews walk around with yellow stars so that you can easily identify them? Or am I the only one who genuinely has no idea if a person is Jewish or not unless they are Orthodox? 
Billy, on his radio show has this bit of true Christmas cheer.
“I am not going to let oppressive, totalitarian, anti-Christian forces in this country diminish and denigrate the holiday and the celebration. I am not going to let it happen. I’m gonna use all the power that I have on radio and television to bring horror into the world of people who are trying to do that.”
Hey Billy, Happy Holidays 
You have a good point there. We usually keep our pants on. ;j
Oh, to answer your question. When someone says “Merry Christmas” I generally reply, “And a Joyous Channukah”. (However we spell it.)