I have never, ever, either IRL or on the webs, seen someone get offended at “Merry Christmas.” I’m not saying it doesn’t happen, just that I’ve never seen it. And if I did, yes, I’d think that that person was a ginormous douchebag.
I have, however, both IRL and on the webs, seen Christians turn into giant raging piles of bitch about “Happy Holidays.” Here’s a tip, Christians - if your religion is so frail and your faith so easily disturbed, you might want to rethink it. I don’t think your omnipotent God is sitting around whining about the phrase, so why should you?
Oh, I don’t know. Lonesome Polecat seems to be giving him a run for his money.
Christmas is not the reason for the shopping season. The massive campaign by retailers to spend money buying stuff because that somehow shows you love people better than being decent to them the rest of the year is the reason for the season. That’s why shopping starts in October/ November, so that a bunch of money can be spent.
Theologically, as already said, Easter is the most important fest for Christians. But Christmas is the fest where all families gather together, eat and give gifts, activities that even agnostics can share. Going to Church, which is the real reason for the feasts, can’t be much shared, so Easter and Pentecoast are much smaller.
And what does directing a greeting at him or her in the name of a holiday they don’t celebrate say? I personally don’t like Merry or Happy Christmas even though I celebrate it. I usually reply “Orgasmic Saturnalia.”
The important part about being a Christian in the US today is feeling like a persecuted minority while still enjoying the privileges of actually being the majority. Thus, failing to pay reverence to their feelings at every occasion = persecution, while actual suppression of other religions = the US is a Christian nation from the start.
And many priviledged old white guys believe that since life is a zero-sum game, if somebody else gets rights, too - other religions, women, poor, gays - then they must loose their own rights. And they have been loosing power to oppress others steadily in the last decades. Which is easily turned into becoming persecuted.
No, I don’t mean that at all, and I can’t imagine what warped and twisted logic you used to get to that conclusion. Even as scarcasm or hyperbole, this makes no sense.
There is also a holiday season that takes place in December centered on the holy day of Christmas. Without that holy day, a specifically Christian holy day, the holiday season at the end of the year would not have existed. The holiday season would not exist in the western hemisphere if the Europeans had not brought it with them, and it would not exist anywhere if Christians in Europe hadn’t created it, apparently in an attempt to compete more effectively with Yule and the Saturnalia ,and borrowing heavily from both celebrations as well as folk customs.
Really, would it kill you guys to admit that the Christmas holiday season is pretty much a Christian holiday season?
I do have a Jewish friend who will respond with “Fuck you,” to a Merry Christmas, but the only for people who use Merry Christmas in situations where it’s damn obvious it would be offensive like a cashier whose just rang up a hundreds of dollars of Hanukkah merchandise.
That was created in attempt to compete more effectively with Yule and Saturnalia, and borrowing heavily from both celebrations as well as folk customs. I say discard the fake layer of Christianity forced on a much older holiday season and bring it back to the original Happy Holidays of the pagan polytheists.
Even so, the shopping season would not exist without the religious holiday. But nobody can really argue with you about the crass commercialization of the season.
You got a cite for this? Because winter solstice festivals have long preceded Christianity, and the gift-giving part isn’t even of Christian origin. Co-opting a catchy name is not good enough.
Right-o. As I’ve already said, this is all just a tempest in a teapot. I’m outta here. If anybody needs me, I’ll be in the bar with Chanukah Zombie and Kwaanzabot.
The holiday is not Christmas. The holiday are the days off from work. Which in a free country people are allowed to spend as they like. Thankfully they are not required to go Church (like in a Christian state), they can spend the holidays with nice people even if they aren’t RTCs.*
*Real True Christians - what evangelicals call themselves to distinguish from those liberal Christians who may treat other people decently.
The “Christian” holiday you’re so worked up about was stolen from, and still retains the trappings of, much older pagan celebrations. Christianity/Jesus have very little to do with the celebration, and virtually nothing to do with the lighted trees and gifts. So get over yourself.
If you want to celebrate Christmas in true White American Christian style; don’t. The Puritans didn’t. It’s the White Christian Way.
Yup, prior to 354 AD when your Johnny-come-lately primitive desert death cult decided their big guy’s birthday would mirror Mithra’s- nobody at all noticed the solstice, length of the night, or anything like that.
Saturnalia, Sol Invictus, Brumalia, Hanukkah, etc. are just propaganda. Nobody celebrated anything or had any holy days this time of year. Yup.
Hate to tell ya this, but you’re about last in line behind Kwanzaa.