Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays?

[carleb]

Obviously, it's a holiday dedicated to Christ by the vast majority of people in our country, otherwise it wouldn't have become widely accepted as "Christmas". If it were not for Christ, I doubt most people would be celebrating anything right now. It would just be another day, or week, or month to most.

People are prone to point out the peoples' hypocricy that claim the Christian religion while not even being aware that hypocricy was one of the main things which Christ preached against himself. If you wail against Christian hypocricy, then maybe you are closer to being a Christian than you are willing to admit.

People are imperfect, period. Christ also said that a man should pull the timber out of his own eye before trying to remove the splinter from another man's eye.

Before any man cries hypocricy, he should evaluate his own life. Before anyone cries hypocricy, evaluate the One who wailed against it the most.

Christians are not perfect, they just claim the One who is.

 

[brazilianboy]

Merry Christmas...
If you hate hearing Merry Christmas, move to Sudan...

 

[RidgeHunter]

Just say "anything".

No. I'm so laid back and introverted, I never get to tell anyone off. It's been years. If I get that kind of opportunity, I'm not wasting it.

I might say "A good ass kicking!" run at them with wild eyes, kick them in the ass, then calmly walk away. It would be a nice break from being calm and quiet.

 

[JB Books]

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays you pack of interwreckshooals.....

 

[BluRaySS]

ahhh yes, "The spirit of giving", what a crock.... The thing that gets me most now is that it's expected. Worse yet, within the expectations there is competition.

If you do your research, Christmas started in/near England long ago with the poor going to the homes of the rich. They asked for handouts and "encouraged" them by once again using hints of religion to explain that if they did not peddle their wealth to beggars that bad things would happen to them.

There for a while in history it was about what so many use as todays excuse. The celebration of a gods birthday. Unfortunately today more than ever, that is an excuse and has nothing to do with what people do.

It is however a great time to give people bells and let them skirt the panhandling laws. No better way to tap someone than with the threat of eternal suffering.

If I have to hear about it, then I want people to act as they speak. Some guy just wrote a letter to the editor of the Lawton Constitution crying about something someone said to him that was an Atheist. Then went on to complain about why they have to hear what Atheist's have to say, but how Christians never get seen or heard..... WHAT!?!?!?! lol

This is another person that expects our laws to be written in line with the bible and our courts to be decided by the holier than you syndrome. As I stated before I don't care what others do, just leave me out of it. That includes the laws and gov't. yeesh

 

[Perrone]

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays you pack of interwreckshooals.....

Be vewy vewy quiet, I'm hunting amberlamp's.

 

[poopgiggle]

If you do your research, Christmas started in/near England long ago with the poor going to the homes of the rich. They asked for handouts and "encouraged" them by once again using hints of religion to explain that if they did not peddle their wealth to beggars that bad things would happen to them.

...what? Every source I've seen said that it was a Christian co-opting of pagan festivals (as stated previously). I'd like to see a source if you have one, since I love any story about the goofy roots of various holidays/customs.

I think the gift-giving part might just be part of pre-Christian Germanic tradition that carried over. I seem to recall Tacitus saying that giving presents was a big thing year-round for the Germanic tribes he studied so they probably stepped it up around Yule.

 

[vvvvvvv]

Except Christmas isn't really his birthday so much as it's the result of early Christians co-opting a couple of different pagan equinox celebrations.

Ermm... Winter Solstice.

John the Baptist has the Summer Solstice.

The Annunciation of Jesus is the Spring Equinox.

For some reason, the Fall Equinox seems to lack love from nearly all religions. Are the leaves too beautiful or something?

 

[poopgiggle]

Ermm... Winter Solstice.

I knew equinox didn't sound right.

In any case, reading up on Saturnalia I think we should bring that back. Drunken orgies sound more fun than caroling (or even getting drunk and heckling carolers).

 

[BluRaySS]

...what? Every source I've seen said that it was a Christian co-opting of pagan festivals (as stated previously). I'd like to see a source if you have one, since I love any story about the goofy roots of various holidays/customs.

I think the gift-giving part might just be part of pre-Christian Germanic tradition that carried over. I seem to recall Tacitus saying that giving presents was a big thing year-round for the Germanic tribes he studied so they probably stepped it up around Yule.

Yeah I'll email my dad and get the link to a guy that actually did a but of research on it. He has a bunch of references and such. It's not that it was really the origin of christmas, but more the origin of how it is celebrated today.