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Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays???



 
 
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  #1  
Old December 21st 05, 09:27 PM posted to rec.travel.europe,rec.travel.air,rec.autos.driving,misc.consumers
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Default Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays???



Mike T. > writes:

[Christmas]

> It never HAD any religious significance. Just about everything
> to do with the way Christmas is celebrated got its start going
> back CENTURIES before "Christ" is alleged to have been born.


How do you get from there to the idea that Christmas "never had"
any religious significance? If there's a change over time in the
way a holiday is celebrated, why would that mean that later forms
of celebrtation have no religious meaning?


> Before the late-December festivities were called "Christmas", the
> Christians wanted nothing to do with the holiday. In fact, it was
> banned in certain areas as the religious objected to the merriment.
> Eventually, it was realized that the winter holiday could not be
> stopped, so the religious TRIED TO TAKE OVER THE HOLIDAY by declaring
> (in spite of good evidence to the contrary, as written in their own
> "Bible") that the Christ child was born on December 25th.


The Roman holiday of Saturnalia was co-opted and conflated with
Christmas, just as many other pagan holidays were co-opted by
the Christian (particularly the Catholic) Church, as a way to
get and retain converts. It's easier to win people over if in
the process, your church doesn't deny them the festivities
they're accustomed to celebrating -- in form, at least, if not
in substance.

Your putting sneer-quotes around "Christ," "Christmas," and "Bible"
would seem to reveal a certain hostility on your part toward all
things Christian.



Geoff

--
"I'm so anal that I weigh each of my cd's to the nearest microgram,
fifty times, on a quartz crystal microbalance and then arrange them
by standard deviation. Chicks dig that." -- Michael H. Alaimo

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  #2  
Old December 21st 05, 09:40 PM posted to rec.travel.europe,rec.travel.air,rec.autos.driving,misc.consumers
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Default Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays???


> Your putting sneer-quotes around "Christ," "Christmas," and "Bible"
> would seem to reveal a certain hostility on your part toward all
> things Christian.
>
>
>
> Geoff
>


Not at all. I just think it's truly ironic that the Christians stole a
pagan holiday, then many Christians rejected the new version of the holiday
BECAUSE it included Christ, then the Christians finally accepted Christmas
as a mostly non-religious holiday named after a person the Christians
believe in . . .

And now many Christians complain that the winter holiday should be just
about Christ, forgetting that the inclusion of Christ almost killed the
holiday completely, as most people (even certain Christians) were NOT OK
with the holiday including a celebration of the birth of Christ.

Keep Christ in Christmas? Heck, that almost killed Christmas!!! -Dave


  #3  
Old December 21st 05, 11:41 PM posted to rec.travel.europe,rec.travel.air,rec.autos.driving,misc.consumers
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Default Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays???



Mike T. > writes:

: Your putting sneer-quotes around "Christ," "Christmas," and "Bible"
: would seem to reveal a certain hostility on your part toward all
: things Christian.

> Not at all. I just think it's truly ironic that the Christians stole
> a pagan holiday, then many Christians rejected the new version of the
> holiday BECAUSE it included Christ, then the Christians finally
> accepted Christmas as a mostly non-religious holiday named after a
> person the Christians believe in . . .


Well, I suspect that somewhere in that timeline, the Christians
accepted the new version of the holiday *as* a religious holiday
before it eventually became secularized and they accepted that
secularized version as well.

As far as that goes, would it really be accurate to say that (modern)
Christians accept the "new" version of Christmas (that celebrated on
Dec. 25th) as a *non*-religious holiday? It seems much more likely to
me that to true Christians, it retains all the religious significance
it ever had -- even if they celebrate it in modern fashion with the
tree, lights, gifts, commercialism, etc.


> And now many Christians complain that the winter holiday should be just
> about Christ, forgetting that the inclusion of Christ almost killed the
> holiday completely, as most people (even certain Christians) were NOT OK
> with the holiday including a celebration of the birth of Christ.


A simpler (and therefore more likely) explanation is that if they know
this at all, they simply don't think it's relevant. Why should they
care what people of an earlier era felt about it? I don't see that
modern Christians are somehow obligated to follow suit, just for the
sake of obsessive, misguided historical consistency.

The emphasis I discern from Christians isn't to make Christmas *only*
about Christ, but that the holiday's religious significance should be
borne in mind. To "keep Christ in Christmas," to quote an old bumper
sticker.



Geoff

--
"I'm so anal that I weigh each of my cd's to the nearest microgram,
fifty times, on a quartz crystal microbalance and then arrange them
by standard deviation. Chicks dig that." -- Michael H. Alaimo

  #4  
Old December 22nd 05, 04:32 AM posted to rec.travel.europe,rec.travel.air,rec.autos.driving,misc.consumers
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Default Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays???


>
> Well, I suspect that somewhere in that timeline, the Christians
> accepted the new version of the holiday *as* a religious holiday
> before it eventually became secularized and they accepted that
> secularized version as well.


You would be wrong, then. If you research the history of customs related to
the holiday called "Christmas", you will note that the ONLY religious
connection is the nativity scene. At least, the only Christian religious
connection. There are some customs associated with Christmas that can be
traced to ancient non-Christian religious beliefs Everything else
associated with "Christmas" has origins that can be traced to customs so old
that some of them pre-date written historical records. For just one
example, the evergreen tree cut down, brought inside and decorated. In
certain religions that pre-date Christianity, evergreen trees were thought
to be good luck, and so were brought into the home and decorated. It was
believed that these trees would ward off evil spirits, and they also
reminded people of all the plants that would return to life in the Spring.
Eventually some German Christians started decorating their evergreens with
apples (the forbidden fruit), which were eventually replaced with ornaments.
The practice spread to England, and eventually the whole world, and was
included in what became the Christmas celebration. Thus, we have what is
generally referred to today as the Christmas tree. Ironically, the
inclusion of the celebration of the birth of Christ is what turned many
people (including many Christians at the time) AWAY from the Christmas
celebration.


> As far as that goes, would it really be accurate to say that (modern)
> Christians accept the "new" version of Christmas (that celebrated on
> Dec. 25th) as a *non*-religious holiday? It seems much more likely to
> me that to true Christians, it retains all the religious significance
> it ever had -- even if they celebrate it in modern fashion with the
> tree, lights, gifts, commercialism, etc.


Here you are really confused. TRUE Christians loudly DENOUNCE the practice
of celebrating the birth of Christ on "the 5th and 20th of December". Oh,
and again, it never had any religious significance, especially CHRISTIAN
religious significance, as it was initially rejected by many Christians as
too far separated from the official canon. Even today many Christians are
****ed that the birth of Christ is associated with a pagan holiday at all.
Oh, and "tree, lights, gifts, commercialism, etc." are not modern fashion .
.. . that is the OLD-FASHIONED version of the celebration that is currently
called Christmas. The modern version of the holiday that includes the
nativity is the version that many Christians object to, and they rightly
SHOULD object to it. If they want the celebration of the birth of Christ to
have religious significance, they should move the date of the celebration
closer to Easter, and keep Christ out of the pagan holiday celebration of
what is called Christmas. In a real sense, the birthday celebration of
Christ has been ruined by being associated with what was (and still is) a
pagan holiday for many centuries before Christ was born. But the religious
significance has not been removed from the holiday, it was unsuccesfully
mixed with the holiday.

> A simpler (and therefore more likely) explanation is that if they know
> this at all, they simply don't think it's relevant. Why should they
> care what people of an earlier era felt about it? I don't see that
> modern Christians are somehow obligated to follow suit, just for the
> sake of obsessive, misguided historical consistency.
>
> The emphasis I discern from Christians isn't to make Christmas *only*
> about Christ, but that the holiday's religious significance should be
> borne in mind. To "keep Christ in Christmas," to quote an old bumper
> sticker.
>


Misguided historical consistency? I'm not talking about old news here,
there are still many Christians who refuse to celebrate Christmas for the
specific reason that the holiday now includes a sacrilegious celebration of
the birth of Christ on December 25th. It is the wrong date, and mixed up
with a pagan holiday much older than Christ. What could be worse for the
Christians? If they really want to keep Christ in Christmas, they should
move the date of the celebration into the Spring sometime.

The winter Celebration known currently as Christmas pre-dates the Christian
"Christ" by many centuries. Christians hated this winter celebration for
many years and tried to kill it by outlawing it. Just like prohibition,
that didn't work. People still needed (what we now call Christmas), even
though it had NOTHING to do with Christ. Declaring the 25th of December as
Christ's birthday was a final desperate attempt by Christians to do away
with the holiday forever, and it almost worked. Many people (including
Christians) refused to celebrate the ******* mix of a pagan holiday that was
suddenly mis-associated with the birth of Christ.

Keep Christ in Christmas? It makes just as much sense to say Keep the
Easter Bunny in Kwanzaa. Before you flame me for saying that, keep in mind
that many Christians do not celebrate Christmas as that's EXACTLY how they
see it, also. The only confusing thing is, that we currently use the name
"Christmas" to refer to a celebration that forever has had NOTHING to do
with CHRIST. It would be more accurate to say, "Keep your Christ out of our
Christmas". Only it is unfortunate that the pagan holiday is named after a
Christian symbol, which ****ES OFF A LOT OF CHRISTIANS, by the way.

If you say "Keep Christ in Christmas", you are trying to add Christian
religious significance to a pagan holiday. It didn't work for Julius I, so
why should a bumper sticker have better luck???? -Dave



  #5  
Old December 22nd 05, 11:22 AM posted to rec.travel.europe,rec.travel.air,rec.autos.driving,misc.consumers
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Default Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays???

"Dave" > writes:

>
> >
> > Well, I suspect that somewhere in that timeline, the Christians
> > accepted the new version of the holiday *as* a religious holiday
> > before it eventually became secularized and they accepted that
> > secularized version as well.

>
> You would be wrong, then. If you research the history of customs related to
> the holiday called "Christmas", you will note that the ONLY religious
> connection is the nativity scene.


Since you imply you have researched this such history, how about a
couple of scholarly references to start the rest off? Most of what I
can get on the web is citation-free blithering from the pro- or
anti-Jesus lobbies.

> At least, the only Christian religious connection. There are some
> customs associated with Christmas that can be traced to ancient
> non-Christian religious beliefs Everything else associated with
> "Christmas" has origins that can be traced to customs so old that
> some of them pre-date written historical records. For just one
> example, the evergreen tree cut down, brought inside and decorated.
> In certain religions that pre-date Christianity, evergreen trees
> were thought to be good luck, and so were brought into the home and
> decorated. It was believed that these trees would ward off evil
> spirits, and they also reminded people of all the plants that would
> return to life in the Spring.


In particular, I would be very interested if this could be shown to be
an unbroken tradition. (I am particularly fond of Twinkletrees, but
I've drawn a blank on actual history. I know the one about Luther,
which is obviously false and I know the one about Riga, but I've never
seen a scholarly source for it.) I'd also be curious to know how we
know that trees were "thought to be good luck" in times that "pre-date
historical records".

[...]

Des
  #6  
Old December 22nd 05, 02:43 PM posted to rec.travel.europe,rec.travel.air,rec.autos.driving,misc.consumers
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Default Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays???

>> You would be wrong, then. If you research the history of customs related
>> to
>> the holiday called "Christmas", you will note that the ONLY religious
>> connection is the nativity scene.

>
> Since you imply you have researched this such history, how about a
> couple of scholarly references to start the rest off? Most of what I
> can get on the web is citation-free blithering from the pro- or
> anti-Jesus lobbies.
>



I'm not going to do your homework for you. But if you do the research
carefully, you will find your own indisputable sources to show that just
about all customs and symbols related to the holiday called "Christmas"
pre-date the birth of Christ by many years. The one glaring exception is
the nativity scene. But Santa Claus, gift-giving, "Christmas trees",
mistletoe, carolling, traditional foods and feasts, in short EVERYTHING that
makes up "Christmas" was a part of the holiday celebrated in late December
LONG before Christ is said to have been born.

If Julius I never declared the "5th and 20th day of December" to be the
birthday of the Christ child, Christmas would still exist. It would be a
holiday that you would recognize immediately, as it would be IDENTICAL to
what you know as "Christmas". Only, it wouldn't be called "Christmas". And
you wouldn't see any nativity scenes anywhere. But it is likely that your
family would gather together at the same time of year, have a great feast,
and exchange presents from underneath an elaborately decorated tree. You
might even have mistletoe hanging in the doorway. If you had children, you
would entertain them with stories of Santa Claus. All this sound
iliar? -Dave


  #7  
Old December 22nd 05, 02:55 PM posted to rec.travel.europe,rec.travel.air,rec.autos.driving,misc.consumers
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Default Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays???

Following up to "Dave" > :

> Even today many Christians are
>****ed that the birth of Christ is associated with a pagan holiday at all.


Which day would they suggest as an alternative?
Are they so insecure in their beliefs that they really have to worry about
things like that?
--
Tim C.
  #8  
Old December 22nd 05, 02:55 PM posted to rec.travel.europe,rec.travel.air,rec.autos.driving,misc.consumers
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Default Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays???

"Mike T." > writes:

> >> You would be wrong, then. If you research the history of customs related
> >> to
> >> the holiday called "Christmas", you will note that the ONLY religious
> >> connection is the nativity scene.

> >
> > Since you imply you have researched this such history, how about a
> > couple of scholarly references to start the rest off? Most of what I
> > can get on the web is citation-free blithering from the pro- or
> > anti-Jesus lobbies.

>
> I'm not going to do your homework for you.


This is not "[my] homework", you supercilious twerp. Have you ever
read a scholarly book? They give references. There are good reasons
for this.

> But if you do the research carefully, you will find your own
> indisputable sources to show that just about all customs and symbols
> related to the holiday called "Christmas" pre-date the birth of
> Christ by many years. The one glaring exception is the nativity
> scene. But Santa Claus,


Santa Claus - including the name - is pre-Christian? You seem unable
to even state your claims adequately.

> gift-giving, "Christmas trees", mistletoe, carolling, traditional
> foods and feasts, in short EVERYTHING that makes up "Christmas" was
> a part of the holiday celebrated in late December LONG before Christ
> is said to have been born.


I've seen random nutjobs on the net claim all sorts of stuff without
any attempt to give reputable sources; this is the glorious company to
which you have elected yourself.

Des
  #9  
Old December 22nd 05, 03:19 PM posted to rec.travel.europe,rec.travel.air,rec.autos.driving,misc.consumers
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Default Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays???

>> Even today many Christians are
>>****ed that the birth of Christ is associated with a pagan holiday at all.

>
> Which day would they suggest as an alternative?
> Are they so insecure in their beliefs that they really have to worry about
> things like that?
> --
> Tim C.


That's not the way they see it. The Christians who do not celebrate
Christmas do so as they believe the birth of Christ should not be associated
with a pagan holiday. So they choose not to observe "Christmas" in any
form. It's kind of like a boycott of the pagan holiday, because that pagan
holiday includes a celebration of the birth of the Christ child. There is
no day suggested as an alternative, as those Christians feel that the birth
of Christ does not need to be necessarily celebrated. (especially as part
of a pagan holiday!!!)

But if you were a Christian who felt very strongly that the birth of Christ
should be solemnly and religiously CELEBRATED, and should have it's own
legal holiday date specifically assigned for that celebration . . .

And assuming you had to pick an appropriate day to celebrate the birth of
Christ, that day would be . . . EASTER!!!

Yes, I said Easter. Biblically, that is a lot more accurate of a timeframe
for the possible birthday of the Christ child than "The 5th and 20th Day of
December". Bible scholars know that the Christ child was born in the year 4
BC, sometime after March 12th but before April 4th. In the year 2005 of the
current calendar system, Easter fell roughly in the middle of that time
period of (March 13th to April 3rd) Before you ask how it is possible
that Christ was born in the year 4 "Before Christ", you need to understand
that the current calendar was created long after Christ was said to have
been born, and the person who created the calendar took a WILD GUESS as to
when the Christ child was born. (he was only off by a few years) -Dave


  #10  
Old December 22nd 05, 03:22 PM posted to rec.travel.europe,rec.travel.air,rec.autos.driving,misc.consumers
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Default Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays???

Des Small > wrote:

[]
> Santa Claus - including the name - is pre-Christian?


There's a murky history to Santa Claus, and some of the origins are
attributed to pre-christian myth, much like the rest of Christianity!

I'm not going to cite a reference though!

--
David Horne- http://www.davidhorne.net
usenet (at) davidhorne (dot) co (dot) uk
http://homepage.mac.com/davidhornecomposer http://soundjunction.org
 




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