What is the PURPOSE

What is the purpose of any celebration? How can a true Christian who actually believes in the redeeming Blood shed for all mankind, hoot and holler as others bow to their idols?
Tell them the Truth, don't condemn them, but to join in their ignorance is poor advice indeed.

Enough already!

Back in the early fifties a radio station in Slt. St Marie Ont started a drive to collect money by asking people to pay to NOT have Bing Crosby sing "White Chritsmas" on the air.

In a simialr vein, may I suggest we start a drive to have the Tyee NOT publish more drivel from Rafe Mair?

I have no problem with

I have no problem with Christmas although I am technically an atheist. I am happy to see my friends celebrating their beliefs this season, so long as they don't try to make me celebrate their particular God.

Personally I am not much for celebrating, but I think it is a good thing for people to do, just not my particular cup of tea. And this, the darkest time of the year, is a great time to celebrate something as an antidote to the seasonal gloom.

If I wanted to celebrate I would celebrate the anniversary of the birth of Sir Isaac Newton, the greatest of all scientists whose ideas enabled the making of much of what we call our "modern" world.
And he has the advantage of actually having been born on the 25th - unlike Jesus if you actually believe the bible, since that text makes it clear he was not born in December at all.

But, alas, a lot of "Christians" seem to think that not celebrating their particular holiday in their particular way and doing so openly, are offensive to them, and have invented a so called "War on Christmas", apparently so they can feel superior to others. Hardly in keeping with the spirit in which Christians are supposed to celebrate this season.

But if one wants to rail on about a "war" on Christmas and thus feel better, then I am happy to see you feeling better! Though I confess it makes me suspect you aren't really so confident about your beliefs as you may want me to think.

And I hasten to add that I am not talking about Rafe in that last paragraph.

I would gladly

contribute five bucks toward a fund (or whatever) to encourage The Tyee to behave as if December was just another month. NO Christmas articles, photo's or blumph. No supposedly heartwarming tales of little children showing the true meaning of X-Mess, no photos of beautiful children in their nightwear hanging stockings over the faux-fireplace.

ZIP!!

Jeebus, it starts as soon as the witches and goblins are taken down and it just drags on and on and on and on. Michael Buble is so bored with it all he HUMMMMS his last album!!

Please, give us all a break.
Ignore it.

religion, sexual liberty, getting rich at Christmas?

With the environment crumbling and air, water and soil getting laced w/ more and more toxic junk how can we waste breath on religion, sexual liberty, and getting rich? Are we just stupid or what?

The Real Reason For The Season

Your reference to "... a season that is Christian in origin ..." is as fatuous as the "Jesus is the reason for the season" bumper sticker bromide.

You may have noticed, as have billions of others over the millennia, that on December 21 the sun ceases its slippage to southern climes and begins its return voyage. This, and nothing else, is the origin of and reason for numerous human made celebrations, and an understandable source of joy and comfort for everyone in the Northern Hemisphere, regardless of preferred mythology.

We should all welcome and enjoy the cultural gifts from all branches of the human family in observing this annual promise of return and renewal. And we should give up trying to sell each other on the idea that any one tribal tradition started the party.

So Happy Solstice, one and all, and a joyous whatever you want to call it!

the immorality of Jesus

Rafe: "But I have taken to Jesus. I like what he has to say: that we must love God and our neighbour and that upon those two rules everything else depends."

First, no one knows for sure if the words attributed to Jesus were actually spoken by him. If you do accept that those words (see a red letter Bible) are spoken by Jesus, then you ought to accept all those words, not just selectively choose those that appeal to you, aka, cafeteria Christian. For example, Jesus also supposedly talked about sending people to hell. Bertrand Russel wrote an excellent short essay on this subject. see:

Why I am not a Christian
http://users.drew.edu/~jlenz/whynot.html

"There is one very serious defect to my mind in Christ's moral character, and that is that He believed in hell. I do not myself feel that any person who is really profoundly humane can believe in everlasting punishment. Christ certainly as depicted in the Gospels did believe in everlasting punishment, and one does find repeatedly a vindictive fury against those people who would not listen to His preaching -- an attitude which is not uncommon with preachers, but which does somewhat detract from superlative excellence. You do not, for instance find that attitude in Socrates."

My second point is that boiling down the teachings of Jesus to those two rules, loving God and your neighbour, as appealing as it sounds can lead to devastating theological damage. The notorious cult Children of God, now known as The Family International, has a doctrine called God's Only Law is Love, which is based on that concept of only two commandments. That doctrine was a 'poison pill' that looked appealing on the outside, but led to religious prostitution, child sexual abuse, incest and many other abuses in that cult.

Do Not Speak of That Which You Do Not Know

@ igbymac

You clearly have a very serious misunderstanding of Christianity.

Yahweh does indeed send destruction to his people in the bible, Noah's flood, Sodam and Gamorah, Job. But those are in the Old Testament. Once Jesus came and died on the cross for our sins, those acts never need to happen again until the day of judgement.

That is the Christian belief. If the Holy Spirit hasnt entered you, then you dont need to believe it. BUT please do not lie about what Christian belief is. It is extremely dishonest.

For anyone who wants to learn what Christianity really is, and why unbelievers like "igbymac" need to lie about it in order to critize it, the doors to your local church are open. Feel free to drop in to any worship and learn the real word of God.

Rafe Mair on Christmas

I think Rafe wrote too many words and lost us somewhere in the middle of his diatribe. If he had said, let's lose the word "Stanley" in Stanley Cup because Stanley was a Lord and lord knows we don't have Lords in Canada. And if he had said for the same reason let's stop calling it the Grey Cup because similarly Grey was an Earl for heaven't sake. Think of the riots we would have!

Following this logic, I am sick of hearing of Christmas called the Holiday Season, instead of what it has historically been. Next thing someone will find something potentially offensive about New Year. I've heard that some people want September to be the new new year, so that may not be too far fetched.

My god, do we have to rename everything because some people think some other people might find the old word offensive. For christ sake, is that all we have left–a few swear words? With the death of the word Christmas all we have left of the Holiday Season is the santa myth. I refuse to make a god of commercialism, but I also want to celebrate and give my family, friends and charities my time, gifts and money.

I will continue to say Merry Christmas. I will open Christmas presents. I will gather with my family on Christmas Eve. And I will sing Christmas Carols. And wouldn't it be nice to have a carols on the radio so I wouldn't have to go to a church someplace to hear them.

It's my tradition, stop crapping on it! And if that's not what Rafe Mair was saying, I'll eat my shirt.

Curmufgeons Cranks and Scrooges - Ignore Them

Enough of stealing the joy, the warmth, the compassion of the season and luke-watering it down to vague commercial crassness. Ignore the curmudgeons and cranks and all those with an ax to grind. Celebrate the return of the light (and I say that with layers of meaning). Push back against the forces of darkness and pessimism that permeate the ether of the internet and the real world. Engage with the themes of Peace on Earth, Goodwill to Man(kind). Pass it forward. Happy Holidays always sounds to me like I'm wishing someone a good summer vacation. In this Northern clime, snow on the ground and frost in the air, Merry Christmas! And Happy Hannukah! And whatever you celebrate do it with joy!

Happy Spending!

I do a lot of reading and often I try to mix the fiction with some thoughtful piece on deeper subjects. Like Rafe I thing a serious search for meaning is always good but the search if it is truthful comes up with more contradictions and questions than it answers.

I once read a book by Tom Harpur who made the claim, that I agree with, that it is far too late to "put Christ back into Christmas". The date itself is a creation and had nothing to do with the actual birth date. There is no historical evidence that it took place in Bethlehem either. That was a concoction to satisfy a prophesy from the Torah. Much of the teachings of Jesus have been subverted by the organized religions but no matter how you look at it, the teachings had nothing to do with the annual spending spree on gifts for people who already have too much in the way of useless junk made by cheap labour if not child labour.

The greeting of the season should be Happy Spending. That is what it is all about.

This extravaganza of spending is a commercial gimmick and an abuse of the religious aspect of the day and we would be better off to move the religious observance of the day, if that is what we want, to some other time of the year. It would make more religious sense.

titus_steerpike

Here we go....lmfao!

I'd generally try to rationally appeal to someone making the sort of allegations you just did. But I also understand that reason did not bring you to your faith, and reason is certainly not going to turn you away from it.

cefair

Yeah, I guess once a year is suffice in this mad world to think about being a good guy, to let some light in. /sarcasm

No wonder this place is such a fcuking looney bin!!

I'm far from a practicing Christian, but...

I'm far from a practicing Christian but Christmas is part of my culture and tradition with my family.

There's not just a war on Christmas, but on Christians. I think of my local community centre, who this year broke from their usual Christmas tree lighting ceremony and switched on the lights a week early (Nov 23rd). They used have a ceremony on December 1st where people gathered and sang whatever pagan and so-secular-they-are-athiest 'seasonal' songs they could dredge up.

My son attended the pre-school at this community centre, which was managed by a community board that verged on athiest. Of course they had to acknowledge Hannukah and Kwanzaa, and other 'minority' celebrations, but even mention Christian Christmas? NO! Not a word! The woman who was the senior teacher there for years came across as athiest to the point of hostility. One time, my wife was volunteering and read a book about Thanksgiving to a small group of children. Why were two pages paper-clipped together? Perish the thought of children seeing the image of people saying grace before a special dinner.

I discussed this issue with other parents who had several children go through the same pre-schoool and were around much longer. They complained regularly over years to the community board that ran the pre-school, but nothing changed. No idea what it is like now, but the over-zealous political correctness was disgusting.

A few years ago I saw a brilliant letter in the Georgia Straight, where the writer commented on a Marilyn Manson concert. Manson's earlier Calgary (or Edmonton) show was cancelled as his wiping his bottom with pages torn from a Bible was deemed offensive to community standards. However, he played Vancouver. As the writer pointed out, had Manson wiped his bottom with pages from the Torah or the Koran, he would have been arrested for hate activities. Yet the 'Christian majority' of Vancouver tolerated it. Frankly, sometimes tolerance goes to far.

As Ebenezer Scrooge said, "You keep Christmas in your own way, and I'll keep it in mine". Ignore it if you want, but I have my right to enjoy the season, hear the music and make and enjoy the food. For me, Christmas is about family traditions and I have fond memories of childhood Christmases with my late parents, my siblings and other relatives and friends. We continue that tradition and I even go to a Christmas church service.

didnt have to read far ...

"Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword."

Matthew 10:34

It would be wise for anyone with a view as rigid as ...

...that of titus_steerpike to read Sam Harris' book "The End Of Faith" - Religion, Terror, and The Future of Reason. It is when people accept things religious with a certainty that can not be supported by either science or rational thought, the world gets into trouble.

The whole notion of what Christmas was suppose to be - you know, peace and goodwill - is lost with that blind faith in writings that don't stand up to history or rational thinking.

Sharing religious holidays and beliefs.

I am not a Christian, and do not belong to any organized religion, so I agree with Rafe wholeheartedly. Why can't we share festivals and beliefs with people of all beliefs? How is that wrong? I celebrate Christmas. Not as a religious day, but as it was celebrated by my Norse ancestors, as a fun time on one of the darkest days when we were sure it was, again, going to get lighter. When we learn more about the beliefs and mores of our neighbours, we can become closer and more understanding of them, and they of us. Is that, perhaps, why the "leaders" fight against the idea?

@skywalker

"It is when people accept things religious with a certainty that can not be supported by either science or rational thought, the world gets into trouble. "

Wow, what a big assumption. The world also gets into trouble when people put too much "faith" in science. For example Nazi Eugenics.

One simple fact of reality is that science can not fully describe everything we experince. It can describe the objective, but it can not describe subjective experinces.

If the Holy Spirit enters you, and you experince that, it is as real as anything and as good a proof as any scientific theory in any book. Peoples own personal experinces do in fact count for something. To deny that is to reject the subjective aspect of reality.

Christianity

The belief that a cosmic Jewish Zombie can make you live forever if you symbolically eat his flesh and telepathically tell him that you accept him as your master, so he can remove an evil force from your soul that is present in humanity because a rib woman was convinced by a talking snake
to eat from a magical tree.

Makes perfect sense.

Reality Doesnt Have to Make Sense, Reality is what it is.

It is for us to wonder why.

Belief and prayer has been proven to cure people. The general effect is called the "plaecbo effect" but there is no known mechanism for how it works. et we know it exists and is real. And it doesnt make sense. But belief and prayer do cure people. Its a scientific fact. So who is more foolish? The person who prays or the so called scientific minded person who refuses to pray despite the scientific proof?

Titus

Just because you fervently believe something is true does not make it true. The Nazis believed flawed science and cherry picked the ideas that suited them. Bad example to use to support you contention. It is like buying a Q-ray for your health. If you believe it works, then it works and that is pure bull. If it doesn't work then you have not believed enough, and that simply isn't a rational argument.

Believe if it works for you, but when you turn you brain off and judge others and other religions with the certainty that you are right because "it is written" you get the conflict in the Middle East, you get nutbars claiming that martyrdom gives them a free pass to paradise and you get nutbars that think when the last gallon of oil is used and the last tree is cut, the rapture will come. You also get wingnuts who believe that Israel has some right to land they vacated thousands of years ago. You get people believing that Israel is right and the Palestinians who lost their land by a stroke of a pen have no claim whatsoever.

That is the kind of rigid certainty that does no one any good. How do you explain that a Muslim believes he has the one true religion the same as you? "It is written" for him as well

Sure I celebrate Christmas because it is a time of good cheer, peace and goodwill. But lets keep everything in perspective here.

Titus, you seem to

Titus, you seem to misunderstand what science is and how it works, and what constitutes evidence.

You claim as scientific fact that belief and prayer can heal, yet provide no evidence. Here is some evidence that contradicts your claim:

Prayer & Healing
The Verdict is in and the Results are Null
BY MICHAEL SHERMER

"IN A LONG-AWAITED COMPREHENSIVE SCIENTIFIC STUDY on the effects of intercessory prayer on the health and recovery of 1,802 patients undergoing coronary bypass surgery in six different hospitals, prayers offered by strangers had no effect. In fact, contrary to common belief, patients who knew they were being prayed for had a higher rate of post-operative complications such as abnormal heart rhythms, possibly the result of anxiety caused by learning that they were being prayed for and thus their condition was more serious than anticipated.

The study, which cost $2.4 million (most of which came from the John Templeton Foundation), was begun almost a decade ago and was directed by Harvard University Medical School cardiologist Dr. Herbert Benson and published in The American Heart Journal, was by far the most rigorous and comprehensive study on the effects of intercessory prayer on the health and recovery of patients ever conducted. ..."

http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/06-04-05/

Furthermore, those subjective experiences that you claim reveal 'spiritual truths' cannot be considered evidence for those truths so are completely unreliable. They are asserted as true without any external evidence, and as Christopher Hitchens wrote: "What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence."

So help me DOG

Someone mentioned the placebo effect of religion-- so help me god-dog , whatever, sugarpills can also help!

Could we stick to some sense of rationality here , please?

If placebo effect is it, then I was correct instating several times that religion is a crutch for those who are unable to think for themselves.

Now, can we please concentrate on what matters in this silly world -- like getting people to think before they vote?

What Do We Really Know About Jesus?

What Do We Really Know About Jesus? by Bart Erhman

http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2012/12/09/what-do-we-really-know-about-jesus.html

"As Christians around the world now prepare to celebrate Jesus’ birth, it is worth considering that much of the “common knowledge” about the babe in Bethlehem cannot be found in any scriptural authority, but is either a modern myth or based on Gospel accounts from outside the sacred bounds of Christian Scripture. ...

... For centuries scholars have recognized that the birth narratives of the New Testament are historically problematic. For one thing, the two accounts—the first two chapters of Matthew and the first two chapters of Luke—are strikingly different from one another, in ways that appear irreconcilable. ... Moreover, both accounts contain contradictions with the known facts of history."

Titus

I know people who have prayed fervently for healing that never came. What does that do to your concept of proof. I know, the explanation will be that all prayers are not necessarily answered in the positive. But that is a cop-out as well. Once you introduce any scientific thought to organized religion, it changes or should change how we approach it and other human beings.

This is a totally

twisted swith-back controversy. Why should the Christian church feel oh-so-hurt over attacks on 'christmas', when in fact it never was a christian festival and was and is considered highly controversial and a pain in the proverbial by christian clergy world-wide? It is, as one writer pointed out, a celebration of the solstice. It is way, way pre-christian, pagan if you will, and was known as JUL in the Danish tongue, or "YULE" in the anglo-saxon dialect. By the way, JUL was not 'celebrated' but 'drunk' in the old times. It was just too good for the Church to keep its hands off! The church went so far as to have its saviour born at a different time of the year in order to cram it into the JULE format. The Solstice falls a few days earlier then the 24th of December and you are supposed to hold a vigil and see the first sunup. It goes down fantastically with pancakes or fried dumplings and mead. You can get Solstice meteghlin from tugweel creek, it is fabulously good:

http://tugwellcreekfarm.com/solsticemetheglin

SO, now don't accuse the Norse people of not sharing the best of their tradition!

You can also attend one of the many lantern festivals around town, which are expressive of the same spirit of festivity and is great for the kids. Look it up.

And Why Not

I was raised as a Christian but I no longer profess to follow that ideology.

But, I do respect the purpose of Christmas which is, ostensibly, to celebrate the birth of a remarkable person.

I agree with one view that states that this celebration corresponds suspiciously to a physical event - the cross over from days getting shorter to days getting longer in the northern hemisphere. But who cares. It is still a very good idea to be thankful and celebrate the birth of a remarkable man. And since it is pretty hard in retrospect to be certain of the exact day of his birth, any day will do as well as the next one.

The commercialism is very very much overdone as it was even when I was a child - many years ago. But, through it all, there still comes a taste of the love and social good feeling of sharing times with close family and friends and, yes, even strangers. Children can, if the adults choose, learn the value of sharing some their good fortune, or God's blessings, with those who are less fortunate or even with those of the same status or even a better status (economically) then themselves.

From where I stand now, it seems to me that this debate really stems from the fundamental fact that most Christians (or nominal Christians) are embarrassed to admit that they really do believe in God and that to mention it aloud may reveal them to be somewhat retrogressive or backward. It is alright to 'come out of the closet' if your sexual preference varies from the majority but God forbid you should 'come out of the closet' and admit that 'I do believe in God! I do believe in God!'.

Come on folks. Its Christmas. The day selected to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ. Enjoy it and don't be afraid. It really doesn't hurt.

Merry Christmas to all.

Christmas

Since Christmas has evolved into nothing more than a commercial celebration of GREED, commercially the spelling should be changed to something like--KRISMYSS--to honour the Germanic, Nordic, Celtic, Frankish, etc. mystic pagan rituals that the Roman Catholic church adopted into its rituals in order to enslave the barbarian tribes of northern Europe. Kris Kringle, Santa Claus, Xmas trees, elves, reindeer, etc. had nothing to do with Christ. There would be no need NOT to wish everybody MERRY KRISMYSS, since you will just be wishing that everyone will have their greed satisfied. The religious would understand it as MERRY CHRISTMAS and everybody else as MERRY KRISMYSS. In church it can still be Christmas but commercially Krismyss. Everyone is greedy and wants to buy bargains, so everybody can join in the celebration, Christian or not. Just buy, buy, buy, the season is satisfying GREED !! Share it with everyone else. However you hear it. MERRY KRISMYSS--CHRISTMAS--to ALL. There is the faint hope that PEACE may reign amongst mankind ???

Let's just go back to Saturnalia and be done with it!

They even baked cookies and wore funny hats in Rome. Don't get me wrong, I love babies and the creche is pretty under the tree, but the Romans invented it and The Christ is more about spirit than reality anyway. Read Tom Harper's The Pagan Christ and lighten-up Grinches!

Festival

What in life isn't interpretative?

I have a First Nations friend who decorates his Christmas tree with ravens...bearers of light to the world.

What could be better?

The power of all mythology is in its metaphors and through the wonder of time and transference our metaphors and cultures become wonderfully mixed. We are the same and we are different.

So Santa Claus flies over a nativity creche...and snowy fir trees topped with stars pop up a long, long way from balmy Jerusalem. Holy Glogg, holy rum and eggnog, and holy sacramental wine swirl and twirl across the festive dance floor in lusty embrace.

The stuff of wild fantasy and dreams...

Even anarchist and confirmed atheist Emma Goldman said: "a revolution without dance is no revolution worth having"....to which I agree, but then revolution itself is the stuff of myth...it's rarely pure, just as susceptible to becoming a mixed bag of mixed metaphor, and just as highly interpretative. "One man's freedom fighter is another man's terrorist."

And so it goes....

We all need a little tripping of the light fantastic in our lives....

And so goes the Christmas tree winking right back at me - dancing with snowflakes, polar bears, candy canes, paper chains and ornaments my son made as a child. A holly tree fairy is hidden in the boughs. A glittering snowy owl is perched precariously on the top.

None of it makes a lot of logical sense. Just a bit of magic and dream, goodwill....and memory... that somehow resounds at a deeper level than mere appearance would at first suggest.

Ain't life grand?

Have yourself a merry little.....