Christmas as a secular holiday.

[RussDill]

Its been mentioned several times in forums that christmas is a secular holiday. After all, what do reindeer, a guy in a red suit, and presents have to do with religion?

I myself, happily celebrate christmas as a secular holiday, however, it clearly has religious roots and motivation.

You can think of the christmas fairy tail just as all other fairy tails, to prepare childern for the life they will lead. In teaches children concepts they will use to survive in their adult life. Each culture has their own fairy tails, and the ones that survive are the ones that fit their culture best.

Given that, what are the similarities with chirstmas, and christianity. There are some conincidental ones (ie, 12 reindeer, 12 apostles, santa has elves an the north pole, jesus has angels and heaven), but there are also a lot of other simlarities that really prepare children for a christian life.

Children are taught that there is a man that brings joy to the whole world, santa claus, just like the christians believe jesus brings joy to the world. However, just like jesus, he is watching you all the time, and keeps a list of good girls and boys, just like the book that god keeps of those that will go to heaven, and those that will go to hell. And just like with heaven and hell, if you are good, you will get rewarded, bad and you will get a lump of coal.

Also, many christmas tails revolve around faith. There is the child that believes in santa claus, and the children/adults that don't. The child that believes in santa without question, is held the highest esteem in these stories, and receives their just reward, whereas the others who don't believe are made as fools. Blind faith is held up as a quality that every child must have.

I'm sure there are other elements of christmas stories that teach children how to become good unquestioning christians in their adult life, but I can't think of them now. Probably something with snowmen, or the christmas tree, I'm sure you all can think of something.

[Some Friggin Guy]

Just a quick note of correction, there are only 8 reindeer.

[Yahweh]

It almost saddens me that the children grow out of their belief in Santa Claus before they can ever take the time to write up Santa Apolegetics...

[Some Friggin Guy]

Originally posted by Yahweh
It almost saddens me that the children grow out of their belief in Santa Claus before they can ever take the time to write up Santa Apolegetics...

You, my young friend, have never met my mother!

[Zero]

8 reindeer, and they are bloody tiny! ;)

[Some Friggin Guy]

Originally posted by Zero
8 reindeer, and they are bloody tiny! ;)

This is true. In fact, if it weren't for the antlers, they would easily be mistaken for chihuahuas.

[Zero]

Originally posted by Some Friggin Guy


This is true. In fact, if it weren't for the antlers, they would easily be mistaken for chihuahuas. Dude...I would check their heads for staples...:o

[Some Friggin Guy]

Originally posted by Zero
Dude...I would check their heads for staples...:o

Well, there was that ninth reindeer...

The good news is, he was almost immediately given a job doing ads for Taco Bell.

[Iacchus]

Originally posted by RussDill
Its been mentioned several times in forums that christmas is a secular holiday. After all, what do reindeer, a guy in a red suit, and presents have to do with religion?

I myself, happily celebrate christmas as a secular holiday, however, it clearly has religious roots and motivation.

You can think of the christmas fairy tail ...Oops, that's about as far as I can take it. This is clearly biased ...

[Zero]

Originally posted by Iacchus
Oops, that's about as far as I can take it. This is clearly biased ... Also clearly true...got a problem with truth?

[Some Friggin Guy]

Originally posted by Iacchus
Oops, that's about as far as I can take it. This is clearly biased ...

He never said it wasn't. What he said was that the holiday clearly has religious overtones. This is true. Also, what he said was you can take it as a fairy tale. He never said you had to.

Being that many people here are atheist, and many (myself included) still observe the christmas holiday, I believe he was giving them an option as to how to rectify being an atheist with observing that holiday.

If you want my way of doing it, I ignore all religious overtones and merely call it "the holiday season" which culminates in celebrations on my first day off of work in the last 2 weeks of December. My employers usually makle that the 25th, though sometimes it's the 24th.

[RussDill]

Originally posted by Iacchus
Oops, that's about as far as I can take it. This is clearly biased ...

What bias is that, that I don't believe in santa claus?

[Dorian Gray]

Just a quick note of correction, there are only 8 reindeer. Just a quick note of correction, there are 9 reindeer. Do you recall the most famous reindeer of all?

[Iacchus]

Originally posted by RussDill


What bias is that, that I don't believe in santa claus? If you took everything away from it except for the fact it was Christ's birthday -- which, from what I understand is not even correct -- then yes, it is a secular holiday. And yet, since Christ's true birthday "allegedly" occurs on January 6th, then what does it have to do with anything except, that which is secular?

[RussDill]

Originally posted by Iacchus
If you took everything away from it except for the fact it was Christ's birthday -- which, from what I understand is not even correct -- then yes, it is a secular holiday. And yet, since Christ's true birthday "allegedly" occurs on January 6th, then what does it have to do with anything except, that which is secular?

actually, I've heard that his birthday most likely occurs sometime in the summer. The history channel had a show on this recently, the most interesting thing on the show is that the taxing that brought them to bethlaham in the first place a) did not happen near that year, b) would not have brought them back to a city, and c) would not have applied to them anyway. Very interesting what can be found by comparing the bible to roman records.

Anyway, I pointed out the lessons that are important for good little christians to learn that are in the christmas fairy tales that seem so secular.

[Iacchus]

Originally posted by RussDill


actually, I've heard that his birthday most likely occurs sometime in the summer. The history channel had a show on this recently, the most interesting thing on the show is that the taxing that brought them to bethlaham in the first place a) did not happen near that year, b) would not have brought them back to a city, and c) would not have applied to them anyway. Very interesting what can be found by comparing the bible to roman records.

Anyway, I pointed out the lessons that are important for good little christians to learn that are in the christmas fairy tales that seem so secular. Is the Christian religion just a fairy tale? I would agree that there's a lot of delusional people in the world, but that doesn't mean the Christian faith itself is suspect.

[RussDill]

Originally posted by Iacchus
Is the Christian religion just a fairy tale? I would agree that there's a lot of delusional people in the world, but that doesn't mean the Christ faith itself is suspect.

no, I'm saying that all the santa stories are fairy tales. I don't think the "Christian Religion" would fall under the category fairy tale because its not intended for children.

[canadarocks]

Is the Christian religion just a fairy tale? I would agree that there's a lot of delusional people in the world, but that doesn't mean the Christian faith itself is suspect.

I would submit that the Christian faith and all faiths should be suspect. People who adhere to the faith should have the obligation to research what their faiths teach and match what they feel with their beliefs.

As for Christmas, it is a secular holiday (as others have pointed out on this thread). Maybe we should simply rename the holiday and celebrate Izzy's birthday as suggested by Randi?

[Some Friggin Guy]

Originally posted by Iacchus
Is the Christian religion just a fairy tale? I would agree that there's a lot of delusional people in the world, but that doesn't mean the Christian faith itself is suspect.

No, the fact that there are a lot of delusional people in the world does not make the christian fait suspect.

The fact that there is little to nothing in the christian faith which is not outright stolen from older myths makes the christian faith suspect.

[Iacchus]

Originally posted by Some Friggin Guy


The fact that there is little to nothing in the christian faith which is not outright stolen from older myths makes the christian faith suspect. Stolen? Well perhaps borrowed. But then again if you understood that it all came from the same source (human experience), then heck it makes a great deal of sense. Why shouldn't there be a lot of similarities if we weren't speaking of the same "animal" here?

[Some Friggin Guy]

"Borrowed" implies permission and/or citing the original source.

For christianity, I stand by the term "stolen".

[Iacchus]

Originally posted by Some Friggin Guy
"Borrowed" implies permission and/or citing the original source.

For christianity, I stand by the term "stolen". And yet what if it was necessary for certain pieces of the puzzle to come together before you can get the "true picture."

[Some Friggin Guy]

As a rational human being, I would think that pieces from a different puzzle would be clearly marked as such and not simply passed off as something new. The law calls what christianity does in this regard "plagerism".

[Hal 2001]

Actually it's easier to think of christmas as a secular day in Denmark because its actually is called jul. As I recal this has nothing to do with Christianity and is a remeniscence of the ancient pagan winther solstice tradition.

I celebrate the begining of a new cycle where the days become longer again, even if it's a couple of days to late.

I do not go to church, and when we sing while dancing around the tree (I don't how many countries have this tradition by the way), I only thing the songs with absolutely no religious content.

I do howeever not know what I'm celebrating on new years eve? Gregorius new calendar or what!? Shouldn't that be Christ birth since our time counting in theory should begin with his assumed birth?

I'm wondering


Mss Hal

[Some Friggin Guy]

Originally posted by Hal 2001
Actually it's easier to think of christmas as a secular day in Denmark because its actually is called jul. As I recal this has nothing to do with Christianity and is a remeniscence of the ancient pagan winther solstice tradition.

I celebrate the begining of a new cycle where the days become longer again, even if it's a couple of days to late.

I do not go to church, and when we sing while dancing around the tree (I don't how many countries have this tradition by the way), I only thing the songs with absolutely no religious content.

I do howeever not know what I'm celebrating on new years eve? Gregorius new calendar or what!? Shouldn't that be Christ birth since our time counting in theory should begin with his assumed birth?

I'm wondering


Mss Hal

We don't have the tree tradition in my neighbourhood (at least singing around it) but it sounds nice and familial.

As for what we celebrate on New Year's Eve: I can, of course, only answer for myself. I celebrate the wonderous brew first distilled many years ago by the Jack of Daniels.

[Iacchus]

Originally posted by Some Friggin Guy
As a rational human being, I would think that pieces from a different puzzle would be clearly marked as such and not simply passed off as something new. The law calls what christianity does in this regard "plagerism". This seems like a dumb argument to get into (obviously I'm not rational because I don't agree with you), but "the puzzle" is the human experience as a whole.

Yes, and when two pieces of the puzzle comes together it forms a "new picture." In which case it becomes the hybrid -- and hence "offspring" -- of the two pieces which came together.

[Some Friggin Guy]

I never said you were irrational, Iacchus.

First, I misunderstood what you were saying. My apologies for that.

The issue I have, though, is that viewing christmas as anything but a secular holiday requires acceptance of a religion that has plagerized a good deal from other religions.

Now we can get into the semantic argument of "stolen" vs. "borrowe", but I don't think either of us wants to. What we want to do is get to the heart of the matter, which seems to be this: is there any evidence that christmas has anything to do with christianity.

Since we have to use the bible to justify the existence of even a historical Jesus, since it is the only piece of "evidence" out there, we can look to it for the answer. The problem is, the answer is not in the bible.

The answer is that this date was chosen because of other myths which have heroes, similar to Jesus, born on or around this date. Early christians incorporated this into their faith so they could more easily bring in new members. Nothing says "We're just like you, only better" than to have a party on the same day as the people you are trying to prove your superiority to.

[Keneke]

Let me come out of left field and say that the origins of Santa Claus were religious in and of themselves. He was originally Saint Nicholas, just some guy from Turkey who lived in the fourth century and was later sainted by the Roman Catholic Church. The current story of Saint Nick, much like Christianity itself, is mere caucasian corruption. We really are heartless bastards.

Also, the pagan leftovers of yule celebration (the tree, the holly, etc) are still religious in their own way, not secular at all. As far as I can tell, the only secularness of the holiday is a non-religious person's desire to celebrate it in spite of his or her non-belief. That and "Let It Snow", which I wish was sung at times other than Christmas.