Christmas under attack

[my_wan]

I heard a news segment about Christmas under attack but failed to see where any secular progressives was any part of it. In fact it seemed to be entirely manufactured by Christians unwilling to provide a venue for any other religion, not wanting to include a Menorah in the Fort Collins, CO case.

It appears to me that Christians are being intolerant of other religions and blaming the consequences on secular progressives and the ACLU for personal gain. A google search seems to support this. In fact, as far as I know, there is not one example of a religious icon being removed that couldn't have been avoided by inclusion of other faiths. I'd like to hear the opinions here. I'm glad I never have to worry about Christmas for the adults in my family but the kids are another story.

[fuelair]

I'm suspecting same - but could you give source(s)?

[PAC]

The War on Christmas is silly. However, I am preparing myself for the endless discussion from my fundamentalist Christian relatives over the coming month. (you can pick your friends but not your relatives)

Two thoughts come up. The first is how extreme this issue is among the
Christian fundamentalists. The second is that the cause of this entire issue is the beginning of a real trend in which Christians are having difficulty
forcing thier beliefs on the rest of us. Tolerance is not their strength.


One more thought. Perhaps this should become a real war. The Christians could set up their symbols of faith in a remote part of our county and then
wait for the rest of us to give a damn.

[my_wan]

For the "Holiday Display Task Force" minutes in Fort Collins, CO you can go here;
http://www.fcgov.com/holidaydisplay/

Rocky Mountain News 2005;
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drm...346049,00.html

Rocky Mountain News 2006;
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drm...841067,00.html
http://www.jewishblogging.com/blog.php?bid=86844

2007 and the "Holiday Display Task Force";
http://www.associatedcontent.com/art...e_in_fort.html

Accusations pointed at secular progressives;
http://worldnetdaily.com/news/printe...TICLE_ID=58719

[Kopji]

'Worldnetdaily' represents the fanatic lunatic fringe of Christianity; while that may be quite a few Christians, they are probably not really representative of general Christian opinions. WND does for Christianity what the National Enquirer does for journalism.

The bottom line seems to be that Fort Collins is looking at spending about $38,600 on new decorations and is taking the opportunity to revise their guidelines before they spend the money. All meetings were public, it is noteworthy that almost nobody but the actual task force bothered to attend meetings.

http://citydocs.fcgov.com/?cmd=conve...&docid=1186703

Despite the usual half truths and outright misinformation of Fox News, the new guidelines are more broad than the old narrower 'completely secular' ones and allow latitude for religious items in personal workspaces and at the museum.

A challenge to religious people of all faiths would be to spend less time fighting with each other this season and spend more time in quiet reflection that two bestsellers this year are books on atheism.

[drzeus99]

Originally Posted by my_wan

It appears to me that Christians are being intolerant of other religions .

And this would be unusual..??????



Cheers,
DrZ

[PBTree]

Originally Posted by PAC

One more thought. Perhaps this should become a real war. The Christians could set up their symbols of faith in a remote part of our county and then wait for the rest of us to give a damn.

Maybe we could put them all in a small valley somewhere and then blow up the dam

[autumn1971]

We're just getting back at them for their "war on pagan holidays".

They were so successful that we've adopted their methods.

[my_wan]

Kopji, I would agree that my case is overstated in the sense that not all of any group can be characterized in a certain way. However, finding examples of atheist and/or secular progressives complaining about Christmas displays in general are next to zero compared to the number of incidence blamed on them. The phenomena seems to exist almost entirely in the religious communities.

[Kopji]

We agree.

I looked through the public minutes in the Ft Collins city on-line site. There was plenty of opportunity for concerns to be brought up and resolved as part of the process. They face national criticism for what, trying to be more diligent in spending taxpayer funds?

I don't really know a better way to look at these kind of things except viewing primary data like the public minutes. The media 'processing' always distorts things, and sometimes distorts so much it is impossible to assert any kind of trend from their reporting.

What I find more interesting is the tactic itself; at least in this case it seems more like an indictment that a few people with strong religious opinions are not capable of working with other people. (The sheriff for example) Their preferred recourse was to wait until the discussions were finished and then yell foul. A contrived persecution.

But is that what is really happening? What was reported is so far removed from what actually was going on, there is not enough of substance to conclude anything. This is probably why I've really come to hate Fox News - they toy with us instead of reporting the news.

[cloudshipsrule]

Show me an unbiased news program and I'll show you a flying pig! They all suck, fox included.

[my_wan]

Originally Posted by cloudshipsrule

Show me an unbiased news program and I'll show you a flying pig! They all suck, fox included.

This is fundamentally true about people. Sometimes even as a skeptics these things get missed because it fails to trigger a BS alarm for some reason. Other times it's just a best guess based on insufficient available data.

I'll still watch FOX a fair part of the time because it tries, within the confines of their own biases. They do report on things the other news will avoid due to bias. I'll also call BS when I see it.

[Beerina]

I recall unbiased Peter Jennings on unbiased ABC World News Tonight a number of years back opening the broadcast about some anti-abortion protestors with the line, "People opposed to a woman's right to choose..."

And I support that right. But I don't pretend both sides aren't biased, consciously or not.

[godless dave]

Christianity no longer receives special treatment in the US = Christmas is "under attack".

It makes perfect sense - if you're a moron.

[Foster Zygote]

My research indicates that the opening shot of the War on Christmas was fired by Irving Berlin when he wrote his sinister, Christ-hating song Happy Holiday performed by Bing Crosby in 1942.

[scratchy]

I thought rabbits had their holidays around easter. But know theyve apparantly thrown themselves into the whole christmas debacle:

"The task force was assembled after receiving and denying requests from a local rabbit to include a menorah in the city's official holiday display."

http://www.associatedcontent.com/art...e_in_fort.html

[my_wan]

Who me?

[Jorghnassen]

Oh, Christmas is under attack. Vachon doesn't make yule logs anymore, but "festive logs" (because they changed their "bûches de Noël" to "bûches des fêtes"). Now that PC stuff is sacrilege! How many other holidays have log shaped cakes (which are completely unrelated to the religious aspects of Xmas anyway)?

[my_wan]

Originally Posted by Jorghnassen

Oh, Christmas is under attack. Vachon doesn't make yule logs anymore, but "festive logs" (because they changed their "bûches de Noël" to "bûches des fêtes"). Now that PC stuff is sacrilege! How many other holidays have log shaped cakes (which are completely unrelated to the religious aspects of Xmas anyway)?

You seem to be making the association that because retailers are trying to be politically correct it must be Christmas under attack. Do you really believe retailers care one way or another, they just want as many sales as possible. They've been feed the idea that many feel that by using certain terminology they are alienating a fairly large segment of the population. Being a business wanting sales this is not a good thing. The irony here is that what examples of anti-Christmas blogs you see are often anti-capitalist. Who is getting notoriety and making money off of the fight for Christmas campaign? Who is making lists of "Friend or Foe" and saying things like;

Quote:

Americans when it comes to celebrating Christmas this year: You're either with us, or you're against us.

How silly is that? Who's hiring huge numbers of lawyers to campaign and sue?
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...NGVDFRH081.DTL

Who is profiting from this campaign? (Notice the 1st and 5th link is the same)
http://www.lc.org/misc/friend_or_foe.htm

Then there's this;

Quote:

William Donahue's New York-based Catholic League for Religious and Civic Rights launched a fevered, and short-lived, boycott of Wal-Mart when the stores' website recognized the terms Hanukkah and Kwanzaa, yet turned the words Christmas season into holiday season. Wal-Mart apologized for the mishap.

http://www.mediatransparency.org/story.php?storyID=94
Since when have has "holiday season" not been used? I remember browsing "Holiday Catalog" (actual catalog name) 30 years ago. Perhaps it was really Hanukkah that upset them?

The fact of the matter is that all a government body needs to legally display the nativity scene is to include secular and/or other religious displays. The laws are such that government can't exclusively promote an official religion. They must be inclusive of other beliefs. When they try to avoid the mess they get accused of be anti-religious or anti-Christmas. People call the ACLU anti-religion but how many people that claim this will tell you about this: ACLU of New Jersey Defends Second-Grader's Right to Sing Religious Song? Protecting religious freedom does not mean protecting Christians to the exclusion of all others.

Now show me an organized attempt to remove Christmas. The only organized part I see is some Christians using the fact that they can't have exclusive religious rights to manufacture a battle cry against those evil anti-Christmas/anti-religious people, with a nice profit to boot.

[Tanstaafl]

my_wan, I think you need to have your sarcasm detector calibrated.

Well, either that or I do.

[Jorghnassen]

Originally Posted by Tanstaafl

my_wan, I think you need to have your sarcasm detector calibrated.

He does. Still, the PC nomenclature issue is pretty retarded. I have no qualms with "happy holidays" and "holiday season", but a Yule log's a Yule log, a Christmas tree's a Christmas tree and a menorah is a menorah (or have those been renamed "holiday multibranched candlesticks"?) In the particular example given in my previous post, there's bad translation as well. To try to completely expunge the religious and historical aspects associated with particular holidays and rebrand them into some non-specific sales products just adds another layer of crass commercialism, and no one in their right mind wants to celebrate that.

[Tanstaafl]

I agree, I've never been a big fan of political correctness, and the more prevalent it has become, the less I like it.

But there's a bright side, it is now in the rather long list of issues where my very conservative brother and I can find common ground.

[cgordon]

The Xians attacked first, when they co-opted the old religions' winter festivals to celebrate a mythical god-child's birth (that according to their own sources was more likely late Springtime).

[Darth Rotor]

Originally Posted by Foster Zygote

My research indicates that the opening shot of the War on Christmas was fired by Irving Berlin when he wrote his sinister, Christ-hating song Happy Holiday performed by Bing Crosby in 1942.

Oh dear, someone played the "blame the Jews" card early this year.

Where is that popcorn, anyway?

Originally Posted by cgordon

The Xians attacked first, when they co-opted the old religions' winter festivals to celebrate a mythical god-child's birth (that according to their own sources was more likely late Springtime).

So, let's see, you want to undo 1500+ years of history by whining about that? Time moves forward, at least for us puny humans. You remark smacks of playground justification for pulling a knife.

DR

[m_huber]

As long as Charlie Brown's Christmas is still coming on tv every year, I don't see why anyone should be worried.

Besides, why do Christians even care about the birth of Jesus? The important thing is that he died. Who took the "Christ" out of "Easter" and why didn't anyone notice?

[my_wan]

Originally Posted by Tanstaafl

my_wan, I think you need to have your sarcasm detector calibrated.

Well, either that or I do.

[my_wan]

I guess a "Friend or Foe Christmas Campaign" is easier than an anti-pc campaign, and takes less understanding. Yes I am intentionally overstating my case. The irony is I have more actual information for my case than the simplistic battle cries of the religious right.

[Upchurch]

Originally Posted by my_wan

In fact it seemed to be entirely manufactured by Christians unwilling to provide a venue for any other religion,

That is an American tradition older than celebrating Christmas.

[pgwenthold]

Originally Posted by m_huber

As long as Charlie Brown's Christmas is still coming on tv every year, I don't see why anyone should be worried.

Twas on last night. I hope you didn't miss it.

Charlie Brown's Christmas is really interesting from my perspective. Aside from the fact that it is a nice little feel good story, there is a fascinating piece of culture hidden in there. The main theme of the story is that Christmas has gone away from its roots and is now way too commercialized (Lucy's great line - "It's run by an eastern syndicate, you know"). Wow, that sounds familiar! Every year we constantly hear about how Christmas is too commercialized, so Charlie Brown is right appropriate for the times, right? But keep in mind, Charlie Brown's Christmas was created in the mid-1960s! That is 40 years ago!

The interesting thing about Charlie Brown's Christmas is that it is documented proof that people have been complaining about the commercialization of Christmas for at least 40 years. For some reason, despite all the complaining, I don't see it getting any better. You wonder if maybe, just maybe that people aren't so offended by the commercialism as they claim to be?

Heck, there is a great example of what I mean. One of the things that Charlie Brown finds to be offensive is that Snoopy enters the "Neighborhood Lights and Display Contest." He bemoans, "Even my own dog has gone commercial."

Hmmm, just drive down your street these days and look at all the neighbors trying to outdo each other in their displays. Charlie Brown shows us that back in the 1960s, big, gaudy displays were considered signs of blatent commercialism. Yet now they are almost required! And I gotta say, who do you think are putting up those displays? Is it the "secularists"? I'd suggest not. Heck, your random church is going to have them these days.

Just as long as they don't have pink, aluminum Christmas trees...

[bjb]

Originally Posted by Upchurch

That is an American tradition older than celebrating Christmas.

Very true! For example, the Puritans were not exactly tolerant of other religions and they did not celebrate Christmas for a number of reasons:

http://www.apuritansmind.com/Christm...tmasBanned.htm

[Father Dagon]

Originally Posted by scratchy

I thought rabbits had their holidays around easter. But know theyve apparantly thrown themselves into the whole christmas debacle:

"The task force was assembled after receiving and denying requests from a local rabbit to include a menorah in the city's official holiday display."

http://www.associatedcontent.com/art...e_in_fort.html

Originally Posted by my_wan

Who me?

Never heard about jewish bunnygirls?

Originally Posted by my_wan

You seem to be making the association that because retailers are trying to be politically correct it must be Christmas under attack. Do you really believe retailers care one way or another, they just want as many sales as possible. They've been feed the idea that many feel that by using certain terminology they are alienating a fairly large segment of the population. Being a business wanting sales this is not a good thing. The irony here is that what examples of anti-Christmas blogs you see are often anti-capitalist. Who is getting notoriety and making money off of the fight for Christmas campaign? Who is making lists of "Friend or Foe" and saying things like;

Reminds me of a photo from the early 70's. The billboard ads from the large retailer chains in Sweden was not celebrating material wealth, but said something like "Christmasing [sic!] with responsibility at us." (Jula med ansvar hos oss.)

I simply hate when large corporations spreads anticapitalist venom. Beacuse in the short term, it only hurts the smaller companies.

[Ryan O'Dine]

Originally Posted by pgwenthold

The interesting thing about Charlie Brown's Christmas is that it is documented proof that people have been complaining about the commercialization of Christmas for at least 40 years. For some reason, despite all the complaining, I don't see it getting any better. You wonder if maybe, just maybe that people aren't so offended by the commercialism as they claim to be?

This is exactly what confuses me most about the “war on Christmas.” Before it started in earnest, the complaint was about the holiday being too centered on businesses trying to sell you things during one of the holiest moments of the Christian calendar. Now, what I take from the “war on Christmas” is that businesses aren’t trying hard enough.

To me, this is about secularizing Christianity in the most underminingly commercial way possible -- by marrying it’s observance to the kind of lustful pursuit of worldly goods that Christianity used to abhor (or so I thought).

[cgordon]

Originally Posted by Darth Rotor

So, let's see, you want to undo 1500+ years of history by whining about that? Time moves forward, at least for us puny humans. You remark smacks of playground justification for pulling a knife.
DR

Who's whining? Just stating a fact.

I'm sure various pagan institutions stole each other's holidays and celebrations similarly over the millenia of un- and recorded human history ...

My point is, Christians oughtn't be sniveling about some over-hyped 'war on Xmas' unless they've got their own houses cleaned first.

[c4ts]

But what about Bill O'Reilly? He's my Traditional Christmas Warrior buddy! Every Christmas Eve we go out on the roof with our rifles and drink Christmas rum, while we take pot shots at that pagan Jew bastard Santa Claus for failing to recognize the divinity of Jesus Christ! Then we put on our white Christmas Robes and sing traditional German baroque hymns as we join hands with our brothers in a circle around the warm fire of a blazing cross. Sure, the neighbors complain, but that's because they're a bunch of evil atheists who hate Christmas.

[NobbyNobbs]

Originally Posted by Beerina

I recall unbiased Peter Jennings on unbiased ABC World News Tonight a number of years back opening the broadcast about some anti-abortion protestors with the line, "People opposed to a woman's right to choose..."

And I support that right. But I don't pretend both sides aren't biased, consciously or not.

Assuming that this broadcast took place after Roe v. Wade, he was technically and legally correct in saying a woman has the right to choose.

Were he to have said "...a woman's supposed right to choose.." he would have been pilloried by the other side.

[Cleon]

I get regular email from the Forward, the largest Jewish newspaper in the United States. (I subscribe to the print edition of Forvirtz, the original Yiddish-language version.)

Imagine my surprise (well, more like amusement, really) when I received an email this morning from the Forward advertising "Unique Gift Ideas for the Holidays." "Holidays?" Not "Hanukkah?" From a Jewish newspaper?

Oddly, nobody in the Jewish community seems to be up in arms about a "War on Hanukkah."

Y'know, we're more insecure than most, especially when it comes to anything approaching assimilation. And if we're ok with using "Holidays," well, let's just say that I think it's high time that Bill O'Reilly and his gaggle of Warriors for Christmas withdraw the stick from a certain orifice.