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Merry Christmas vs. Happy Holidays

CriticalSock said:
Eh?! My JW's become offended at every holiday salutation! christmas is anathema, easter too. Haloween? NO!

It's caused family problems that I'm going to my works christmas ball, purely because it's got the word christmas in the title, the actual xmas content in a bunch of colleagues getting drunk and eating finger food is zero.
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I meant publicly. I haven't heard any JWs complain on a radio talk show or write op eds in the paper lambasting the salutation "Merry Christmas" or "Happy Holidays", unlike some secularists and some Christians respectively.
 
Aitch said:
Ahh, a closet Cliff Richard fan! :cool:
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Not at all.

Where I come from (South Australia), summers get so hot that pretty much *everything* closed down over late January - February.

I recall a number of days when I was a kid of 47°C (about 117°F). People don't move around much when it is like that.

So I have these lovely memories of stinking hot lazy days by the river, or better still, by the beach.

ETA: Oops - I forgot to add - where I live now (New Zealand), the summers are pale, wan, insipid things. It never gets that hot, though perversely, the UV counts are higher here, so in NZ, we get more skin cancer (per capita) than Australia.

I still miss proper summers.

I am going to Oz in January though, so am planning on getting royally heat-prostrated.

:bgrin:
 
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I'm just waiting for some people here to get into an argument about how many angels will fit on the head of a pin ;)
 
MattusMaximus said:
I'm just waiting for some people here to get into an argument about how many angels will fit on the head of a pin ;)
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Darn you Matt, if you had just phrased it as 'dance on the head of a pin' I would have had a witty (albeit far from original) answer involving the Foxtrot and finding a partner. But no, you had to phrase the question wrong and ruin all of my fun.
 
cwalner said:
Darn you Matt, if you had just phrased it as 'dance on the head of a pin' I would have had a witty (albeit far from original) answer involving the Foxtrot and finding a partner. But no, you had to phrase the question wrong and ruin all of my fun.
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*Laughs evilly while twirling moustache :) *
 
AvalonXQ said:
Again, you're trying to parse the wording of an outdated translation into English of an ancient Hebrew scripture, and apparently unhappy because the dependent clause isn't coming out as cleanly as you want it to.
I'm telling you what the passage, from context, is very clearly talking about -- the making of a wooden idol. Now, it's possible (but very, very unlikely) that the idols being described were tree-shaped, because as you point out, it doesn't explicitly say "carving the idol into a non-tree shape". It's far more likely that the wooden idols were more conventional human/animal shapes, which fits every reference and all the history on the subject that we have.
But trying to force the passage so that it MUST describe a modern holiday tree is silly.
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What you meant to say is "I am telling you what my opinion of what the passage, from context, is very clearly talking about."
 
I think this is a pretty good analysis of the Jeremiah bit about the pagan tree, written by a Christian:
http://www.askelm.com/doctrine/d911101.htm

Jeremiah is really talking about pagan "tree worship" that the Israelites of his time had taken up. The palm tree (which is an evergreen like most Christmas trees today) was being decorated with gold and silver spiral ribbons like those that come forth from the working of a lathe and also with blue and purple cloth ribbons. Such trees were known as asherahs. They are mentioned several times in the Old Testament and often are translated by the English word "grove." But the word asherah has been shown to refer to a single tree that can be living, cut out of the forest, or depicted in various abstract forms. Indeed, the most ancient form of all pagan religion is simple "tree worship." Long before most nations of the world took up depicting their gods and goddesses in human or animal form, it is known that well-nigh the whole of the world's population (civilized or savage) were thoroughly engrossed in various forms of "tree worship." The Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics has a large article that shows the universal proclivity of all ancient peoples (including the Hebrews) to indulge in the worship of living trees and those they had cut out of the forest for religious reasons (vol.12, pp.448-457).

Such "tree worship" was well known in the time of Jeremiah and later. The oak was universally held in esteem. In mountainous areas cedars and firs were worshiped. In more desert regions the palm was the tree most worshiped. As the The Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics states: "Tree worship pure and simple, where the tree is in all respects treated as a god, is attested for Arabia in the case of the sacred date-palm in Nejran. It was adorned at an annual feast with fine clothes and women's ornaments" (vol.12, p.449). The encyclopaedia goes on to say that the biblical mention of the women of Judah draping the asherah with their garments near the Temple at Jerusalem is another example of tree worship (II Kings 23:7).

This kind of heathen activity is precisely what Jeremiah is referring to in chapter 10. He was telling the Israelites not to learn the way of the heathen by cutting a tree out of the forest and decorating it with spiral ribbons of gold and silver like those coming from the workings of a lathe, and adorned with blue and purple fabric ribbons. Such customs were normally associated with the seasonal feasts of the pagans (especially those of the Solstices or Equinoxes). The modern Christmas tree is a prime example in our day of what the heathen were doing in the time of Jeremiah.

One wonders what Jeremiah, if he were alive today, would say about all the Christmas trees that now decorate our Christian homes and Christian churches? Would he sound a similar alarm like he did among the ancient Jewish population in Jerusalem? He probably would. And knowing how the apostles of Christ said to flee idolatry, the apostles would probably be equally against perpetuating these heathen customs.
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Curt - you don't get it. That person you quoted just isn't reading the passages in the context they were written. Notice he/she didn't even say anything about chopping the tree up into small idols!!!!

(btw, I hope you realize I am kidding)
 
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I first heard of "The War on Christmas" when I was in grad school. That Christmas I drove from CT to NC so i could visit my Dad and found a rather long thread about TWoC on the old "iwon" boards so I told a harrowing tale of driving through 7 states and only hearing "Merry Christmas" 8 times.

"That's right! I went 600-700 miles, stopped for gas and food 7-8 times and even though it was Dec 20th, Only 8 people wished me a merry Christmas!"

The next few pages were full of shock and horror.:rolleyes:
 
bokonon said:
I don't care, happy holidays, happy hannukah, happy new year, merry christmas, krazy kwanza, silly solstice, satisfactory saturnalia, it's all good.
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I care as I do not know why someone would not let Christians express themselves like others do. I even bought a button that says, "It's ok to wish me a Merry Christmas."
 
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