Christmas as a secular holiday.

RussDill

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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.
 
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...
 
Yahweh said:
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...
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You, my young friend, have never met my mother!
 
Some Friggin Guy said:


This is true. In fact, if it weren't for the antlers, they would easily be mistaken for chihuahuas.
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Dude...I would check their heads for staples...:o
 
RussDill said:
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 ...
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Oops, that's about as far as I can take it. This is clearly biased ...
 
Re: Re: Christmas as a secular holiday.

Iacchus said:
Oops, that's about as far as I can take it. This is clearly biased ...
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Also clearly true...got a problem with truth?
 
Re: Re: Christmas as a secular holiday.

Iacchus said:
Oops, that's about as far as I can take it. This is clearly biased ...
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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.
 
Just a quick note of correction, there are only 8 reindeer.
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Just a quick note of correction, there are 9 reindeer. Do you recall the most famous reindeer of all?
 
RussDill said:


What bias is that, that I don't believe in santa claus?
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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?
 
Iacchus said:
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?
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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.
 
RussDill said:


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.
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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.
 
Iacchus said:
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.
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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.
 
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.
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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?
 
Iacchus said:
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.
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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.
 
Some Friggin Guy said:


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.
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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?
 
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