since when is christmass a religions event?

[masticina]

Oh I personally don't mind Christians enjoying Yule

Oh yeah didn't you know that yet. Well see The Christian Church kinda repackaged older holidays. Because people didn't want to give up their old holidays! So Christmas has little to do with Christ! It is Yule repackaged so Christians can enjoy it.

There are even staunch Christians who do not support Christmas. Nor would it make sense for Jesus to be born on 25 December...

And yes the idea of gift giving and the coca cola stuff. Well it is what it is!

In the end it is a great moment to enjoy friends and family at the end of the year. The cold dark days are on the turn. The sun is returning to us and guess what SUN = LIFE.

The Sun will Rise again and with that Life will return, hence it is worth a party!

 

[retyopy]

What you're talking about is technically called Xmas, and it celebrates not Christian values, but consumerism and giving gifts to the kiddies. So hooray Xmas, and boo Christmas, I'd rather have gifts than goodwill for all mankind!

 

[Mau95]

Does it really matter?

 

[Tourmeta]

We call it Jul in Scandinavia after "wheel", it was some celebration of the year that had gone 'round before christians took over I believe. I also believe presents happened a long time before "christmas".

 

[personion]

It's not there date that counts, it's the fact that Christians can get together and celebrate their beliefs, give gifts to others and generally have a good time. It's been secularized of course, and now anyone and everyone can contribute to our consumerist society and buy buy buy! Now, it's less about Jesus and more about buying as much stuff as possible. While I like the idea of Christmas, I'm a bit disturbed by the facts.

Actually, this video pretty sums up my thoughts! http://www.godlimations.com/webfolder/adventconspiracy/christmas.html

I don't hate secularization as its an inevitable part of our society, but I do wish more Christians could do what it says to do in the video.

 

[Jandau]

If you want to get technical about it, Christmas predates Christianity anyway. It's was originally a fairly widespread holiday in various old religions centering around the winter solstice. When Christianity was spreading, it adopted that date to represent the birth of Christ to help integrate it with the old religions and ease the transition. So Christmas isn't a Christian holiday anyway.

The whole christmas tree thing is another such leftover from the olden days, same thing with Easter and the whole Rabbit & Eggs thing (spring fertility festivals). Also, Christianity did other similar things to help integrate with old religions, like turning old gods into Christian saints, allowing locals to continue worshipping the figures they always did.

And yes, Christmas has transcended Christianity as such. Christians still celebrate the spiritual aspect of it, but for the people of Earth at large, it's a commercial holiday and not neccesarily in a bad way. It gives people of all religions and creeds a day to get together and be with their families and friends.

 

[Vault101]

alright this is somthing that bugs me,

aparently...if your not christian...you dont celebrate christmas? is this an american beliife or somthing?

anyway let me exaplain

now I dont actually know if chrstmases origins were christian Im a VERY sure it actually wansnt, I know baby jesus didnt have his birthday on the 25th of decenmber..and I think christians "stole" the date to compete with another festival

but that aside....

as far as Im concerned christmas thease days generally has nothing to do with religion..no really, my family is not religous....most of Australia is not religous and we (and I imagine alot of Australia) celebrate christmas.....(aside from going to mass of coase)

you know what christmas is? its a comercial holiday, its the itme of year when kids get presesnts, and its the itme of yeah adults stress out, put up with family or eat/drink themelfs into oblvion (or all three)

last time I checked jesus hardly had anything to do with it aside from the nativity plays we somtimes has...thats it, mostly it was about santa

You're speaking from a none religious stand point right?
Hence why you assume it to be a none religious holiday and actually thought that it wasn't to do with the birth of the baby J.C.

Commercialism has completely obliterated religious holidays, lets be honest here. Whilst Christmas now to most people about the giving of gifts, it is in fact a celebration of the birth of Jesus.
Christians are now trying to take back what is rightfully theirs, you're not a Christian so you shouldn't be celebrating Christmas, just like you're not celebrating Divahli or other different holidays belonging to other religions. They're no more in the wrong than anyone else.

whats rightfully theirs? as everyone has pointed out to me you could argue that it was never "rightfully theirs" in the first place

 

[ultimateownage]

I'm an Atheist and I still celebrate it. The Christian part of it has gone down a lot, and it was never a Christian holiday originally anyway.
This is just going to attract the Religion and Politics idiots into here.

*EDIT*
Can someone correct the OP's spelling? I don't want to have to get a suspension for doing something as simple as that, again.

 

[Vault101]

SNIP

*Sigh*

Another person who took my post way too seriously and blew it out of proportion and also made me out to be a respresentative of all Christianity and that I am a bad and ignorant person for doing so.

If you read some of my other posts you'll see that I was talking specifically about Christmas in America (just like the OP intended) and that to be honest I don't even care about it as I'm not even a very religous guy.

alright this is somthing that bugs me,

aparently...if your not christian...you dont celebrate christmas? is this an american beliife or somthing?

anyway let me exaplain

now I dont actually know if chrstmases origins were christian Im a VERY sure it actually wansnt, I know baby jesus didnt have his birthday on the 25th of decenmber..and I think christians "stole" the date to compete with another festival

but that aside....

as far as Im concerned christmas thease days generally has nothing to do with religion..no really, my family is not religous....most of Australia is not religous and we (and I imagine alot of Australia) celebrate christmas.....(aside from going to mass of coase)

you know what christmas is? its a comercial holiday, its the itme of year when kids get presesnts, and its the itme of yeah adults stress out, put up with family or eat/drink themelfs into oblvion (or all three)

last time I checked jesus hardly had anything to do with it aside from the nativity plays we somtimes has...thats it, mostly it was about santa

Now tell me where does he mention America? The only country he mentions here is Australia. This thread was not about Christmas in America and even if it was it wouldn't have a different origin than what we see in Europe unless you're going to tell me that Americans believe Jesus was born in Ohio.

the reason I mentioned America and compare it to Australia is because Aus is more secular than America

the point of this thread (which I admit I probably didnt get across too well) was that I found it weird that people seem to think "only christains celebrate christmas" and here I am, a secular background, coming from a place where less peole are truly religious..and EVERYONES celebrating christmas without the religious part..I figured this Idea may have been more common in America because "being christain" is more common over there

 

[Jonluw]

I'm atheist, and I recognize that it's necessary for people to take some time off and celebrate something once in a while.
This notion that you don't get to have holidays or celebrate certain dates if you don't believe in divine beings is frankly ridiculous.

I think of christmas as celebrating the birth of Christ; but I'm not active in that part of it. I still celebrate though. Why can't I just celebrate for the sake of celebrating?
Maybe I should start celebrating christmas as yule instead, just out of spite.
It's already called 'jul' in my language anyways. That's right, the christians didn't manage to change the name to something christian-like when they highjacked the holiday in Norway.

 

[Monsterfurby]

Because pagans don't have a very vocal, annoying, conservative section that messes with things, least not one that is shown in the mass media.

In Europe, they do. Annoyingly so.

Does it really matter?

Also, this. Yes, christmas is a christian holiday, that does not mean that you can't celebrate it if you are not christian. My family has quite specific traditions on christmas eve (which, in Germany, carries more weight than the christmas days) which actually include me going to the movies with my dad. Been doing that for at least 15 years now.

As you can see, traditions differ quite a bit between countries, families and even individual people. I always use the quiet atmosphere of christmas eve afternoons to write at least one full chapter of whatever writing project I happen to be working on at the time.

You amount of religious practice also varies - some go to church and believe in it, others go to church because tradition tells them to. I personally believe in God and that Jesus of Nazareth was probably a great person, but I don't believe in going to church. My parents, on the other hand, are quite a bit more "conventionally religious" I suppose, and would probably go to church if we had no other tradition.

So as you see, christmas is what you make of it.

 

[Togs]

There's always beena relgious festival around that time, and no Christmas was not the 1st- Christian missionaries were sneaky buggers who made their festivals out of pre existing ones.
Christmas for example comes from the Cult of Mithras.

 

[Lyri]

whats rightfully theirs? as everyone has pointed out to me you could argue that it was never "rightfully theirs" in the first place

If you're saying the Celebration of Jesus Christ isn't a Christian thing then I really don't even know what I can say to you other than read a book.

Companies bastardized Christmas, just like they did to Halloweeen. Halloween is a pagan festival given some kind of commercial meaning to sell candy and other junk.
Christians have every right to say what they're saying, that you should not celebrate Christmas if you're not Christian. As I said prior, do you celebrate Divhali? Do you have Bar/Bat Mitzvah when you hit 13?
No.
Why is this?
Because you don't belong to that specific secular group, that's why.

Unfortunately capitalism took the holidays and did what it did to them, just to start shifting a few extra products.
In fact as far as I'm aware it was Coca-Cola who tied Santa Claus to Christmas.

 

[Moonlight Butterfly]

When Christianity replaced the Pagan religions the festivals and holidays had to be kept intact to keep the ordinary people happy.

There are many instances of celebration removal going wrong in, for example, Ancient Egypt where Akhenaten (father of Tutankhamun) replaced all of the festivals of the gods with just one to the Aten. He wasn't 'very popular' as a result. When he died they tried to delete him and his ill conceived religious coup from history.

The pagan festival of Winter Solstice was gradually replaced with Christmas.

Most scholars argue that the birthday of Jesus was no where near the 25th of December and closer to April 17 and so Christians cannot claim ownership of the celebration at all, beyond the name.

To look at it in a non cynical way, having the most people as possible celebrating a holiday of generosity and thankfulness can't really be that bad.

 

[Something Amyss]

We checked the ancient records. Cencus's were in spring. And in fact the consus didnt ocur in 0AD, it was 5 AD or 8 BC every 13 years.

Of course, the Gregorian calendar in itself was based on a loose stab at when he was born. It's not like everyone just started counting at 0 AD (or really, 1 AD) simply because he was born. It was done retroactively, and had it been accurate, it would have been a miracle. No pun intended.

 

[SenseOfTumour]

There's easily room for both, and the usual reason there's even any debate is some news network *coughFOX* or newspaper *coughdailymail* decides that 'Christian Britain/America' is 'under attack' by 'secular extremists' or quite often just 'muslims'.

The Daily Mail has already apologised and printed an admission that no-one has in fact been trying to cancel Christian celebrations or change 'Christmas' into Winterval, but I'd still wager good money that we'll see the story pop up again next month.

Facts are, no-one is stopping Christians, other religious people, agnostics or athiests from celebrating it however they like. The only people complaining are those who don't like that people are having a choice in the matter.

If they had their way, everyone would be up at 5am to dress smartly and head to church for dawn services, where they'd all be made to beg for forgiveness, when they got home, the child would get a satsuma and a piece of coal, and probably a beating, just to knock some sin out of them. Then praying til dinner. then bed.

Whereas, normal, non mental Christians manage to incorporate worship into the day without destroying its other meanings, and there are other meanings, and they need to be accepted, such as the simple pleasure of getting together with family and indulging in the glorious sin of gluttony, guilt free, just for that one day of the year

(Everyone knows xmas calories don't count, right?)

 

[Vault101]

whats rightfully theirs? as everyone has pointed out to me you could argue that it was never "rightfully theirs" in the first place

If you're saying the Celebration of Jesus Christ isn't a Christian thing then I really don't even know what I can say to you other than read a book.

Companies bastardized Christmas, just like they did to Halloweeen. Halloween is a pagan festival given some kind of commercial meaning to sell candy and other junk.
Christians have every right to say what they're saying, that you should not celebrate Christmas if you're not Christian. As I said prior, do you celebrate Divhali? Do you have Bar/Bat Mitzvah when you hit 13?
No.
Why is this?
Because you don't belong to that specific secular group, that's why.

Unfortunately capitalism took the holidays and did what it did to them, just to start shifting a few extra products.
In fact as far as I'm aware it was Coca-Cola who tied Santa Claus to Christmas.

as far as I can gather christians "took over" what christmas (or its equivalnt) waaaay back in the day, just as comercialism/santa has taken over it now

but in the end it doesnt matter....christians are going to celebrate christmas their way...secular people celebrate it their way as well

but you cant still "claim" a holiday if pretty much ALL the western world celebrates it (unless they have another specific religion)....thats somthing you cant stop/undo

and its not like secular people go to the chrstmas mass or anything, like I said they see the family, exchange presants and get pissed

 

[DiMono]

Christianity usurped the Winter Solstice celebration in order to be more acceptable when trying to convert people. Jesus was born in September, but the Church started celebrating it on December 25 because that's when the pagan religions were doing their winter celebration, and they wanted Christianity to be appealing to them. Almost every Christian holiday is a usurped pagan festival.

That aside.

My family is Jewish. We use Christmas not as a religious or commercial holiday, but as an excuse to get family together under one roof and eat a massive meal together. We only give inexpensive gifts - I got a very small wood bucket one year because I did all the audio in a machinima video about possession of a bucket - and we use the day just to relax with our loved ones. My ex-girlfriend (now best friend) and her friends aren't Christian in the least and we all exchange gifts just to show that we care about each other. Christmas doesn't have to be a religious holiday, and it doesn't have to be a commercial holiday. It's whatever you make of it.

 

[Something Amyss]

whats rightfully theirs? as everyone has pointed out to me you could argue that it was never "rightfully theirs" in the first place

If you're saying the Celebration of Jesus Christ isn't a Christian thing then I really don't even know what I can say to you other than read a book.

Companies bastardized Christmas, just like they did to Halloweeen. Halloween is a pagan festival given some kind of commercial meaning to sell candy and other junk.
Christians have every right to say what they're saying, that you should not celebrate Christmas if you're not Christian. As I said prior, do you celebrate Divhali? Do you have Bar/Bat Mitzvah when you hit 13?
No.
Why is this?
Because you don't belong to that specific secular group, that's why.

Unfortunately capitalism took the holidays and did what it did to them, just to start shifting a few extra products.
In fact as far as I'm aware it was Coca-Cola who tied Santa Claus to Christmas.

What I'm getting from this is "it's alright for Christians to complain that someone has co-opted their holiday to make it about something else, but if you say the holiday they co-opted from others is not theirs, READ A BOOK!"

Come now, it reads as a double standard.