Posted on 11/08/2004 7:28:03 PM PST by carrier-aviator
Is anyone else as sick as I am of the one-for-one substitution of the word "Hoilday" for "Christmas," as in Holiday Party, Holiday Shopping, Holiday Season, the Baby's First "Holiday." Christmas is a federal holiday just like Veterans' Day or Thanksgiving. Why shouldn't we mention it?
Take the pledge: refuse to use the word "Holiday" when "Christmas" is correct. To your neighbors and fellow employees say MERRY CHRISTMAS, never Happy Holidays, and if they object simply tell them you are wishing them happiness on the upcoming federal holiday. If they object further, ask them if they'll be going to work on December 25th.
I asked you a simple question. It looks to me as if you are the one making assumptions.
I also get upset about Thanksgiving. More and more I see 'Thanksgiving' being dropped, and 'Harvest' used instead. I guess giving thanks is too religious for some.
Ramadan is a time of penance and fasting, like the Christian Lent. I've never wished anyone a "Happy Lent."
I have noticed this as well, and I refuse to buy Christmas cards unless they say "Merry Christmas"....I will not buy Happy Holiday cards.
I find that each year the choices in Happy Holiday cards and items is on the increase and the items with "Christmas" is on the decrease. Just another creeping anti-Christian bias moving ahead.
There isn't anything to be sad over. I'm Jewish. Everyday for me is a happy day. I get a holiday every week- - it's called Shabbat. We get more holidays than Christians do. I do not need to be wished to be extra happy on a day that doesn't mean anymore to me than the 4th of February. I think that is what you don't understand. December 25th to me is like any other day. It has no special significance. This year, the only reason it has significance is that is on Shabbat. I don't think you are able to deal with the fact that your holiday is meaningless to me.
I am sincerelt sorry if my assumption (which I posted for all to see) was unwarranted.
It was uncalled for and inappropriate for me to make any assupmtion about you, based upon a simple question you asked me.
chs68
Let's face it. Christianity is under assault. Christmas has become "Holiday." Christmas school break is "Winter Break." Christmas parties are Holiday or (worse) Solstice parties. The old Easter break is now "Spring Break." In many areas of the State of New York the spring break revolves around Passover, and children attend school on Holy Thursday and Good Friday.
Now, why has all this changed in the past 30 years or so? Has the proportion of the population calling itself Christian fallen? No. Jews have fallen from three to two percent. Muslims have risen to about three percent. But the profession of Christianity hovers where it has always hovered: about 85-90%.
So, why has the culture of 85-90% of the population been stripped away? Because of assault by secularists and militant anti-Christians.
Possessing a majority means something. It means that those in the majority can get their way (sorry, that's just the way it is), subject to Constitutional safeguards. The Constitution only mentions religion twice. It prohibits a religious test for office, and it prohibits the CONGRESS from establishing a religion.
In the 1930s, 40s, 50s, 60s and well before Christians (and other religions) were able to use the public square to celebrate their religion and culture ("the CONGRESS shall make NO LAW abridging the Freedom of Religion," meaning people can practice their religion anywhere, anytime). How did a creche on the lawn of City Hall threaten anyone? The quest for the removal of such non-threatening symbols is driven by one thing and one thing only: hatred and fear of Christianity. One does not see militants attempting to remove Stars of David, Menorahs, and Crescent Moons wherever they are found. The First Amendment is used as a canard to veil the real reasons for the anti-Christian acts. EVERYONE knows this to be true: certainly Christians do, and the secularists and anti-Christians know it, too, but dare not admit it.
The ability of the 85-90% Christian majority to use public places (for which they pay) to celebrate their culture SHOULD NOT be abridged. Jews, Muslims, etc. can use them too. It was this way for the first 200 years of the republic, until Christians started caving to the atheists, secularists, and anti-Christians. We have it on our power to return this country to its proud traditions. Now, we just have to do it.
Nor, to the best of my knowledge, have I.
The question I was asked, though, was how I might respond if a Muslim person were to wish me "Happy Ramadan".
I think I captured the essence of how I would respond in my post.
What I most assuredly would NOT do is take offense simply because a person of another faith expressed to me a hope that I might be happy during the month of Ramadan (and I think I am correct when I say that there is, in the Islamic calendar, a month called "Ramadan", during which there is fasting and repentance. It is thus not exactly the same thing as Lent. As far as I know, there is no month of "Lent" in any commonly-used calendar.)
My point was not that the Christian would be offended. Rather I was hoping to give an example where a Christian might find it odd to be receive greetings or best wishes for a holiday they don't celebrate.
My holiday is meaningless to you.
I don't believe I have ever suggested at all that any of my holidays should hold any meaning at all for you.
"I do not need to be wished to be extra happy on a day that doesn't mean anymore to me than the 4th of February."
I must have misunderstood (and hereby apologize for so doing) an earlier post of yours in which you said, if memory serves me correctly, that your friends do not wish you a Merry Christmas because for you December 25th means work, Chinese food, and movies.
That rather sounded to me as the expression of someone for whom December 25th is a bit more -- unhappy? depressing? a bit of a downer? -- than February 4th.
I am glad for you (am I allowed to say that to you?) that you have no need to be wished "extra happy" on a day that doesn't mean anything omre to you than February 4th.
Would it then be out of place for me to tell you that I hope that your day today, November 10th, is both Merry and Happy?
Or would you find that too terribly offensive???
Can we agree that the world might be just a little bit better place if each person were more inclined to accept with gracious thanks expressions of hope for happiness -- even though those expressions might seem "odd" -- rather than to become offended by the "oddity" of the expression?
Not arguing with you, but it is quite unlikely that a Muslim would wish you, or anyone, a Happy Ramadan (because, as I said, it is a time of fast and penance.). Now, they might wish you a "Happy Eid," which are the days AFTER Ramadan when festing, eating, and parties prevail.
Ramadan is not the name of an Arabic or Muslim month. It moves, and is based on the Lunar Calendar. But because it lasts one lunar month, it is referred to as "the month of Ramadan." A few years ago Ramadan was in December-January. This year it was in October...having moved due to the lack of congruity between the lunar and solar/Gregorian calendar (that the modern world uses).
Lent, too is lunar based, although it lasts longer than a lunar month...it lasts 40 days.
For those of us out in "Jesusland" we are now free to wish people a Merry Christmas. Woohoo!
I think almost everyone who is american has fun and celebrates christmas but its just an traditional excuse to party and have fun and shouldn't be taken seriously or religiously. It's just an american tradition not a religious tradition, so holidays/christmastime it's all the same thing. If you're american you celebrate christmas, it's no big deal. I have fun on halloween but I don't worship the devil! Christmas shouldn't be taken too seriously and it's just for fun. I remember last year my mother tried to get me to mass. I asked her who the #*&! goes to church on Christmas? I told her under no circumstances was I going to waste my christmas in church and ruin my holidays or waste my day off doing that depressing exercise.
I'm sure we're not at all disagreeing here.
A gentle suggestion, if I might.
I think I am correct when I say that there are many people who consider themselves to be a part of the modern world who do not use the Gregorian Calendar.
I have several close friends, for instance, who use a lunar calendar that is quite commonly used by Jewish people. They are, I assure, you, quite modern.
I also think I am correct when I say that the Islamic calendar does, in fact, have a month called Ramadan. But, because it is a lunar calendar, the month "moves" through the calendar that you and I use. However, if you are one of the people who uses the Islamic calendar, I think you could just as easily say that our solar calendar is what moves through the lunar calendar.
I suggest that your December celebration is something more akin to Saturnalia.
Io Saturnalia!
For years now those Madonna and Child stamps have been the only Christmas stamps worth buying. The others are cartoonish or look like cheap pop art.
Earlier you rejected the term Holiday and stated that Rosh Hashanah, etc. are Holy Days. Very true.
It just so happens, however, that Christmas is both a Holiday and a Holy Day.
We have "4th of July Parties," "Thanksgiving Parties," "Labor Day Picnics," but we are forbidden to have "Christmas Parties...or plays, or pageants, or cards, or greetings..."
Christmas (the sole Holy Day declared by the people and their government to be a Holiday) is the sole Holiday that gets diluted with nonsensical pseudonyms. None of the other ten is unworthy of being called by its proper name. Why is Christmas? Because of people like you who want to elevate and equate your Holy Days with the one and only Holy Day officially recognized by the people and their government to merit designation as a Holiday.
Jews are 2% of the U.S. population, so please don't expect the other 98% to get all excited about Purim, Channukah and Rosh Hashannah or to equate them in importance to a Holy Day and Holiday celebrated by close to 90% of them, and specially recognized by the government. I am Catholic and I certainly don't expect you, the government, or the 74% of the population that is not Catholic to get excited about the Feast of the Ascenscion, the Feast of the Assumption, the Solemnity of Mary the Mother of God, or the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. But these are critical Holy Days to me...as important to me as Rosh Hashanah is to you.
But 90% percent of the population and the Federal Government give special significance to Christmas. And although you may not like parties devoted to "Christmas the Holy Day," you ought not try to rename parties and other cultural events devoted to "Christmas the Holiday" anymore than you would try to rename a party or pageant devoted to the bearer of another federal holiday, Martin Luther King.
Oops. I meant Post 159 to be in response to a posting from Bella_Bru. Sorry.
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