Posted on 12/13/2006 5:38:31 AM PST by A. Pole
FROM THE land that produced "A Christmas Carol" and Handel's "Messiah," more evidence that Christianity is fading in Western Europe: Nearly 99 percent of Christmas cards sold in Great Britain contain no religious message or imagery.
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A review of some 5,500 Christmas cards turns up fewer than 70 that make any reference to the birth of Jesus. "Hundreds . . . avoided any image linked to Christmas at all" -- even those with no spiritual significance, such as Christmas trees or Santa Claus.
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Meanwhile, the employment law firm Peninsula says that 75 percent of British companies have banned Christmas decorations for fear of being sued by someone who finds the holiday offensive. And it isn't only in December that this anti-Christian animus rears its head. British Airways triggered a furor when it ordered an employee to hide the tiny cross she wears around her neck. At the BBC, senior executives agreed that they would not air a program showing a Koran being thrown in the garbage -- but that the trashing of a Bible would be acceptable.
"It's extraordinary," remarks Randall. "In an increasingly godless age, there is a rising tide of hatred against those who adhere to biblical values." A "tyrannical minority" of intolerant secularists is openly contemptuous of traditional moral norms. "The teachings and guidance of old-fashioned Christianity offend them, so they seek to remove all traces of it from public life."
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Though religion remains important in American life, antireligious passion is surging here, too.
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Secular absolutists demand that schools and government venues be cleansed of any hint of religious expression -- be it a cross on the Los Angeles County seal, a courthouse display of the Ten Commandments, or the words "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance.
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(Excerpt) Read more at boston.com ...
Open celebration of Christmas by the English is a relatively new phenomenon. December 25 used to be an ordinary workday for most Brits.
and will be the end of western civilization...I always find it interesting that atheists attack Christians and Christianity with such venom - but leave islam and muslims alone.
Some just have an ax to grind with the Christians and the Jews... Most of them are so wrapped up in their own polemics that they have become nothing more than pathetic anti-Christians.
Some of the Bozos out there can't get past that word “God,” so they would just piss the entire country away and join the enemies of America; all because they have this polemic need to bash the Christians and do everything in contravention to them. I say screw them and the filthy practices they want to live by. My children are not going to inherit their squalor if I can help it.
Christmas is a major feature in some fiction of the Victotian period. Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" is the obvious example, but I can think of others.
I loved Christmas when I was an atheist.
"I always find it interesting that atheists attack Christians and Christianity with such venom - but leave islam and muslims alone."
This shouldn't surprise or amaze anyone. Jesus said that a house divided against itself would soon fall. Aethiests and Islamists are both on the same side -- the dark side.
It's not athiests so much as it is liberals. There are millions of conservative athiests and agnostics out there and most of us have no problem with Christmas. I personally resent it when I see Christmas being attacked and banned from public displays because it's an attack on my cultural heritage.
Atheists in English-speaking countries are in primarily-Christian cultures. Familiarity breeds contempt.
As for Islam, the atheist response is growing. See, for example, "Why I am Not a Muslim" by Ibn Warraq.
I'm an atheist and I have no problem coexisting with Christians, Catholics and Jews. As for islam, it is the scourge of the human race and a blight on the face of the earth. It has no redeeming qualities whatsoever.
Scrooge and Bob Cratchet worked Christmas day.
I've made this point many times to the addle-brained atheists here at FR who actually seem to think that an objective moral standard comes out of a test tube, but they seem to be beyond all self-examination.
The atheist alternative is a world in which right and wrong are ultimately matters of opinion, and in which we are finally accountable to no one but ourselves.
Absolutely! And this is evident to anyone who isn't an atheist. But make this point to the Randians here and the'll act like that's the most ludicrous idea ever conceived.
You and I don't often agree on anything, but thanks for posting this.
Presumably the greeting-card industry is only supplying what the market demands; if Christian belief and practice weren't vanishing from the British scene, Christian-themed cards wouldn't be, either. But some Britons, not all of them devout, are resisting the tide. Writing in the Telegraph, editor-at-large Jeff Randall -- who describes himself as "somewhere between an agnostic and a mild believer" -- announces that any Christmas card he receives that doesn't at least mention the word "Christmas" goes straight into the trash. "Jettisoning Christmas-less cards is my tiny, almost certainly futile, gesture against the dark forces of political correctness," he writes. "It's a swipe at those who would prefer to abolish Christmas altogether, in case it offends 'minorities.' Someone should tell them that, with only one in 15 Britons going to church on Sundays, Christians are a minority."
Meanwhile, the employment law firm Peninsula says that 75 percent of British companies have banned Christmas decorations for fear of being sued by someone who finds the holiday offensive. And it isn't only in December that this anti-Christian animus rears its head. British Airways triggered a furor when it ordered an employee to hide the tiny cross she wears around her neck. At the BBC, senior executives agreed that they would not air a program showing a Koran being thrown in the garbage -- but that the trashing of a Bible would be acceptable. "It's extraordinary," remarks Randall. "In an increasingly godless age, there is a rising tide of hatred against those who adhere to biblical values." A "tyrannical minority" of intolerant secularists is openly contemptuous of traditional moral norms. "The teachings and guidance of old-fashioned Christianity offend them, so they seek to remove all traces of it from public life."
You don't have to be especially pious to find this atheist zealotry alarming. Nor do you have to live in Europe. Though religion remains important in American life, antireligious passion is surging here, too. Examples abound: In two recent best sellers (The End of Faith and Letter to a Christian Nation), Sam Harris heaps scorn on religious believers, whose faith he derides as "a few products of ancient ignorance and derangement." A study in the Journal of Religion and Society claims that belief in God correlates with higher rates of homicide, sexual promiscuity, and other social ills, and that when compared with relatively secular democracies, the churchgoing United States "is almost always the most dysfunctional." Secular absolutists demand that schools and government venues be cleansed of any hint of religious expression -- be it a cross on the Los Angeles County seal, a courthouse display of the Ten Commandments, or the words "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance.
What is at stake in all this isn't just angels on Christmas cards. What society loses when it discards Judeo-Christian faith and belief in God is something far more difficult to replace: the value system most likely to promote ethical behavior and sustain a decent society. That is because without God, the difference between good and evil becomes purely subjective. What makes murder inherently wrong is not that it feels wrong,but that a transcendent Creator to whom we are answerable commands: "Thou shalt not murder." What makes kindness to others inherently right is not that human reason says so, but that God does: "Love thy neighbor as thyself; I am the Lord." Obviously this doesn't mean that religious people are always good, or that religion itself cannot lead to cruelty. Nor does it mean that atheists cannot be beautiful, ethical human beings. Belief in God alone does not guarantee goodness. But belief tethered to clear ethical values -- Judeo-Christian monotheism -- is society's best bet for restraining our worst moral impulses and encouraging our best ones. The atheist alternative is a world in which right and wrong are ultimately matters of opinion, and in which we are finally accountable to no one but ourselves. That is anything but a tiding of comfort and joy.
I am reminded of a story famed preacher Harry Ironsides used to tell. He was giving a sermon in San Francisco and at the end a famous athiest stood up and challenged Pastor Ironsides to a debate the following day over athiesm and Christianity. After thinking a moment the Pastor agreed on one condition. He said the athiest would have to bring just one person who could testify that they were once a drug addicted prostitute whose entire life was changed for the better by converting to athiesm. Pastor Ironsides promised to bring 100 such people whose life was so changed by Christianity. At that point the athiest said to just forget the whole thing.
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