Hilarious line in the Letter to the Editor about "Christmas parade"

[underpants]

It is no secret that Dec. 25 is not known to be the true birth date of Christ, and that the Christmas celebration, once established in winter, assimilated and usurped other seasonal, pagan festivals. Therefore, Jesus can hardly be said to be “the reason for the season” in the sense that phrase is most commonly used. He is certainly the reason for Christmas itself, and, it should be noted, all seasons and all things, but not specifically winter or festivals therein.

Of special interest, then, are the belligerent Christians who appear during this season to bully and undermine the celebrators of other religions and holidays. When a “Christmas parade” becomes a “holiday parade,” a fury rises from our peaceful brothers. Never mind that Christmas has not been removed, but other holidays have been added. This I-got-here-first mentality is embarrassing and unfitting.

Calling a parade a Christmas parade does no more to insert Christ into the proceedings than writing “duck” on one's forehead transforms one into waterfowl. Abandoning "Happy Holidays" for "Merry Christmas" does not make a believer out of a stranger. We forget that atheists celebrate Christmas as well. And yet, Christians encourage rather than dissuade them when we place importance on the name and not the value, on the surface and not the spirit.

Christians believe all things belong to Christ, but we should never forget that we are the only ones who believe that. Let others' hearts be changed by Christ's work done inside each of us. This holiday should showcase God's spirit of love. Coercion, manipulation and intimidation are not His style.

http://www2.timesdispatch.com/news/letters-to-the-editor/2010/dec/18/let-ar-723700/

[Hugin]

1. It doesn't?

:rubbingduckoffforehead: Drat! Next, I guess you're going to tell me eating Prime-rib won't make me a Primate!

[pokercat999]

2. Huh? Ever read the Kings James Bible, Coercion, Intimidation

and Manipulation are EXACTLY His old testament style.

[gater]

3. Jesus story is in the New Testament, not the old.

[some guy]

4. It's that schizophrenic thing.

from the OP:

" This holiday should showcase God's spirit of love. Coercion, manipulation and intimidation are not His style. "

(emphasis mine) - The old Testament does feature a regularly angry, manipulative and intimidating God.

So is Christmas about Jesus, or about God? Or are they the same? If they're the same, why are the pronouncements so different in style?

[obxhead]

6. OK, but the values are as stated by pokercat. nt

[elleng]

7. Details Details!

:rofl:
:thumbsup:

[kestrel91316]

5. Oy vey. Jesus is in the NEW Testament. And he said basically to discard

most of the nonsense in the OLD Testament, and that he was making a whole new set of rules.

[Harry Monroe]

8. Happy Festivus to all, and to all a good night!!!

[Igel]

9. It's been said that speakers don't know their language's history.

It's true enough. It's one reason the etymological fallacy is so easy to pull off, why people are easily convinced by folk etymologies, why words in a language have their meanings shift.

The same's true for cultural traits like festivals. It doesn't matter what the origins of the date or components of the traditional American Xmas celebration. People don't "know" them, except as a bit of intellectual fluff added after they've already assimilated the customs themselves.

There aren't just a lot of other traditional winter holidays left in the West. Wiccan beliefs are of recent origin; people try to say that they were reconstituted from vestiges of the old religion, but this isn't very likely (except for believers). The pagan holidays were gone--and, just as modern Hebrew is so different from Biblical Hebrew as to be rather a different language, so the modern pagans' religion is hardly "old." Kwanzaa was devised less than 50 years ago as part of a nationalist project. Saying "Happy holidays" to someone Jewish after Hanukkah and expecting them to think "Hanukkah" is rubbish--it's like saying "Merry Xmas" to somebody on January 2. . They have left traces, just like Celtic left traces in French and there are Germanic words in Spanish, but most people don't say "quatre vingt neuf" for "89" and think, "Ah, yes, the old Celtic numerical system"; and when a Spanish speaker says "guerra" he doesn't think, "A good old Gothic word." The traces aren't felt to be what they are. They've been repurposed and their original purpose forgotten.

To think otherwise is to commit the etymological fallacy with customs. A lot of fundamentalist churches do precisely this: Halloween is bad because of what it's likely to have been 1500 or 2000 years ago. Not because of what it is now or what it was 100 years ago, mind you: The date, the dressing up, are all held to have intrinsic meanings, even if the practioners have no idea what the meanings are.