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Christmas is a non religious holiday, or at least, pan-religious

I got to talking about christmas with someone recently, who asked me if, as an atheist, i celebrate christmas. The notion seemed absurd to me. Why would I not celebrate christmas? What has it got to do with religion? He didn’t seem to understand what i meant, and we argued. According to him, christmas is a christian religious holiday where adherents celebrate the nativity of christ. According to me, christmas is a pan religious festival from pagan religions that celebrates in various ways the birth of the sun, the sun god, the return of the sun, the solstice, all basically sun related, but that evolved into a simple festival where people go to their parents house, eat turkey, and exchange gifts. There’s nothing religious about turkey, family, or gifts. There’s nothing religious about sales, shopping, Jesus only seems related to christmas when you watch tv, and they might occasionally show a manger, or mention going to church. You don’t see jesus in the manger even a tenth as much as you see santa claus on people’s lawns. If you are christian, you can go out and encounter all the christ you want. But if you’re not, you can avoid any mention, image, or reference to christ, except in the name of Christmas itself.

This argument seemed irrelevant to him though. As numerous peoples of other religions, and a horde of atheists, celebrate christmas, as a cultural or social holiday, like mother’s day, halloween, labor day, or easter. Whatever their origins, what religious value do they possess these days?

None, i argue. If you feel differently, please tell me so. If you agree, please tell me so.

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10 responses so far

10 Responses to “Christmas is a non religious holiday, or at least, pan-religious”

  1. dakota clarkon Dec 15th 2009 at 5:07 pm

    Labor Day has origins of great philosophers pooling the efforts together as one to create one more day for hot-dog-time

  2. †omron Dec 15th 2009 at 5:19 pm

    I’ll just paste what I said on MSN.
    Ҡomr says (21:15):
    *Religion barely has anything to do with Christmas. People just want presents.
    *They say they like the turkey and the goodwill to all men shit, but they just want the stuff. “

  3. Edward Shallowon Dec 15th 2009 at 6:24 pm

    It is pantheistic, and was banned by many churches in the early days.

    Most christian miss the fact there’s no link for the birth of christ to be any where what we now celebrate as Christmas. ‘Grinds my gears’ when I hear “You’re missing the meaning of Christmas, it’s about loving the Lord and Jesus Christ!”. No, you’re missing the point of Christmas and are polluting the world with an ignorant and arrogant set of outdated beliefs!

    Merry Christmaaas!

  4. Andrew S Gardneron Dec 15th 2009 at 6:52 pm

    Yeah, I’ve had this conversation a lot lately too. My parents are nutso and think that if we don’t loudly and continually proclaim that we are a Christian country (we’re not), we’ll be invaded by Muslims and will be wearing hijabs within 20 years. So when I went there saying it’s just an age-old celebration of the winter solstice, I became part of the problem.
    Frankly, I think it’d make things simpler to just get rid of the “Christ” from the word. I wanna start saying happy solstice. It’s not about being politically correct for me, it’s about saying something that makes sense; saying “merry christmas” seems to make the Christians smugly assume we’re all celebrating their thing.

  5. pat robertsonon Dec 15th 2009 at 6:54 pm

    Hey man, fuck you.

  6. PDFon Dec 15th 2009 at 6:58 pm

    ONe solution someone suggested was just celebrating the birth of the universe on December 25th, or “Universe Day”! Call me Universe Dave.

  7. PDFon Dec 15th 2009 at 6:58 pm

    Come on readers, you gonna take that?

  8. dot.fortuneon Dec 15th 2009 at 7:10 pm

    I stole some baby jesuses from local church nativity scenes and renamed them all Gregory. They live in my room, under all the dirty boxer shorts. Stupid cross monkey.

  9. Royale with theseon Dec 15th 2009 at 7:18 pm

    Happy Birthday DDP. Good luck solving Christmas, I honestly think you’ll get it all wrapped up no problem, cause you’re the birthday boy and as such have certain gifts.

  10. meredithon Dec 16th 2009 at 5:58 pm

    I completely unreligious and yet I live for Christmas! it’s the best!
    who doesn’t need more love and joy and cheer and family and crafts and baking and gifts?
    It really has nothing to do with religion for me, except giving me some really beautiful choral carols..
    man, I love christmas!

    also, happy birthday!

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