Banning Christmas?

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I read this in the Washington Times:

http://washingtontimes.com/national/20041209-122555-6083r.htm

It seems that people in the USA are coming under increasing pressure to avoid using the word "Christmas" in case it offends non-Christians. For example, a "Christmas Tree" has been renamed as a "Community Tree". I have also heard that many kids are no longer allowed to sing christmas carols, or have had to change many of the words.

Is this sensible religious moderation, or is it political correctness gone insane?

My opinion is that anyone who gets offended by the word "Christmas" needs their head read. I am no christian but I have no problems with nativity scenes or christmas carols. Christmas is a fantastic time of the year and I won't put up with do-gooders trying to spoil it all.

For example, when the Chinese community celebrates Chinese New Year, we don't go around banning it. That's because it is great fun with all the fireworks etc. No non-Chinese person should be offended. Same should go for Christmas. You don't have to be christian to enjoy Christmas.

 

The latter.

Just how many pop stars who sing carols are Christian? And hasn't everyone heard non-Christians sing Christmas songs out of the Christmas mood? Eh.

If someone has problems with some words, he doesn't have to say or sing them. But to ban them? Oh damn, it looks like someone's banning Christianity. If it ever happens around here, I'm going to go sing carols in front of the parliament building.

"Community tree". Community nonsense.

We should ban the word "thinking". For many people it connects with intense experience of inexplicable pain in the head.

 

I think the word "Christmas" has transcended its original christian context to represent a special day for all sorts of people. If we ban it because of its original meaning then we'd better start banning a load of other things.

Oh no, better change the name of today (it's "Friday") as I'm offended by the reference to a Norse god. From now on, this is Fiveday. Woohoo, tomorrow is Sixday!

 

We could ban the word "Easter" because it's derived from the name of an Anglo-Saxon goddess called Easthru. Who cares?

 

Bah, people have celebratesd in midwonter for millennia - and there is notihing wrong sharing traditions.

I myself am not a christian, and yet I habve no trouble "suffering through" the religious overtones many people associate with the holiday; In my opinion, it is a good thing to remember that despite certain aspects of christianity being less-than palattable to some, myself included, it's not all that bad.

*looks at what she wrote* Err... I blame holida spirit.

To each his own, I say.

 

Christmas is still called "jul" (yule) in Sweden. It is a pretty universal midwinter feast for all religions and peoples. It actually shouldnt really matter what it is called.

 

Well, where I live, Christmas break is called Winter Break, which in my opinion makes more sense because the break actually is from Christmas Eve to the New Year. We also have a lot of people (esp. Chinese, Indian, and Pakistani immigrants) who are either atheist, Muslim, or Jewish to whom it would be silly to say, "What did you do on Christmas?"

Still, in America, at least, Christmas seems to have been subsumed the culture of America, and not Christianity; there are lots of non-Christians (especially families that want to settle in the US, such as Chinese and Korean immigrants) who put up Christmas trees, hand out gifts, and have friends over for Christmas.

 

It all started when they changed "Merry Christmas" to "Season's Greetings".

It went downhill from there...

 

I will still say Merry Christmas, butcher--er sing Christmas Carols and do my Christmas shopping, and if anyone tries to correct me I'll tell them that they can shove their notions of Political correctness up their solid excrement escape duct.

 

I passed up shopping at a store cause they had Merry Xmas on the door. For pete's sake if you can put angels and such in the window you can surely take the time to Write out Merry Christmas

 

Hmm ... it's definitely another UN plot!

 

Yeah, well, why not celebrate Christmas with the new David Beckham/Posh Spice manger scene at Madame Tussaud's. (For added fun, take a look at the three 'wise' men.)

This whole discussion seems a bit misguided to me. In fact, if I might be so bold, there's just a bit of hypocrisy, of having one's cake and eating it too...

1) Christmas is the most materialistic season of the year; November 26th, the day after US Thanksgiving, has traditionally been the heaviest shopping day of the year. Why? Start of the Christmas shopping season. What began (aside from pagan influences) as a day of feasting following a long period of fasting and contemplation of the life of Christ, with the small-scale exchange of gifts, has become the largest merchandizing, retail juggernaut in world history: the highest peak in the yearly wave of the global economy. Instead of quiet contemplation, we are exposed to non-stop advertisements, radio jingles, Christmas TV specials and the like, loudly shouting from all sides of society: buy, buy, buy! You want this, you need that, and above all, you should feel happy warm family thoughts while you buy these things, because after all, most of them are gifts, and you should feel happy, and this is your tradition, and tradition is good, and you owe it to yourself and your family to feel happy. Strange way to celebrate the life of someone who said "far easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the gates of heaven," who threw the money changers out of the temple, and who advocated building up one's fortune in heaven.

2) So who do we blame? Why, obviously, those meanie secular multi-culturalists want to limit public money used to promote the Christmas shopping season as Christian! As Christians are the majority in the US (shows like "Desperate Housewives" that testify to the lack of "moral values" in the US must really be for that non-Christmas-celebrating minority, no?), we should spend public money to make sure that all of the "religious" symbols, like Christmas trees, Creches, and the like take their rightful place next to all the stockings, parades, plastic lawn snowmen, "It's a Wonderful Life" reruns, Santa Claus lap-sittings, football games, and car commercials, because hey, we shouldn't forget to give a thought or two to Jesus while we're busy maxing out the Visa card.

3) I would have more respect for a position that said: look we as Christians are upset with the crass commercialization of our religious holiday, and if it has indeed become a secular buy and spend holiday bonanza, well then you're welcome to it; just leave our religious symbols out of it. But no: these Christian Coalition yahoos want to have their old-time (TM) religion served up fresh with some serious capitalist action. Cuz He's the reason for the season, from Silent Night to Jingle Bell Rock. Doesn't this seem a little odd to you?

 

I really don't see what the big deal is. My family is agnostic (most have never gone to church a day in their life) and we celbrate Christmas just fine. I have also said Happy Chanukah to every one I've seen since Tuesday evening. And on the 26th, I will begin wishing everyone a Happy Kwanzaa.

If you aren't religious, take it in stride, and respond with a smile. No one is forcing you to convert.

 

Christmas was originally a pagan festival anyway, even the Christian meaning of Christmas has also been lost due to large corporations such as Coke making it more 'pc'.

 

I always thought it was 'rope' not 'camel' passing through the eye of the needle. But that's off-topic. Christmas rules. Long live Christmas.

 

Sounds suspiciously like the Christmas special of Southpark. It led to a very special school nativity.

 

Christmas for me has never been about the birth of jesus or any religious factor. My family celebrated every year so you get rushed into it but never believed it. It became so bad that one day I asked what it was all about and for some reason they got quite mad at me

Anyway to me Chrismas is about spending a nice evening with family or friends with a lot of great food and drinks. Don't really give a sh!t about the names.

 

The problem I have with this is the reason you change the name of something to a more politically correct term is because you feel that some people might be offended by the original term. This suggests that some people would be offended by the word "Christ" or more broadly "Christmas". Who, specifically, are these people? Do we really have all that many people living in America that have become so hypersensitized that they could be offeneded by something like this?

Personally, I don't know anyone - or even know someone who knows anyone - who falls into this category. Not only with the word "Christ" but with all sorts of religious names like "Allah" or "Budda". To me, freedom to practice your religion should also include the ability to refer to things that have obvious religious or traditional significance by their religious or traditional names.

What this tells me is the number of people who find words like "Christmas" offensive are in the vast minority here in the U.S. According to the article, 96% of people celebrate Christmas. That seems a little high, as I have to assume that most non-Christians do not celebrate Christmas, and the percentage of Jews, Buddists, and Hindis in the U.S. probably exceed 4% of the population. Oh course, maybe they consider going to a Christmas party a week previous to Christmas as "celebrating the holiday" to get their 96% figure. Regardless while 4% of Americans do not celebrate Christmas, it's not like those 4% are offended by it. There is a very small fraction of that already very small fraction that are offended (I'm assuming that if you celebrate Christmas, you aren't offended by the word "Christmas").

This is where it goes too far. I'm all for treating everyone equally, and being politically correct when it is reasonable. I also think that there are times when the majority has to recognize the needs of the minority. We had this with the civil rights movement in the 60s, and more recently with the gay rights movement of today. However, these groups while minorities in society, still make up a significant percentage of the population. People who are offended by the term "Christmas" can only be referred to as an ultra-fringe group, and sorry, but those numbers simply aren't large enough to justify making the 99.9% of the population that doesn't have a problem with it conform to you.

 

So is Easter, St Patricks day, Halo'ween, other religious holidays under threat or is it just Christmas that is being singled out?

 

I've seen that episode of Southpark, it doesn't last.