And you know that by saying there's a religious part of Christmas means there's part of Christmas that's actually not religious, right?
But if there is any sort of war on Christmas, then I think Christians lost it a long time ago. Maybe they lost it when they decided to hold the celebration around the time of the winter solstice in the first place. Or maybe they lost it when they started making Santa and home decorations more important than any religious symbol. Even when you find a nativity scene in the home of a religious family, when is it not dwarfed by the scope of other decorations? We see wreaths, lights, garland, lawn decorations and of course the huge Christmas tree (or trees, some homes now erecting more than one) boasting its own lights and shiny ornaments.
To me, most of the myths surrounding Santa Claus seem to violate religious principles. For instance, telling children that it is Santa who knows whether they're being behaving correctly or not ascribes to him a power which should belong only to God. Doesn't it compromise a child's moral compass when he's told that he needs to be good because Santa will know rather than because God will know?
And let's not forget that because Santa does not exist, just telling children that he does is already a lie. And I'm sure it's a practice in many households that some if not all of the gifts parents buy for their children are assumed to have been delivered from the NorthPole. Consequently children don't learn to express gratitude as they are instructed to believe that a mythical figure is bringing their gifts rather than their parents or other family members.
And I really wonder when it became so offensive for somebody to say "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas." Personally, I don't mind somebody telling me "Merry Christmas" even though I don't celebrate it as a holiday. But what I don't understand is the logic that says the person who celebrates Christmas should only say "Merry Christmas" instead of "Happy Holidays." I don't go out of my way to tell people "Happy Eid" when I know that they're non-Muslim.
But I have a theory. It seems that a quick and reliable way to turn people's opinion against someone or something is to start by telling them that they are already enemies. ("Why do they hate us?") Telling them that the other side already hates them. And then they are led to believe that the best response to the hatred that supposedly already exists is more hatred in response. I think that is how FOXNews is poisoning its audience against Muslims (for starters) and also others who don't share their same worldview.
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3 comments:
All the children in my family were brought up with the Santa Claus lies - my Mum decided to tell me the truth when I was 8, after I had been up late crying because I couldn't sleep and feared Father Christmas wouldn't come if I didn't fall asleep. However, I was told not to tell my sister, and all the children in my family born since then have been raised on that nonsense. It's pretty irritating to have to maintain the lie because their parents insist on making their kids believe it.
Also, the whole "war on Christmas" thing makes regular appearances in the British media. One paper insisted, time and again, that local councils were calling Christmas "Winterval" to avoid offending minorities, when in fact that term was the name of a promotional campaign that ran after the re-opening of a big shopping mall in Birmingham, the second biggest city in the UK. They ran Winterval for two winters and never again, there still was a Christmas, but the papers picked up the story and ran with it until they were forced to admit that it was a lie only a year ago.
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