So, if I am not a Christian and I don't celebrate Jesus's birthday on December 25th, but I take advantage of the traditions of the office being closed, of exchanging gifts, of displaying a tree, of being with family, and of doing any other secular custom (because none of those rituals or customs has anything to do with Jesus) to celebrate the winter solstice (the real reason we celebrat "Christmas" on December 25th), then why would I want to put Christ and Jesus into it?? Are traditionalists and traditionalist/fundamentalist Christians now wanting to use The Law to enforce the practice of their religion in the United States? What are they? The Taliban?!?
They want us to teach Christian beliefs in the guise of science,demanding that science classes give equal teaching treatment to so-called "Creation Science" along with evolutionary theory. They want "God" to remain in the "Pledge of Allegiance" and in all of our American nationalistic anthems. They want references to God and the Bible on our state monuments and in our state institutional structures to remain. They want nativity scenes in the front lawns of the capitol buildings and state houses. They want our country to be a united Christian state and not a democratic, tolerant, federation or republic of states
I don't know if I necessarily want a godless, athiestc, non-spiritual
state/country/nation, but I do want to be able to not have
traditionalist Christians telling me that Christmas is all about Jesus
when it's not
see:
http://de.essortment.com/christmaspagan_rece.htm ;
http://www.irishclans.com/articles/celtchristmas.html ;
http://www.religioustolerance.org/winter_solstice.htm ;
http://www.circlesanctuary.org/pholidays/SolsticeArticle.html ;
http://www.mysteriousbritain.co.uk/festivals/christmas.html ;
http://www.historychannel.com/exhibits/holidays/christmas/trees.html ;
http://www.shambhala.org/arts/fest/unconquered.html ;
http://www.angelfire.com/nj2/jciloa1/origins_of_Christmas.html ;
http://www.christmas.com/pe/1446 ; http://www.tryskelion.com/yule7.htm
; http://greenbelt.com/news/ic9902.htm ;
http://home.sprynet.com/~palermo/solstice.htm ;
http://home.earthlink.net/~fetteroll/kiriena/worldreligions/holidays/pagan/solstice/wintersolstice.html
;
http://italian.about.com/library/weekly/aa120600a.htm ;
http://www.wildideas.net/calyx/library/nihil317.html ;
http://www.circlesanctuary.org/pholidays/SaturnaliaInfo.html ;
http://bibletools.org/index.cfm/fuseaction/Topical.show/RTD/CGG/ID/1143
; http://www.kencollins.com/Holy-02t.htm
Need I put more links? No. Just do a google search on "pagan orgins
christmas solstice". You'll find many, many references to how the
Christians who came long after the time of Jesus Christ used pagan
traditions and customs and beliefs to market their own religion.
Christmas and many other "Christian" holidays are MARKETING SCHEMES.
Christians protest actions that play down Christmas' religious nature
Wed Dec 22, 6:21 AM ET
By Richard Willing, USA TODAY
Julie West is tired of being wished "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry
Christmas." She's annoyed with department stores that use "Season's
Greetings" banners, and with public schools that teach about Hanukkah
and Kwanzaa but won't touch the Nativity story.
So last week, she sent a baked protest to a holiday party at her
first-grade son's school: a chocolate cake with vanilla frosting and
red icing that spelled out "Happy Birthday Jesus."
"Christmas keeps getting downgraded, to the point that you're almost
made to feel weird if you even mention it," says West, a resident of
Edmonds, Wash., who describes herself as a non-denominational
Christian. "What's the matter with recognizing the reason behind the
whole holiday?"
This Christmas season, West has plenty of company. Christians and
traditionalists across the nation, fed up with what they view as the
de-emphasizing of Christmas as a religious holiday, are filing
lawsuits, promoting boycotts and launching campaigns aimed at
restoring references to Christ in seasonal celebrations.
>From New Jersey to California, Christians are moving to counter years
of lawsuits that have made governments wary about putting Nativity
scenes on public property, and that occasionally have led schools to
drop Christmas carols from holiday programs:
• In Bay Harbor Islands, Fla., a Christian sued in federal court after
town officials refused to let her erect a Nativity scene next to a
menorah, or Hanukkah candelabra, on a causeway. Last week, a judge
ordered the town to comply.
• In Maplewood, N.J., parents and students recently petitioned the
local school board after school officials dropped even instrumental
versions of Christmas music from class programs.
• In Denver, a Protestant church responded to the city's decision to
drop "Merry Christmas" from public signs by trying to enter a
Christmas-themed float in the holiday parade. Supporters picketed the
parade and sang Christmas carols after the float was rejected.
• In California, a group called the Committee to Save Merry Christmas
is boycotting Federated Department Stores. The group claims that
Federated's affiliates, including Macy's, prohibit clerks from saying
"Merry Christmas" and ban the word "Christmas" from ads and store
displays. The retail giant says it has no such policy.
Even Kwanzaa, the African-American harvest celebration, has taken a
hit. In Los Angeles, the Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson, a conservative black
activist, has urged black Christians to spurn Kwanzaa, which he calls
a "pagan holiday."
Split over 'Happy Holidays'
The new battles over religion's role in holiday celebrations come more
than two decades after the American Civil Liberties Union (news - web
sites) and other groups began going to court to try to require
municipalities to remove Nativity scenes and other religious displays
from public property. The ACLU argued that such religious symbols
violated the First Amendment's ban on government-endorsed religion.
In two rulings in the 1980s, the U.S. Supreme Court (news - web sites)
said that Nativity scenes are acceptable when they are combined with
other symbols - such as a Santa Claus house - that indicate Christmas
is a secular holiday in American culture as well as a religious one.
Nevertheless, the threat of lawsuits and a desire to be more sensitive
to the nation's growing number of non-Christians - who made up about
18% of the U.S. population in a 2002 survey by Pew Charitable Trusts -
has led many governments, schools and businesses to de-emphasize
Christ in Christmastime celebrations. Phrases such as "Happy Holidays"
and "Season's Greetings" have replaced "Merry Christmas" at many
public venues.
In a new CNN/USA TODAY/Gallup Poll, 44% of Americans surveyed said the
trend toward "Happy Holidays" is a change for the better, and 43% said
it wasn't. Only 11%, however, said they avoid saying "Merry Christmas"
out of fear of offending someone.
Carol Sanger, spokeswoman for Federated Department Stores, says
Federated employees use phrases such as "Season's Greetings" and
"Happy Holidays" interchangeably with "Merry Christmas" in order to be
"more reflective of the multicultural society in which we live."
She says the chain aims to "embrace all" the religious and secular
holidays that occur in November and December.
"If you were Druid, I'd be wishing you a 'Scintillating Solstice,' "
Sanger says.
John Whitehead, director of the Rutherford Institute, a group in
Charlottesville, Va., that defends against challenges to speech and
religion rights, says the recent trend has been for schools and
municipalities to excise "all mention of Christmas, out of some
misshapen idea that this respects diversity."
He is particularly critical of decisions such as that made by the
school board in Maplewood, N.J., which decided to drop traditional
carols and other Christmas music from public school programs during
the mid-1990s after receiving several complaints.
This year, the ban was extended even to instrumental versions of
Christmas songs.
Board President Brian O'Leary said in a statement that playing songs
that "focus on religious holidays ... could become an opportunity not
to learn about a religious holiday or tradition, but to celebrate it."
Bans are 'misplaced'
Charles Haynes, senior scholar at the First Amendment Center in
Arlington, Va., says that such bans are "rare" and "misplaced."
Court decisions, Haynes says, permit public school students to study
religion and to perform religious music as part of the curriculum,
provided that religious practices are not endorsed.
Whitehead says that overly cautious approaches to mentioning Christ in
Christmas celebrations has meant that "in the name of offending no
one, you now have high school kids who can't play music that's part of
the culture, and store clerks who are afraid to say, 'Merry
Christmas.' It takes a joyous and merry day and just makes it blah."
Sandra Snowden agrees. According to papers she filed in a federal
lawsuit, the resident of Bay Harbor Islands, Fla., was "offended" that
the town allowed a menorah, but not a Nativity scene, to be placed
along a public causeway.
When she protested, court papers say, town leaders countered that the
menorah, which commemorates the rededication of the Temple in
Jerusalem after a Jewish military victory in 165 B.C., was a secular
symbol of freedom.
Before a federal judge ruled in her favor, Snowden rejected the town's
offer to install a Christmas tree rather than a Nativity scene, which
the town officials had called "divisive."
Those seeking to put more Christ into Christmas have had other successes.
In Mustang, Okla. on Dec. 14, parents incensed that a Nativity
sequence had been dropped from a school holiday program organized to
help defeat an $11 million school bond referendum.
And in Washington state, cake maker Julie West is claiming a small victory.
Although her son's teacher expressed some misgivings, West served
slices of her "Happy Birthday Jesus" cake to 20 first-graders and
about five other parents. No one complained, she says.
"I had gotten a legal opinion from the Rutherford Institute saying I
was within my rights before I brought the cake to school," West says.
"That's Christmas this year, I guess: candy cane frosting and a legal
opinion."
