Other Religions "offended" by Christmas

omnicorp

I was in a shop which shall remain nameless which had a window display featuring a crib scene.
A lady who was looking at the exclaimed that they are bringing Religion into everything these days!


Many charities and companies are refusing to celebrate the spiritualk and religious aspect of Christmas because they are afraid of "offending other Cultures".
Now, I wouldn't be offended by someone celebrating their religion but I think this is madness, not being allowed to celebrate your faith.

What does everyone else think?

uberwolf

I don't see why we should have to apologise for our own culture. Our culture made this country what it is, this country attracted the immigrants. Ergo they made the decision that this culture was acceptable. Not an blanket argument, I'm sure all manner of opt outs will be pointed out in following posts.

Adding to a culture is desirable, no more than recognising our culture is evolving. Do they want to change the name of the holiday as well to something less exclusive?

AngelofFire

The family next door to me is jewish, and they buy their kids presents on december 25th as well as hannukah etc.

Gandhi

Are there actually a large number of immigrants offended, or is it a tiny minority of do-gooders who could find nothing better to whine about when they phoned up the radio show that day?

Here in The States, there is controversy every year about Christmas dominating the whole country. It is usually a storm in tea-cup, from what I can see. I hang out with a fair few Jewish / Muslim / Hindu etc. friends and none of them could give a dog's weapon about seeing Santa Claus and Cribs etc. all over the place.

MrPudding

omnicorp wrote:

Now, I wouldn't be offended by someone celebrating their religion but I think this is madness, not being allowed to celebrate your faith.

What does everyone else think?

Don't worry about it. 3 reasons.

1. If the whole religion thing is for real and you have it right they will burn in hell. So just give them a knowing smile and forget about it.
2. They have it right and you are going to burn in hell. In this case someone going bah humbug is the least of your problems.
3. All religion is sh1t. Your are already wasting enough time practising it, there is no point in getting up tight about it as well.

See, simple, just like some people.

MrP

the_syco

They come over here, steal our women, our jobs, AND NOW FRIKKEN CHRISTMAS ! ! !

Seriously, tho, I'd turn to the woman, and say "Christmas is about religon, beeeeeeeeee-atch!"

omnicorp

the_syco wrote:

They come over here, steal our women, our jobs, AND NOW FRIKKEN CHRISTMAS ! ! !

Seriously, tho, I'd turn to the woman, and say "Christmas is about religon, beeeeeeeeee-atch!"

disagree
http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/text/strife.php
try this ^^^ may help

fragile

They should count themselves lucky, I would love to be completely ignorant of the whole thing at this time of year, maybe then it wouldn't annoy me so much

is_that_so

Gandhi wrote:

Are there actually a large number of immigrants offended, or is it a tiny minority of do-gooders who could find nothing better to whine about when they phoned up the radio show that day?

Here in The States, there is controversy every year about Christmas dominating the whole country. It is usually a storm in tea-cup, from what I can see. I hang out with a fair few Jewish / Muslim / Hindu etc. friends and none of them could give a dog's weapon about seeing Santa Claus and Cribs etc. all over the place.

Agree 100% . People will be offended if they choose to be.
However there is cause to complain about the relentlessness of Christmas and all the superficiality of it. Some traditions are great to have and particularly in the dark days of winter. Having spent time in Germany where they have fantastic Christmas markets I wonder if we have lost the plot and embraced the worst excesses of the season. That I find far more embarrassing.

omnicorp

We've got ourselves in a hole and in a typically Irish way, we're digging ourselves deeper

Zombrex

omnicorp wrote:

Many charities and companies are refusing to celebrate the spiritualk and religious aspect of Christmas because they are afraid of "offending other Cultures".
Now, I wouldn't be offended by someone celebrating their religion but I think this is madness, not being allowed to celebrate your faith.

Companies don't have a "religion" (e.g what religion does Coca Cola Corp follow). It is the people in the company that follow different traditions. Therefore it is perfectly understandable that a company as a body would not want push or endorse on religion or holiday over another.

I am opposed to states, companies, organisations etc having a "prefared" (for want of a better word) religion. Religion should be a personal thing. I am pretty sure a large number of people in the western world would be pissed off if their company had a large picture of Muhammad hanging over their desks (though seemingly Microsoft have large pictures of Bill Gates everywhere which is just too freaky).

Nevyn

it is not celebrating christmas that is the problem ti is the not celebrating the other big religios holiday for other religions. You can NOT get Yule or Hannukah
or end of Ramadon cards in this country. Nor are there the religious disverity in our media as there should .

DonWeNow

I'm an atheist and am very happy to celebrate at Chritmas time. It was originally, and is still for me, simply a mid-winter celebration to cheer up the darkness and grimness. An excuse to eat, drink and be merry!
So I will, thanks very much.
Who cares what the rest of the world believes anyway?

ixoy

We don't celebrate other religious holidays because our culture is predominantly Christian! Do you need me to go to the CSO site to back this up? What should be an option, perhaps, is for employees of other religious persuasions to be able to respect their religion AS LONG AS they choose not to observe ours (i.e. take some time off at Ramadan, but you can't have Christmas).

Remember though that Christmas is not just a religious thing - it's a culture thing here now. People, rightly or wrongly, associate Christmas with a lot more than just Jesus. It's a time of awkward associations, drunken dalliances, family feudings, gastronomic gorging, and present puchasing. Asking people to lose that, something a lot more than religious iconography, is asking too much. And it's not going to happen.

omnicorp

Christmas is a pagan festival with a bit of Christianity on the side and mashed up with an Exagerrated Turkish saint

Moriarty

Thaed wrote:

it is not celebrating christmas that is the problem ti is the not celebrating the other big religios holiday for other religions.

Irish company. >90% of the irish population is catholic. It seems reasonable that catholic holidays would be the ones most recognised.

Thaed wrote:

You can NOT get Yule or Hannukah or end of Ramadon cards in this country. Nor are there the religious disverity in our media as there should .

So what? Obviously there isn't a market for cards for other religious occasions. If you think there is, go sell them yourself. There's no law against it. Same goes for religion in the media - there's little intrest in it.

mayordenis

ok F U C K that sorry for that but this really annoys me no other religion/culture would try to hide there religion for foreigners thats a joke.

bizmark

mayordenis wrote:

ok F U C K that sorry for that but this really annoys me no other religion/culture would try to hide there religion for foreigners thats a joke.

Yes but no other culture (west in general) is so horribly and annoyingly politically correct.

CodeMonkey

I don't understand the story that spawned this thread. Was the lady from a different religious background? Could she not be just disgusted with the use of religious display for their marketing campaign in the window display? Anyway, christmas is not about religion and spiritualality, it's just a great marketing oppotunity

The_Conductor

DonWeNow wrote:

I'm an atheist and am very happy to celebrate at Chritmas time. It was originally, and is still for me, simply a mid-winter celebration to cheer up the darkness and grimness. An excuse to eat, drink and be merry!
So I will, thanks very much.
Who cares what the rest of the world believes anyway?

I agree 100% with you.

The entire christmas celebrations were simply usurped by the Church for its own means.

Prior to christianity at all, most societies had a winter cermony/festival stretching (in many cases over 12 days) over this period.

An old Scotland tradition was celebrated by burying three iron nails in the soil and fumigating houses- part of the preparation for the coming spring. In more recent antiquity it was designated "womens christmas"- or "oiche nollaig na mban" in recognition of the fact that women did most of the preparations for christmas itself. This was also followed in Ireland.

In parts of France the 12th day is called the "festival of fools"- and populations used take over cathedrals- turning them into taverns, drinking, gambling, eating black puddings, parodying the clergy.

In Germanic tribes- the 5th or 6th of January was the date chosen for the annual election of a "king" to head the extended family (tribe). There was said to be a strange significance attached to how tall the king was in relation to the queen. The male hemp plant was thought to be affected by the kings height- and the female plant by the queens. The number of children they had influences the number of prized bracts that could be dried.

In Spain the 12th day signified the lighting of bonfires to attract the god of fertility to ensure great crops in the coming year.

Eastern European tradition has it that on or around the 5th of January witches gained their human form for a single day and could be bound with rope of straw and burnt in bonfires.

In Ireland- a sheaf of oats with 13 full heads, representing 13 close family members, was placed standing upwards along with rushes in cow dung and set alight. The order in which the heads of oats fell represented the various lifelines of the named family members.

The lighting of candles is borrowed from sun-worship.

Another cermony associated with the 12 days were known as "lot days". Twelve circles were to be noted on each of the 12 days, and each subdivided into quarters. During the the relevant quarter the weather was to be noted. This was supposed to reflect the expected weather of a relevant quarter month.

In early Roman times- the calendar was a bit vague, the 61 days in the middle of winter not appearing at all. In the middle of this in early January was the "festival of gates". January was named after the god Janus, an ancient skygod, associated with chaos. It was thought that as supreme creator, Janus opened the windows of heaven
in the morning for light and closed them at dusk to allow nightfall. Early January was dedicated to Janus- who was depicted as a both a planet (most often Saturn) and also an unusual "monk" wearing a two-faced mask. January was considered the last month of the year, prior
to March (February being out of sequence).

Finally- the winter solstice celebrations originally were a large feast stretching over a 12 day period- the final day of which was celebrated on or around the 6th of January when the "unconquered sun" was allowed to rise. The 6th of January was subsequently moved backwards to the 25th of December by revisions to the Julian calendar in the 5th century.

For most people christmas is nought but base commercialism these days- few people ever give thought to think where it came from.

S.

simu

bizmark wrote:

Yes but no other culture (west in general) is so horribly and annoyingly politically correct.

I don't think Ireland is overly PC - I think we've reached an acceptable level where racism/sexism is frowned upon in public discourse (albeit amongst the more "civilised" sectors of the population and also with the caveat that the same does not apply to people's ture attitudes - those they keep hidden from the public realm) without reaching the madness of the US where, to give an example, a man was nearly fired from his job for using the word "niggardly".

omnicorp

CodeMonkey wrote:

I don't understand the story that spawned this thread. Was the lady from a different religious background? Could she not be just disgusted with the use of religious display for their marketing campaign in the window display? Anyway, christmas is not about religion and spiritualality, it's just a great marketing oppotunity

That was actually just a joke but it has something to do with it and it gets my view across that if this keeps going on then the Religious aspect of Christmas (Pagan or Christian) will be forgotten forever