Christmas is for Everyone!!!!
In case you thought Christmas was this:
It turns out you're wrong. Not only is Christmas for Everyone but you will see a whole new Christmas after hearing the whole story from some asshole from Iowa. Let's share a story...
JD's blog: Message: Christmas is for everyone.
Comment left by filigree: Christmas is for Christians.
JD's Reply: Nonsense. Christmas is for anybody who wants to celebrate it, no matter what you think. Period.
filigree's Reply: You said "Christmas is for everyone" and I said "Christmas is for Christians". Why isn't it called 'Everyone-Mass'? Or, 'Everybody-Mass' Why is Christmas called Christmas? Because Jesus Christ is the Christian God... not the Muslim God, Hindu God, or the Buddhist God... just the Christians. Hence, Christmas is for Christians. If this has been too complex to understand, I apologize. But you're from Iowa and I can't make this any simpler. My comment is not bigoted. But your comment is. By saying Christmas is for everyone you are forcing your beliefs and customs onto others in the attempt to invalidate their traditions.
Have a great Hanukkah.
JD's Reply: Nonsense. Christmas is for anybody who wants to celebrate it, no matter what you think. Period.
Now, I don't know about you but the picture above tells me that a bunch of representatives from Goy-land are celebrating (albeit in a repressed, never-see-action-or-have-great-orgasms kind of way) and probably planning on their next anti-Semitic, anti-fag, anti-feminist, or anti-socialist activities for the upcoming new year but for most people it would just stop there. No. Not with my new best friend JD from Iowa. Here's the rest of it:
JD con't: I'm tired of hearing rightwingers and bigots talk abut the religious side of Christmas being the only one. Here's the truth of the matter in plain language that anybody can understand. It explains that Christmas is not a religious holiday and technically never was one: Why Christmas Isn't Christmas Anymore Many in the right wing of American politics have been protesting that some people say "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas." There seems to be anger that other holidays for other religions are included in the holiday season. Some simply acknowledge the holiday, not a religious event. There is a reason for this anger, but in fact, it has nothing to do with Christmas.
Christmas is being used to symbolize a protest that is actually based on another matter, the separation of church and state. But one cannot even be sure that the right wing is aware that this is actually what they are doing because it seems to have been sublimated so that the real cause of their anger is unknown to them. The right wing might truly be upset if they ever realize that they are not celebrating Christmas at all, but entirely different events that have been substituted for Christmas over time. They might be even more shocked to discover that they have never been celebrating Christmas at all during their entire lifetimes.
It seems strange, but it definitely is true; let me explain. We have to go back and take a look at history. What I am about to tell you now is not the real focus of this article but a little fact that may help put this all into better perspective from the start. Let's ask the question "What are the Christmas holidays?" Have we ever thought about that? So many are supposedly upset at the use of "Happy Holidays," and yet they have never thought to ask themselves this question. We are talking about holidays. It is known as the "holiday season." Why holidays? Why not "religious observances?" Do we say "Happy Religious Observances?" I don't recall ever seeing that. Have you ever asked when Jesus was born? Do you think Jesus was born on December 25th? That's the day his birth is celebrated. But it is a fact that scholars believe that Jesus was born during the month we now call July.
Even more recently, archeologists are telling us that Jesus was never born in Bethlehem, but in Nazareth. You might also believe that the practice of gift giving is based on the story of the 3 wise men. It isn't. It has nothing at all to do with that. The reasons for gift giving and for the holiday we call Christmas is based entirely on different events that have nothing at all to do with the birth or life of Jesus. What we celebrate as the "Christmas holidays" is actually the "winter solstice." The winter solstice was used by the ancient Romans as a time for many pagan holidays. The reason for these holidays was the inaccuracy of the Julian calendar of that time. The calendar in use did not accurately account for the Earth's revolution around the Sun. Extra days were left over. If these days were not used up, over time, it would cause the seasons represented by the calendar to be thrown off and the calendar would be useless as a tool to mark the seasons. Timing was critical to agriculture and the errors had to be corrected by creating "holidays" to use up the extra days. These holidays weren't actually "on" the calendar, but were in addition to the dates of the calendar. The winter solstice was used as a "holiday season," and the people used the holidays to celebrate all sorts of pagan gods and other events. Even using this method was not foolproof and every century or two, edicts had to be given adding a few more or taking away a few "holidays" to even out the dates of the calendar.
The Julian calendar was tinkered with over time trying to adjust dates and holidays and religious celebrations, but astronomy was not a truly accurate science during that time and both the Moon and the Sun were used in the calculations. Errors kept cropping up. The Gregorian calendar was adopted by Pope Gregory XIII in either 1581 or 1582 depending on whether you go by the signing of the decree or its implementation. The calendar was not accepted everywhere at the same time and some countries took 200 years to adopt it, and it wasn't adopted in Russia until 1918. So a couple of hundred years of confusion ensued involving the use of different calendars. Going back in time to the early Christians, the date of Christ's birth was based on the idea that Old Testament prophets all died either on an anniversary of birth or conception. They reasoned that Jesus died on an anniversary of his conception, so the date of his birth was calculated to be nine months after the date of Good Friday, which fell on what is now (under the Gregorian calendar) either December 25th or January 6th depending on the method of calculation. This date had nothing to do with the real date of his birth, but on a tradition in the Torah regarding Old Testament prophets.
So the date is arbitrary based on Jewish tradition and not fact. The word "Christmas" is a contraction of "Christ's Mass" which was held by the Catholic Church and set to December 25th based on the revised Gregorian calendar. Keep in mind that months were shifted and days added and deleted based on the calculations of the new calendar. So that all these dates shifted. The abbreviation of 20th century merchants of the name "Christmas" to "Xmas" to save advertising space was based on the acceptance that the "X" resembles the Greek letter X (chi) which has often been historically used as an abbreviation of Christ in Greek. This is all interesting, and it definitely explains all the confusion over Jesus' birth date, but what does this have to do with the holiday season we refer to as Christmas? The fact is that "Christmas" or "Christ's Mass" is a religious observance of the Church and falls on a specific date as selected in the Gregorian calendar. This is not the holiday that we celebrate as "Christmas" which has a different but related origin and an entirely different nature. What we celebrate as the Christmas season now is based in the celebration of St. Nicholas and has become a commercial holiday and a powerful economic engine. It comes right out of Industrial Age England. It was set to coincide with "Christ's Mass" and was a way to give to the poor during needy winter months. St. Nicholas was famous for his charity and his giving to the poor of all the wealth he inherited.
Over time, in some countries, St. Nicholas became changed to Santa Claus. And now we see decorations everywhere of reindeer, Santa Claus in his red suit, Christmas trees, lights and decorations of all kinds in celebration of a commercial season based on buying and giving gifts. This season was used by our industrial societies to drive the economic engine, bring in profit, and keep people employed. Since the mid 1800's in industrial England, this holiday season has been heavily promoted in order to encourage spending and giving and to keep the wheels of the economy turning.
The Christmas holiday season has become economically the most important time of the year. Stop commercial Christmas, and you stop the economic engine that is so vital to the health of the nation's economic well-being. Christmas is the one season that is said to pull merchants out of the red into the black. Without the Christmas holidays and gift-giving, most merchants would fail according to the economic analysts. While many people go to church and celebrate "Christ's Mass," the commercial endeavor we call "Christmas" has little to nothing to do with "Christ's Mass," and everything to do with economics and industrial production. Additionally, holidays for multiple religions fall during this time of year. They have nothing to do with "Christ's Mass" either, but the commercial holidays are driven not by any of the religious events, but by the commercial purchasing and gift-giving . When merchants tell their customers "Happy Holidays" they are doing just that. They are not engaging in a religious event, they are engaging in a commercial event. It is the commercial event we call the "Christmas holiday season." Remember that these events are not religious events but actual "holidays," that remain from the old Julian calendar from ancient Rome and have come down to us through all the centuries. So let us return to the sudden uproar and complaints about the use of "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas."
If you are truly celebrating a religious event by going to church and engaging in religious rituals, then you are engaging at that moment in the celebration of a religious event. If, however you are engaging in the commercial Christmas season, and most are, then you are not. You are engaging in a holiday season that involves purchasing and gift-giving, and you will have your house decorated with Christmas lights, Santa Claus and reindeer, a Christmas tree, and lots of gifts and colorful wrapping. This is a commercial event even though it may engender warm feelings and a sense of community between neighbors, friends, and relatives. So why the anger and harsh words about the use by some of "Happy Holidays?" Seriously. Think about it. Why on Earth would you be upset about what someone else says or how they greet someone?
The fact is, you're not. You may be upset, but that is not actually what is upsetting you. Would you be angry because a Jewish friend said "Happy Hanukah"? I don't think so, and if you did, it would be a good indication of emotional problems. So what is actually going own here? How and why are people being deceived and driven to anger and resentment over what should be a happy time of year? Really think about this because it affects you, and it affects your neighbors. This issue goes right back to those in positions of religious power who continue to oppose the separation of Church and state. The way to overcome that separation is to impose religious ideology everywhere. Impose it in the market place, and through the market place, impose it on the state.
In effect, alienate everyone who holds different beliefs by imposing a specific religion on everyone and make it impossible for them to get away from it and to exercise their own rights of freedom of belief. We need to always keep in mind that the earliest settlers in America were fleeing Europe for that very reason. Europe did not have separation of Church and state, and people fled here in droves in order to secure freedom for themselves to follow their own belief system and practice their own way of living that they chose of their own free will. There are those in this country who have no concern for Constitutional Democracy and are quite willing to sacrifice it for the imposition of religion on the state. Look at Iran and what that did to them. Look at Iraq and what that will do to them because they have included religious law into their new constitution.
Constitutional democracy in Iraq is already doomed and their future is already written. There will be no escape from a harsh and controlling religion and there will be no religious freedom. Beware of the demagogues who want to control your future and who ceaselessly try to limit your freedom to chose for yourself. Once you lose that freedom, you most likely will never get it back. They will be controlling you and your future. Your only hope is that the powers of religion and the powers of state are kept separated for your protection. This is exactly what the founding fathers did. They realized the danger and they sought to overcome it with the constitution we now have.
So the next time you see propaganda floating around and you see people acting angry because of how SOMEONE ELSE believes and even how they greet others, then let the warning bells go off in your head. These people are not interested in your freedoms, they are interested in an ideology and feel perfectly comfortable taking away your freedoms to suit their own desires. Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukah, Happy New Year! May the new year bring you freedom to choose for yourself!
And that's why I fucking hate Christmas.
