Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I'm the nonbeliever that loves Christmas/Winter Solstice. Lights, trees, exchanging presents, the food, being with family/friends... loved it all as a child and continue to as an adult. We never really attended church outside of a couple of Easter Sundays... so I think part of it is that I was never heavily exposed to the religious side of the holiday as a kid. Other than some Christmas carols and my mom's little nativity scene, it was all about food, family and fun.
Now that I have my own family, I'm trying to pass on my love of the holiday season to my kids. As for the mythical figures associated with the holidays (be it Santa or god)... I've decided to let my children figure things out on their own. I'm not going to push them one way or the other... just do my best to answer their questions.
ME TOO
The ONLY time I enjoyed attending church was at Christmas. Something about the music, the lights, the upbeat festive mood (which seemed to start about 1st Sunday of Advent and End at Epiphany) was worth going. When I was older, I started attending an Episcopal High Mass, which is about the most beautiful service ever invented IMO
I still go out On Christmas Eve for Midnight Service (or Mass as some call it) It does something wonderful for me. I go alone, after the kids are in bed, before Santa Comes. I go in silence, I leave in Silence. It is truly a beautiful event & I look forward to it every Christmas Season.
Well I see two articles where business managers think xmas decorations are counter productive of offensive to non christians. I don’t see it as a mandate, but a business decision made to prevent the perception of a bias toward one religion or the other.
One of your articles chose to not have decorations at all if they had to allow other religions to place their decorations up also. I understand why some might be offended at this, but my concern is not for the christians, but for the Jewish group who also want to add their holiday decorations and rather than to allow them or any others than christians they closed it down for all.
The rest of your articles are simple legal issues. Schools or any public buildings are not the place for any religious decoration. This falls under the heading of “Separation of Church and State”. It is the law, and I don’t understand why you should see this as a problem.
Please don't misunderstand me- I am of course, ABSOLUTELY in favor of separation of church and state! And I don't want christian stuff all over the place any more than anyone else does that has a lick of sense. I just don't happen to think that a school displaying the typical NON-religious stuff like trees, lights and so on are any different than putting out pumpkins at Thanksgiving, or cutting out hearts and doilies for Valentines day. I just don't get what the big deal is. I think it's ridiculous that anyone could possibly get "offended" over such a thing.
And as for the place that only wanted to allow "christian" decorations to be displayed or none at all- that's equally ridiculous not to mention pretty scroogy and uptight. I say why not invite any and all kinds of decorations from anyone who wants to share them- jewish, muslim, wiccan, whatever- the more the merrier! And who cares if it ends up being a cluttery mess- xmas is all about tacky anyway.
This year I scheduled the surgery to rebuild my shoulder over the holidays. Anything would be better than the endless xmas songs, ads, and overzealous door knockers.
I do all the good stuff related to Christmas, and don't have to do any of the bad stuff, (the church stuff.)
Ever notice that all the really good Christmas songs are written by Jewish song writers? I think that's a testiment to the broad appeal of the winter holiday.
As an atheist, I'll admit that I love the holiday season. It isn't a religious observation for me, plainly. But it's a time of goodwill and family gatherings that I look forward to each winter.
And the midwinter celebration was a big holiday long before it was ever called christmas.
As an agnostic who doesn't believe in the Judeo-Christian-Muslim god, I enjoy Christmas immensely.
It's the best Roman pagan holiday of the year.
I couldn't agree more. It hasn't held any religious meaning for me since I was a very small child (when I knew christianity was not for me), and the pagan roots of it are more fascinating to me and my kids anyway.
For us, it's about family...and keeping my teenager happy.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
How atheists deal with Christmas
