Buddah is dead? Oh god no! Say it isn't so!
A quiet, loving individual who has had far fewer deaths attributed to his existance than Jesus. One who respects all life forms and doesn't arrogantly place man above all the beasts.
I also didn't know that
the only valid religions were the ones where the focal idol had surrendered his or her life for others. (That seems, conveniently, to limit it to only one!)
Quote:
Originally Posted by renriq02
NOTHING wrong with Christmas but they did pick up pagan traditions like the christmas tree....
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Actually, and respectfully,
rr02, Christians have, demonstrably through the recorded chronology of it all, purposefully hi-jacked a number of ancient pagan winter season celebrations whose sole function was to drive off the depressing (and to the peasantry, scary) darkness, cold, death and eeriness of mid-winter. Days are shorter hence nights are longer (d'uh!!), and the crystal-clear night skies were filled with their attendant inexplicable and therefore frightening astronomical phenomena (comets, firey meteorites, eclipses, the occasional super-novae, etc.).
What better way to feel more protected and comforted by your mutally terrified and
chilled-to-the-bone friends than to warm up some Grog, light a big bonfire, pass around a few gifts, paint your bodies blue, dance, make wanton love by the fire-pit and eat some hot charcoal-broiled pig.
And what better opportunity to staunch potential defectors from a fear-based masses-controlling belief system than to call it your own, revise or define it as the birthday of the one true loving Christ, and to thereafter insist on absolute ownership?
IMHO, to each his or her own. Peace on Earth. Christmas has room for everyone, but no-one should guilt-trip others or, as was yelled at me recently on these very posts, claim that I and my fellow atheists had no right to celebrate Christmas unless we were Christian believers. I was destined to go to hell, apparently.
Well, as an "FYI" to you good Christians: we atheists aren't just a bunch of celebrators of Chinese plastic and ethics-free conspicuous consumption who've "dissed and missed" the whole point of
your Christmas. My family have (mostly) abandoned the idea of obligatory gift-giving, creating as it does debt loads that only serve to harm your family while simultaneously enriching some offshore greed-monger.
We celebrate the family, our generous fellowship with others in our community, and yes, even our beloved pets, who know aspects of this complex world in ways we mere humans can never understand. It's a sort of quiet, respectful Buddist thing. You may not understand. Though, again, I hear he's dead....
I truly hope you can and will respect our loving, caring and generous perspectives.
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. 
He's gone? So soon?
