FirstInTheDance Posted November 24, 2006 Share Posted November 24, 2006 My marriage broke up this month (for non-religious reasons) and I am forced to live with my very Christian parents until I can save enough to afford my own place. Several times in the last few days, my mother has bemoaned the fact that the local Walmart has "Be Bright" signs around the store, but no "Merry Christmas" signs. Also, she was upset that they didn't have Christmas carols playing this morning. "They're trying to take Christ out of Christmas!" she exclaims. Puh-lease. What is with Christians, and their persecution complexes, anyway? They're the majority religion in this country, and most people in the U.S. celebrate Christmas. Yet so many of them worry that everyone is out to steal Christ away from them. I mean, just because a store doesn't play Christmas carols or have "Merry Christmas" signs all over the place, how is that taking Christ out of a Christian's Christmas? Yet people like my mother feel personally attacked if a STORE doesn't play Christmas carols. Why should they? It's a store, not a church. I tried pointing out to my mother that not everyone is Christian, but hey. That doesn't matter. SHE is Christian, and by golly, everyone else SHOULD be too! You know, living away from home, I'd forgotten just how nuts my folks are when it comes to religion. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dibby Posted November 24, 2006 Share Posted November 24, 2006 It was the christians who put Christ in christmas in the first place. It was a pagan festival long before that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chefranden Posted November 24, 2006 Share Posted November 24, 2006 Ask your mom why she is worried about such a thing in Walmart? Walmart is hardly a church, and could rightly be considered a temple of Mammon. Merry Christmas from them would be a blasphemy. Anyway if Christ is almighty, he can't be taken out of anyplace he doesn't want to be taken out of. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kurari Posted November 24, 2006 Share Posted November 24, 2006 Ask your mom why she is worried about such a thing in Walmart? Walmart is hardly a church, and could rightly be considered a temple of Mammon. Merry Christmas from them would be a blasphemy. Anyway if Christ is almighty, he can't be taken out of anyplace he doesn't want to be taken out of. I've got this image in my head of somebody asking Jesus to leave Walmart. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Max Posted November 24, 2006 Share Posted November 24, 2006 I'm not sure why xtians are upset about having the name of Christ taken out of the dooorbuster bargains and grown adults fighting over toys. What's going on at the mall that has anything at all to do with the xtian "true spirit of xmas" anyhow? You'd think they'd be demanding that jesus name be taken out of this festival of greed and commercialism. The whole campaign seems pretty hypocritical to me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jun Posted November 25, 2006 Share Posted November 25, 2006 What is with Christians, and their persecution complexes, anyway? They're the majority religion in this country, and most people in the U.S. celebrate Christmas. Yet so many of them worry that everyone is out to steal Christ away from them. I mean, just because a store doesn't play Christmas carols or have "Merry Christmas" signs all over the place, how is that taking Christ out of a Christian's Christmas? Yet people like my mother feel personally attacked if a STORE doesn't play Christmas carols. Why should they? It's a store, not a church. I tried pointing out to my mother that not everyone is Christian, but hey. That doesn't matter. SHE is Christian, and by golly, everyone else SHOULD be too! You know, my mother is EXACTLY the SAME. I complained that my son's play school was teaching about Jesus (to children under 5!) and my mother's answer was, "This is a Christian country, if you don't like it go someplace else." Er, when has Australia ever declared that it is a "Christian country?" Christians make up this shit all the time. ONLY they can be right in ALL that they do. I am always hearing how, "You were baptised in the name of Christ and you are a Christian whether you like it or not." I get on better with Muslims than with the Christians, even those in my immediate family. The Christians in my family are borderline White Supremists, and I'm not afraid to say that. I'm so sick and tired of hearing my mother say, "It's OUR country, if you come here you do things OUR way." Last time I checked the history books, we STOLE the damn country from the Aborigines. I'm also fed up with all the Xmas cards with nativity scenes on them. My family knows my feelings towards the Abrahamic cults, but insists on sending them. In response this year I printed my own cards exclaiming HAPPY SATURNALIA with an explanation on the back! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yaoi Huntress Earth Posted November 25, 2006 Share Posted November 25, 2006 I blame scame-artists like Bill O'Riley and his ilk on this mess. The fundys hardly made a peep ten or twenty years ago when people were using happy holidays until the pundits opened their mouths. Since a number of their targets are never really allowed to form their own opinions or elitists like them, they took the bait. Jun: I'm so sorry you have to put up with people like that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Amethyst Posted November 25, 2006 Share Posted November 25, 2006 My stepmom is like that, too, and she's not even a fundy. She thinks that because her workplace calls a Christmas party a holiday party that people are out to get Christians. Oh, and she also thinks that every single one of the people suing Catholic priests for sexual assualt is an "enemy of Christ" and that they weren't actually assaulted. Because, after all, a priest couldn't possibly do anything bad. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trancelation Posted November 25, 2006 Share Posted November 25, 2006 This psychosis surrounding "Christ's Mass" is equal parts persecution complex and taking attention away from Iraq. One can always expect the Religious Right to fulfill their duty to the Order of The Elephant by responding with typical outrage to any suggestion of inferiority to a percieved threat. I used to hang around bodybuilders a lot, having been involved in competitions and having had gone to one of the larger gyms in my area. Now, you would think that guys that stand around and see who can crush stuff with their bare hands the fastest would not be easily intimidated; you'd be wrong. Bodybuilding seems to be a haven for those with an irrational fear of Hell and an irrational thanks for the saving grace of Jesus Christ. For the two years that I went to this gym, come Christmas, it was time to gather 'round ye olde bench and complain about the encroaching threat of liberals, Jews, terrorists, and liberal-Jew-terrorists. Especially near the machines. The guys using the machines just HAD to be the biggest bitches out of them all. "They're taking the Christ out of Christmas!" they'd squall. "They're taking away our Bibles!" they'd rant. "They're trying to destroy the world!" they'd bellow. And who, pray tell, were 'they,' I would ask. "Why, the Godless-Commie-Liberal-Jew-Atheist-ACLU!" Uh-huh. Like anyone that has studied religious history, I asked my fellow gymgoers to show me where the Bible states that Jesus was born on December 25th. Naturally, none could show me. And don't get me started on the responses that would flow when I dared to inform my poor audience that the early Church stole the winter solstice from the pagans and dressed it up in a crucifix. Apparently, there is some secret history available only to Republicans that details how the pagans, in fact, were trying to steal Christmas from Jesus - two-thousand years before he was supposed to have appeared. Fascinating, isn't it? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thurisaz Posted November 25, 2006 Share Posted November 25, 2006 What is with Christians, and their persecution complexes, anyway? The imagined persecution is essential for maintaining their delusions. After all, finding that just about everyone outside of your cult disagrees totally with you can basically have one of two explanations... either you're wrong (MUSTNOT MUSTNOT MUSTNOT!!!!111!!!!eleven!!!), or everyone knows that you're right and is persecuting your folk because they don't want to know the truth. As morontheists just can't have the first option, there's only one remaining. Aaaah, and how wonderfully it works. Whatever disagreement you meet among thinking people, just claim persecution and presto - no need to touch your sacred delusions! I blame scame-artists like Bill O'Riley and his ilk on this mess. The fundys hardly made a peep ten or twenty years ago when people were using happy holidays until the pundits opened their mouths. Since a number of their targets are never really allowed to form their own opinions or elitists like them, they took the bait. Wasn't it just the same, historically, with that anti-abortion hype? As far as I read some time ago, no "holy warrior of gawd" cared a flying fuck about abortion until a certain propaganda movie hit the cultist shelves, and suddenly, ZOOM!, they all knew they had to fight abortion... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Unknowing1 Posted November 25, 2006 Share Posted November 25, 2006 Gee now I'm upset, no one says happy tinkerbell day to me on the day tinkerbell was born. You all are persecuting me, how dare you!!! Seriously though, I feel it is a tiny bit of persecution with a whole lot of paranoia. They live in la-la land. I'm sorry but not wishing someone Merry Christmas is so trivial in comparision of other things going on in the world and if that is all they have to complain about and all they waste their time on they aren't worth taking the effort to even say Happy Holidays to. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
R. S. Martin Posted November 25, 2006 Share Posted November 25, 2006 Well, didn't Jesus say that whoever follows him will be persecuted? If there is no real persecution they HAVE to imagine it. Otherwise, they lose God's stamp of approval, because after all if no one persecutes them it must mean they blend in so well with "the world." When the emperor finally wizens up to the fact that he really is naken perhaps insanity will take flight. But I wouldn't hold my breath. It's so ironic! The the Christmas Craziness thread exCs were blaming the Christians for all the hoopla in the stores and here we have Christians complaining that two must-have items are missing i.e. Christmas carols singing on the system and "Merry Christmas" greetings. Sounds a lot like spoilt brats, don't you think. I mean, kids who are this way get called spoilt brats and worse...........why not adults? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Everglaze Posted November 25, 2006 Share Posted November 25, 2006 The only reason Christians are persecuted is because they're annoying, not because they're "righteous" as they themselves think they are. The only reason Atheists are "persecuted" by Christians is because Atheists are a threat to the awakening of Christian brainwashing, which would destroy their comfort and false assurance. Associating "Jesus" with Christmas is old. Christians really need to grow up. Let's see. With brief examination, it seems to me that the Christians preach about Jesus during Christmas, yet when it comes to shopping, they'll act just as or even worse than the secular. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FirstInTheDance Posted November 26, 2006 Author Share Posted November 26, 2006 Thanks for the responses, everyone. Jun, my mother said the exact same thing: "This is a Christian country - if they don't want to celebrate Christmas, they should go somewhere else." I let it slide because I've got enough to deal with now without pissing off my folks. Still though, that sort of thinking drives me nuts. Last I heard, America was founded on the concept of religious FREEDOM. Unknowing1, I liked your comment about Tinkerbell Day. Honestly, that is how I feel about it. I mean, how messed up do you have to be to get all upset over greeting cards saying Season's Greetings or Happy Holidays? Even when I was a Christian, I realized that there were other holidays in December (Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Yule, etc.) (sp?). I always viewed the generic "Happy Holidays" as a positive, all inclusive way of wishing everyone well, rather than as a slight to Christians. Sheesh. Good point, Thurisaz. They have to believe everyone is out to get them, because, otherwise, they are just wrong. I hadn't really thought of it that way, but it makes perfect sense. A very simple answer. You know, the older I get, the more I realize that the truth is usually simple. It's bullshit that is complicated. Trancelation, I hear ya about that secret history. I also love the theory that Satan sent "false messiahs" before Jesus so that we'd not recognize the true one when he came. THAT is why the Jesus myth bears so much in common with the older Pagan stories. Uh-huh. Riiighhht. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kurari Posted November 26, 2006 Share Posted November 26, 2006 I am always hearing how, "You were baptised in the name of Christ and you are a Christian whether you like it or not." *LOL* Hey cool, all your bases are covered then! Christians that bleat about this crap have faith as thin as Kleenex. EVERY thing is a threat to tearing it. Including words. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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