War on Christmas: The Prequel

War on Christmas is such a faux controversy. Bless Fox News' little hearts.

rgw said:

War on Christmas is such a faux controversy. Bless Fox News' little hearts.

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"Wars" on things is such an 80's thing. I do believe there has been a movement to diminish Christmas in this country. It was considered impolite to say "Merry Christmas" in public or to strangers for many years until recently. People even delude themselves saying "Happy Holidays is more accurate".

I have never felt that pressure at all I guess but I live in Alabama...

rgw said:

War on Christmas is such a faux controversy. Bless Fox News' little hearts.

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Oh dear... rgw, you are way off base here. This is so far from a fake controversy... you are showing your own reliance on Fox News, albeit as a rejection of its news, when you don't know the real history. If you think the reality of secularism v. tradition is driven by Fox News you should definitely study some extra history.

They literally have a tag for articles about the War on Christmas

http://insider.foxnews.com/tag/war-christmas

rgw said:

They literally have a tag for articles about the War on Christmas

http://insider.foxnews.com/tag/war-christmas

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I get it. You're not wrong. Fox News is playing to its demographic. However, I feel, for instance, that many of the "racist" cops aren't really racist. It is a media narrative to drum up emotions mostly from the left and SJW (an abbreviation I learned today). I'm in no way saying that there aren't racist police officers, but it is overplayed. Same with the war on Christmas. It is real, but overblown.

The sad thing is that these issues should be examined, but due to polarization by the media and politicians most people have picked their side. So, no matter what new evidence emerges, people are already decided and "over it".

Obviously, Fox News is not the start of a secular v. religious argument. It is something that has been growing as an issue regarding the American identity as more non-Christians or non-religious people make up the country. The separation of church and state was not such a difficult thing to manage when people were almost exclusively Christian. I think it is important value that our government doesn't favor any religion. What businesses do is just kind of their call and who really cares about what kind of greeting a business gives me on their cup?


The fact of the matter is that Fox News has very much sensationalized secularization to the degree that I'll probably hear some in-law or relative this Christmas tell me about how Christians are the most victimized group in America today. Fox News is a disservice to fiscal and religious conservatism.


And you're right, there is similar examples of this "disservice to their own cause" sensationalization on the other side of the coin. The point being that it is all just noise to distract the public from the real thing. Christians are not at risk. Police officers are 99% honest people just trying to do their job and sometimes that means enforcing laws they don't even believe are just or necessary. But in all of this who or what are we not examining?

Television news and the internet were suppose to usher information richness that informed the masses. Each quickly just devolved into banality, sensationalization, and general noise. Information quality is no better today than when the typewriter was the best document writing tool. There is a lot more information, most of it is crap, and all it has done lead to a country of people who effectively are chasing their own tail. I will call it out on all sides. I'm thoroughly tired of it from all parties.

rgw said:

They literally have a tag for articles about the War on Christmas

http://insider.foxnews.com/tag/war-christmas

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Like Orebama is saying, just because a biased news network plays the issues up in its own special BS way doesn't prove their is no reality. If FN told some random fabricated story about the Holocaust, that wouldn't mean the Holocaust wasn't real; it would just mean that its story about the Holocaust wasn't accurate. You are acting like refuting Fox News means something. In an ironic way, you are the one falling for their story.

I don't think refuting Fox News is important. They feed people the news they want to hear. The only way to fix the Fox News problem is by getting rid of the people who buy it hook line and sinker. You're not going to change what they believe, no use arguing. Luckily that doesn't require violence since most of their regular viewership is already on the other side of the hill.

rgw said:

I don't think refuting Fox News is important. They feed people the news they want to hear. The only way to fix the Fox News problem is by getting rid of the people who buy it hook line and sinker. You're not going to change what they believe, no use arguing. Luckily that doesn't require violence since most of their regular viewership is already on the other side of the hill.

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*Giant eyeroll emoji*

Not about that at all. And good luck waiting for human nature to die out.

In any case, rationalism is not the answer. Ugh!

Pagan


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Good article in the Smithsonian. Thanks Aledinho.

I agree that there are pagan aspects of Christmas. Is that a bad thing?

http://www.livescience.com/25779-christmas-traditions-history-paganism.html

http://www.zmescience.com/science/history-science/origin-christmas-tree-pagan/

rgw said:

Obviously, Fox News is not the start of a secular v. religious argument. It is something that has been growing as an issue regarding the American identity as more non-Christians or non-religious people make up the country. The separation of church and state was not such a difficult thing to manage when people were almost exclusively Christian. I think it is important value that our government doesn't favor any religion. What businesses do is just kind of their call and who really cares about what kind of greeting a business gives me on their cup?


The fact of the matter is that Fox News has very much sensationalized secularization to the degree that I'll probably hear some in-law or relative this Christmas tell me about how Christians are the most victimized group in America today. Fox News is a disservice to fiscal and religious conservatism.


And you're right, there is similar examples of this "disservice to their own cause" sensationalization on the other side of the coin. The point being that it is all just noise to distract the public from the real thing. Christians are not at risk. Police officers are 99% honest people just trying to do their job and sometimes that means enforcing laws they don't even believe are just or necessary. But in all of this who or what are we not examining?

Television news and the internet were suppose to usher information richness that informed the masses. Each quickly just devolved into banality, sensationalization, and general noise. Information quality is no better today than when the typewriter was the best document writing tool. There is a lot more information, most of it is crap, and all it has done lead to a country of people who effectively are chasing their own tail. I will call it out on all sides. I'm thoroughly tired of it from all parties.

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imho, that is the crux of the biscuit

I'd argue the first war on Christmas came during the early church when the rituals of the Pagan Saturnalia, such as decorating an evergreen tree and Germanic Pagan Yule (ever wonder where Yule log came from?) that took place in December at the winter solstice were co-opted by the church to become a celebration of Jesus's birth as a way to keep the pagans happy in Roman Territories, a vast oversimplification of course.

another war on Christmas took place in Early America when the Puritans and New England Protestants banned Christmas outright as too Pagan in nature in Boston from 1659 to 1681 http://www.livescience.com/32891-why-was-christmas-banned-in-america-.html

t may seem like Christmas has always been celebrated in the United States, but that's not the case. In fact, the joyous religious holiday was actually banned in America for several decades by Christians themselves.

The original war on Christmas was waged during the sixteenth and seventeenth century by Puritans, or Protestant Christians who believed that people needed strict rules to be religious and that any kind of merrymaking was sinful.

"Shocking as it sounds, followers of Jesus Christ in both America and England helped pass laws making it illegal to observe Christmas, believing it was an insult to God to honor a day associated with ancient paganism," according to "Shocked by the Bible" (Thomas Nelson Inc, 2008). "Most Americans today are unaware that Christmas was banned in Boston from 1659 to 1681."

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both of these, and I'm sure many others, came before the Nazi's

seebell said:

Good article in the Smithsonian. Thanks Aledinho.

I agree that there are pagan aspects of Christmas. Is that a bad thing?

http://www.livescience.com/25779-christmas-traditions-history-paganism.html

http://www.zmescience.com/science/history-science/origin-christmas-tree-pagan/

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Nope, not a bad thing at all.

And I'll note that there are Christians who either do not celebrate Christmas or celebrate it purely as a secular holiday.

Merry Christmas y'all!