Is Christianity Truly Under Attack in America?

[Pengwuino]

My parents didn't really care because neither of them are religious. In fact, I went to Catholic high school (for the education). But let's not move this to a 'parent/teacher responsibility' debate. Regardless of whether the parent speaks out, the school has a responsibility to keep it self in line on these kinds of issues.

Schools should keep itself in line by letting people do what they want and giving them a choice, not forcing peoples personal beliefs out of their life.

 

[Jelfish]

This is just like when the LA Times leaked to the public the plans for our ice submarine!

Maybe I'm not fit for your religion afterall. I don't think I'd be comfortable in a tuxedo all the time anyway.

 

[Jelfish]

Schools should keep itself in line by letting people do what they want and giving them a choice, not forcing peoples personal beliefs out of their life.

By people, you are also referring to mentally malleable K-6 children. They don't always know enough to be able to make choices, so when you say, as the all-knowing teacher, that "a magic stork drops babies down the chimney, and that's how you were born," they'd believe it. Therefore, they have a responsibility to not (accidentally) proselytize young children.

 

[pattylou]

I didn't know the first amenmdent was a non-issue...

That's exactly the point. Show me an atheist who gives a fig how you greet them at Christmastime. There aren't any. We have better things to obsess over.

O'Reilly's pretending there's some "war on Christams." There isn't.

Merry Christrmas, Pengwuino.

-Patty

p,.s. you might (or might not) enjoy reading this thread:

http://unfacts.org/cgi-bin/index.pl?read=91062

I have heard this over and over and I just don't get it. Where are the massive protests against "mentioning christ"? Where are the business boycots against those mentioning christ? I just don't see any.

What I see is advertisers makeing a choice probably based on polls and demographic studies and christians getting their panties in a wad over another non issue.

Above we have Mark warning against "drilling atheisem into kids to much" (!) while christians are complaining that people aren't useing the word "christ" in everyday conversation enough. Talk about drilling.

This is the most screwed up non issue complaint I have heard from christians in some time. (Well, several weeks anyway.)

 

[Pengwuino]

By people, you are also referring to mentally malleable K-6 children. They don't always know enough to be able to make choices, so when you say, as the all-knowing teacher, that "a magic stork drops babies down the chimney, and that's how you were born," they'd believe it. Therefore, they have a responsibility to not (accidentally) proselytize young children.

But its federal law that you should let these kids celebrate whatever religous holiday they want, its the 1st amendment, you can't force religion or non-religion on someone. If some 8 year old has a santa hat or a cross on or something, that is not in the bounds of the US constitution. Teachers arent exactly going around telling people to be Christians and letting a kid sing christmas carols is about as unconstitutional as a teacher letting a child sing his or her favorite disney song.

 

[Pengwuino]

Im sorry that you are so impressionable pattylou but you might want to go ask the ACLU as to who has a problem with Christmas since... yah ... they tend to sue a LOT of people over it. Maybe if you stopped listening to journalistic dropouts on their blogs, you would be more open minded and see the crap christians have to deal with instead of selectively picking out bits and pieces here and there to believe.

 

[Jelfish]

But its federal law that you should let these kids celebrate whatever religous holiday they want, its the 1st amendment, you can't force religion or non-religion on someone. If some 8 year old has a santa hat or a cross on or something, that is not in the bounds of the US constitution. Teachers arent exactly going around telling people to be Christians and letting a kid sing christmas carols is about as unconstitutional as a teacher letting a child sing his or her favorite disney song.

Right - and I acknowledge that distinction that there's a cultural and religious dichotomy with Christmas. And I even said in my first post that it's not worth the controversy and annoyed parents and children to filter out a cultural celebration because of a religious tie that most people don't acknowledge anyway. In the end, the people who are hurt most are the people who want Christmas to be purely religious.

 

[Curious3141]

Why wouldn't someone be ok with that?
Speaking of muslims, this one muslim girl i knew in high school said she had to pray 6 times a day. Now the thing I wonder about is what happens during school hours? I never noticed any muslim children ever pray... and I'm sure the school wouldn't be able to forbid them from doing that or else that's outright religious persecution right there (but then again schools are forbidding voluntary/personal praying already).

You'd really be OK with that ? Then I must say you're a better person than a lot of other Xians out there. I'm sure many others would be upset by such a thing. But one must be fair, if the Xians can celebrate what is essentially still a religious holiday (it's Christ-mass), then so can any other religious group; in fact the freethinkers should be allowed to do something on freethought day (October 9th or thereabouts).

Muslims have to pray a certain number of days a day. They have to get out a prayer mat, kneel facing Mecca and carry out their devotions. I don't think schools should stop this, and neither should Xian students be forbidden from carrying out their own prayers. What should definitely be disallowed is school endorsed group prayers of any sort, especially those officiated by some sort of school official. That should be a strict no-no.

EDIT : Why is it that when I edit my posts (I'm using Opera), the paragraph spacings disappear ?

 

[Pengwuino]

Whats a xian? I'm assuming a christian...

I don't see how they know where Mecca is all the time. Hell if someone told me to go north at a cross-street, there's exactly a 75% chance i'd end up going the wrong way for christs sakes.

 

[pattylou]

Im sorry that you are so impressionable pattylou but you might want to go ask the ACLU as to who has a problem with Christmas since... yah ... they tend to sue a LOT of people over it. Maybe if you stopped listening to journalistic dropouts on their blogs, you would be more open minded and see the crap christians have to deal with instead of selectively picking out bits and pieces here and there to believe.

??

What journalistic dropouts? I linked you to a message board site where numerous atheists have shared their personal experience (which is, that they don't really care whether you talk about Christmas or not.). I'm agnostic, but their experience lines up with my own. I don't know anyone that gets hung up on the words, and I wish Merry Christmas to people. Always have, always will, unless I know they're Jewish or Muslim.

The only "War on Christmas" I have seen is an unsubstantiated claim made by the religious right. I'm happy to be corrected on that, but I don't plan to go fishing around ACLU when you obviously have the links at your fingertips.

Thanks in advance for providing them...

 

[mattmns]

EDIT : Why is it that when I edit my posts (I'm using Opera), the paragraph spacings disappear ?

It is a problem with Physics Forums, not your browser. We all get that same behavior.

 

[Pengwuino]

http://www.reclaimamerica.org/PAGES/NEWS/newspage.asp?story=2227

http://www.reclaimamerica.org/PAGES/NEWS/newspage.asp?story=1498

etc etc.

holy crap the forum is going screwball. I just saw like, 2 pages merged in some weird funky way.

 

[Curious3141]

Whats a xian? I'm assuming a christian...

I don't see how they know where Mecca is all the time. Hell if someone told me to go north at a cross-street, there's exactly a 75% chance i'd end up going the wrong way for christs sakes.

Maybe you should ask a Muslim this, at any rate, it can be done with an advanced little device called a compass.

Facetious remarks aside, there really are advanced GPS based locators for Muslims that can point you accurately to Mecca.

 

[Pengwuino]

Yah i figure that's something you would need... but I've really never seen ANYONE, muslim or not, with a campus on them outside of like some 4th grade science class.

 

[scott1]

refer to Christmas trees as “magical trees"

The school will get yelled at that since some people believe that calling things
"magical" is evil
The school should call them intellgent design tree's instead

 

[rachmaninoff]

I think it's disgusting that people are making a joke out of freedom of religion. Comparing "happy holidays" to an attack on religion is an insult to all those who don't have these freedoms, to those who know what religious persecution really means.

 

[Pengwuino]

I think it's disgusting that people are making a joke out of freedom of religion. Comparing "happy holidays" to an attack on religion is an insult to all those who don't have these freedoms, to those who know what religious persecution really means.

Don't by hypocritical, I've seen you back complaints about practically trivial aspects on "privacy issues" in PWA without a second notice as to what happens in countries where privacy literally isn't an issue (and no, it's not because they have a lot of it).

 

[rachmaninoff]

Avoiding the subject?

 

[Pengwuino]

Avoiding the subject?

I guess you can say that is what you are doing. Unless saying this whole thread is useless because someone else has it worse is some sort of argument as to the constitutionality of the actions in these articles...

 

[Entropy]

Christmas should not have anything to do with schools. If you want to celebrate it, fine, celebrate it at home. And it is not a Christian holiday, considering it as such is an insult to Christianity, but even as such it is still a religious holiday and has no place in schools.

 

[Wishbone]

In elementary school, our music teacher made us sing Christmas carols for a school concert. I'm not Christian. Why should I have been forced to sing the praises of Jesus? I didn't complain because I didn't know anything about Christianity, and that's why it didn't bother me. I know my parents were a bit disgruntled to know that I didn't learn anything new in school that day because the school decided to take the day to celebrate Christmas.

Now, I used the word "endorse," which is a relatively weak word. Considering one of the definitions of "endorse" is "To give approval of or support to, especially by public statement" (dictionary.com), I think that qualifies.

And thank you for the kind riposte.

Wrong, because you aren't giving approval to anything. If you want to sit out of the gingle, sit out and read a book. What this is about is people feeling bad they aren't part of the holiday's so they want to make the other 99% miserable also. No one is endorsing or supporting any religious ideas by singing noel.

Also, its important to note that singing a jingle doesn't mean you support it, nor listening to it doesn't mean you support it. Singing songs about a national holiday, and another popular holiday around the same time, doesn't mean you endorse them. A lot of radio personalities read commercials, their reading them doesn't necissarily give them the endorsement. I'm sorry if you feel left out, but really that is your choice, but just because you are hurting yourself, and making yourself bothered doesn't mean you should ruin it for other people.

 

[Wishbone]

Exactly. The only reason why there is a surge in this "get Christmas out of our government" movement is that it's in response to Christians realizing that Christmas has lost touch with their religion and trying to convert it back from a secularized celebration (which, in my opinion, is a noble task). But then you can't have it both ways. Either Christmas is fully a religious holiday or you have the secular and religious dichotomy.

I would like to see some data about this, because especially overseas, and I think here also, it is definetley celebrated as a religious holiday more than anything else. I would even say that the good cheer, politeness, happiness, etc. is a celebration of Christianity in itself. No matter what you believe.Also, on the question of whether there is a "war on Christmas" is really a semantic argument. Its kind of a trivial debate. We all know there are "battles" like this one going on, some may say that these battles, collected together make a war. However, once one recognizes that there are such battles going on, that's what's important.

 

[Jelfish]

Wrong, because you aren't giving approval to anything. If you want to sit out of the gingle, sit out and read a book.

So when a school takes the day off to celebrate what you say is a mostly religious holiday, it is not endorsing the religion? I didn't have the choice to attend class instead of celebrate that day. If I were to sit out and read a book, that would defeat the purpose of going to school.

What this is about is people feeling bad they aren't part of the holiday's so they want to make the other 99% miserable also. No one is endorsing or supporting any religious ideas by singing noel.

I'll be honest - it's hard to take you seriously when you're being condescending. I enjoyed the school Christmas carolling and whatnot that day but not because it had anything to do with Christianity. You're dodging the point completely and if it's a matter of "what's all the fuss?" then you're admitting that the "Christmas" celebrated in schools is nothing but a secular celebration with vague unmentioned and unexplained religious roots. Otherwise, it would be clear that it shouldn't happen in schools.

 

[Jelfish]

I would like to see some data about this, because especially overseas, and I think here also, it is definetley celebrated as a religious holiday more than anything else. I would even say that the good cheer, politeness, happiness, etc. is a celebration of Christianity in itself. No matter what you believe.Also, on the question of whether there is a "war on Christmas" is really a semantic argument. Its kind of a trivial debate. We all know there are "battles" like this one going on, some may say that these battles, collected together make a war. However, once one recognizes that there are such battles going on, that's what's important.

Here is an excerpt of an anecdotal account (from a Christian perspective) of what Christmas is like in Japan:

At the end of November merchandising heralds the onset (onslaught?) of the season. Santa's show up in some advertising and Christmas carols can be heard in stores. (In English!) Also advertisements appear for special Christmas eve and Christmas day hotel & restaurant dinners and shows, generally with a strong romance theme. More and more Christmas lights are going up each year (probably a thousand per cent increase in the seven years we've been here) on stores and at malls, though I've seen few if any on private homes.

Christmas trees (artificial --- there is no live Christmas tree market) however, have begun to appear in the occasional home, and can be bought in big department stores. Santa does not yet appear in person, only as an advertising foil. And the airwaves are not clogged with TV specials.

There are two special Japanese Christmas customs:

First, the Daiku, or Great Nine, which refers to Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. This is traditionally performed in many places at Christmas time (though probably as much in conjuction with the New Year), sometimes with huge massed choruses for the famous part with what American Christians sing as a hymn --- Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee.

The second custom is the Christmas Cake. Yes, friends, what Christmas would be complete without its Christmas Cake? How have you survived without one so long? Well, it's a blessing to the Japanese bakery industry, that's for sure, because this is not a home project. One buys it. And the Japanese are generally slack jawed when told that America knows no Christmas Cake and it's a Japanese custom.

Christmas is basically overshadowed by New Year's celebrations, sort of the opposite of America. In Japan Christmas is a subsidiary holiday, most treasured by merchants, I think. Christmas day, for example is not a holiday from work. Hence, most churches will have their special Christmas worship services on the nearest Sunday before the 25th and perhaps on Christmas eve.

Most Japanese naturally have a weak understanding of Christmas's religious roots and customs. I remember one Japanese pastor being asked if it's Santa's birthday. Christianity is respected in Japan but hardly known at all, which is not too surprising with less than 1% being Christian. However, many Japanese are interested in American Christmas customs and some Japanese churches take advantage of this to meet new Japanese and introduce them to Christmas, Jesus, and their church. For example, I work with a small (averaging 30 people on a Sunday morning) church in Misato, that has a special Candle Service, two kids meetings, three American Christmas programs, lots of special Christmas decorations and a gift pack handout for all guests during December. Through this they draw an extra 300-400 people to church.

http://www.cvc.org/christmas/japan.htm

According to wikipedia, about 1.7 million of the 127.4 million people of Japan are Christian (according to Wikipedia)That's just one example, of course and I realize that in some parts of Europe, it's much different. However, this complete secularization of Christmas isn't some sort of myth.

 

[Wishbone]

Here is an excerpt of an anecdotal account (from a Christian perspective) of what Christmas is like in Japan:http://www.cvc.org/christmas/japan.htm

According to wikipedia, about 1.7 million of the 127.4 million people of Japan are Christian (according to Wikipedia)That's just one example, of course and I realize that in some parts of Europe, it's much different. However, this complete secularization of Christmas isn't some sort of myth.

Right so you just proved that the non-Christians don't celebrate the Christian faith...good job...good work... And yes complete secularization of Christmas is a myth, it is not completely secular. I don't think that is even majorly secular. And let me reitorate, the good cheer and happiness, and w/e is a celebration of Christianity in its own way.

 

[Hurkyl]

Right so you just proved that the non-Christians don't celebrate the Christian faith...good job...good work...

And yet, they celebrate Christmas. When you put these two observations together, you conclude that celebrating Christmas doesn't imply celebration of Christianity, right?

 

[Wishbone]

And yet, they celebrate Christmas. When you put these two observations together, you conclude that celebrating Christmas doesn't imply celebration of Christianity, right?

Did someone say it has to?

 

[Jelfish]

Right so you just proved that the non-Christians don't celebrate the Christian faith...good job...good work... And yes complete secularization of Christmas is a myth, it is not completely secular. I don't think that is even majorly secular. And let me reitorate, the good cheer and happiness, and w/e is a celebration of Christianity in its own way.

I'm so sorry that you don't approve of my "proof."

If you're attempting to convince me of anything, you should know that your authoritative-like statements aren't working. If they're just your opinion, then fine. You're entitled to it and I disagree. The end.

 

[Wishbone]

I'm so sorry that you don't approve of my "proof."
If you're attempting to convince me of anything, you should know that your authoritative-like statements aren't working. If they're just your opinion, then fine. You're entitled to it and I disagree. The end.

haha well if you read them as athoritative, well that might be your first problem. But well, if you disagree and you think that's what Christmas is, well, have fun with that btw: I am not sure what that "proof" is supposed to "prove", but if its to "prove" that Christmas is completley commercial or whatever, then you need to go to "school".

 

[Jelfish]

haha well if you read them as athoritative, well that might be your first problem. But well, if you disagree and you think that's what Christmas is, well, have fun with that btw: I am not sure what that "proof" is supposed to "prove", but if its to "prove" that Christmas is completley commercial or whatever, then you need to go to "school".

They are authoratative-like because you give no explanation to those statements. You don't even attempt to put any substance in your arguments. Or were you expecting me to go in search of evidence to prove you wrong so you can retort with another cool one-liner? Sorry, I'm not interested in your wild goose chase.

I know my earlier post isn't proof. That's why that word was in quotes. It was alluding your implication.

Anyway, I'm done taking your bait. Merry Christmas.

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

You know... wouldn't the greatest extent that the government could go to in regards to "endorsing" a particular religion or religeous holiday be to legally recognize the holiday as a national holiday? Outside ofcourse of making people observe the holiday which they practically do since probably a good sixty or more percent of businesses are all closed today and since it falls on a sunday it's almost manditory that several things will be closed on monday and/or were closed on Friday.
Not many people really complain about that though do they? Maybe because it means they get things like a day off, holiday pay, ect..
They definitely like to complain if the government does anything to support such a holiday that in no way benefits them or displeases their taste in decor.

 

[Dmstifik8ion]

There is an important consideration to be made in supporting the freedom of religion in both its beliefs and practices. As in all varieties of freedom, freedom of religion implies certain responsibilities. For any derived benefit comes a price; "freedom isn't free".

We all suffer or benefit personally from our beliefs depending on their validity, especially when we apply them to the practice of living. This personal responsibility is one thing and the effects that practicing our beliefs has on others is quite another. Believing that our actions are sanctified by ‘God’ does not relieve us of this responsibility.

We must all learn to respect the beliefs of others because right or wrong they are for each of us a foundation upon which we as individuals discover the truth.

I wish everyone a healthy, prosperous and

Happy New Year! ​

 

[Dooga Blackrazor]

Freedom of religion is a farce. Religion is a philosophy, and, if there is freedom of religion, there should be freedom of philosophy. I should be free to believe whatever illogical nonsense I want. Why can't I be protected from the draft for being a non-religious pacifist? Freedom of religion is simply a necessary defense against religion until it is abolished. Freedom of religion was designed to allow people to practice beliefs that have no negative affect on society. Most religions are hierarchical and illogical and, as a result, corrupt society. The decision was only practical. Removing religious influence from any aspect of life should always be embraced.

You can, however, celebrate a non-religious Christmas. This involves the traditions of opening gifts without the celebration of the one embraced suicide by the church.

 

[BobG]

Removing religious influence from any aspect of life should always be embraced.
You can, however, celebrate a non-religious Christmas. This involves the traditions of opening gifts without the celebration of the one embraced suicide by the church.

That will probably take a little patience.

Currently, 59% of Americans feel Christianity is under attack (Fox News poll), 83% feel nativity scenes should be allowed on public property, 93% feel the phrase "In God We Trust" should remain on the currency, and 90% feel the phrase "under God" should remain in the Pledge of Allegiance.

It's not just Fox News, either. In Gallup Polls, 76% favor a constitutional amendment to allow voluntary prayer in school (even though 69% feel a moment of silence for personal prayer is the better option) and 75% feel the Ten Commandments should be allowed to be displayed on government property.

Protecting the rights of minorities is important, but doing so by suppressing the rights of an overwhelming majority has some unfavorable consequences, as well.

That leads to some unhealthy trends in politics (George Bush, for instance). 39% of Americans feel the religious right has too much influence in the Bush administration and the Republican Party while only 18% feel they have too little influence. The influence of the religious right is a hard thing to fight when 83% of Americans are Christians and nearly 3/4 of them think their religion is under attack.