What is the Christian Conservatives Problem with the term 'Holiday Tree'?

Apparenly 64% of people in boston.

Political correctness can be offensive. Changing the name of something IS offensive. It is politically correct also.

Follow? You cant just make a nice big parallel that everything politically correct is offensive now though..ok?

 

The nice thing about the internet is that everything we say here is in writing. That means when someone misquotes you or takes what you say out of context it's obvious.

If you have to play these kinds of games in order to make your point seem valid you obviously don't have one.

I answered your question, you just refuse to see it. OK I'll try again and I'll be more succinct; yes, calling it a "christmas" tree is a demonstration of the preferential treatment christianity is afforded in this country.
(OK, now put your hand over this part of the computer screen and come back and accuse me of not answerring your question again).

Why don't you actually include a quote of what.
Nice to know you have to use selective editing to make me look stupid.
All I have to do is quote you.

Hey, if public outcry gets them to change their minds, fine.

So is everything else you've said. How are we supposed to know?

I don't hate religion, just ignorance.

Where are these symbols you're talking about being displayed?

That's exactly the point everybody's trying to get across to you.

Who is "they". Obviously the "they" in charge decided to call it a holiday tree.

Are you public property?

No, in this case it's self explanitory.

 

But it ISN'T a "Christmas" tree.

It is a PAGAN symbol, which probably should be really be called a YULE tree or a SOLSTICE tree.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas

The Xtians stole the symbolism of other religions and co-opted it to serve their interests, and now want exclusive rights to it?

 

What are you talking about?

Everytime a post is edited it's stamped at the bottom with the date and time of editing.

The posts with the quotes and the one with the link were not edited....

 

I'm starting to think that this is the sum of Megara's whole argument.

 

The Funny thing is.. you just ignored so much.

Do Conservative christians = the church? Yes or No.

huh?

FInally some good stuff.

How does it show preferential treatment? Does calling a menorah a menorah show preferential treatment? Shoulnd't it be holiday candles? What about the islamic crescent? Shouldnt it be holiday moon?

you mean this? " Anyway nobodies "changing" the name. they're just changing it"

Wow, i got the person wrong. Kill me.

good

good to know

schools.

So public property cant be used in a way that might offend someone? Silly. There is no constitutional violation.

I assume "they" is the local government(mayor probably?)

Well...

 

"The modern custom, however, cannot be shown to be descended from pagan tradition directly. Its origins can be traced to 16th century Germany: Ingeborg Weber-Keller (Marburg professor of European ethnology) identified as the earliest reference a Bremen guild chronicle of 1570 which reports how a small fir was decorated with apples, nuts, dates, pretzels and paper flowers, and erected in the guild-house, for the benefit of the guild members' children, who collected the dainties on Christmas day. Another early reference is from Basel, where the taylor apprentices carried around town a tree decorated with apples and cheese in 1597. During the 17th century, the custom entered family homes. One Strasbourg priest, Johann Konrad Dannerhauer, complains about the custom as distracting from the word of God. By the early 18th century, the custom had become common in towns of the upper Rhineland, but it had not yet spread to rural areas. Wax candles are attested from the late 18th century. The Christmas tree remained confined to the upper Rhineland for a relatively long time. It was regarded as a Protestant custom by the Catholic majority along the lower Rhine, and was spread there only by Prussian officials who were moved there in the wake of the Congress of Vienna in 1815. In the early 19th century, the custom became popular among the nobility and spread to royal courts as far as Russia. Princess Henrietta von Nassau-Weilburg introduced the Christmas tree to Vienna in 1816, and the custom spread across Austria in the following years. In France, the first Christmas tree was introduced in 1840 by the duchess of Orleans."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_tree

do i need to go over the adoption/adaptation of religion/culture/language again? Cause it is really boring.

 

I don't hate religion but I'm starting to think that in alot of cases it may be a sign a mental illness.

Alot of fundementalists display the same charactor traits you'll find in drug addicts or alchohlics;

Circular reasoning.
Electively distorted perceptions.
A complete disregard for other peoples rights.
Basing their world veiw on what they think "should be" instead of accepting reality on it's own terms.
Expecting the rest of the world to conform to their needs.
Lieing,...

 

Close, but not quite.

You got to go back a little further:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yule

Connection to modern Christmas

Many of the symbols associated with the modern holiday of Christmas such as the burning of the Yule log, the eating of ham, the hanging of boughs, holly, mistletoe, etc. are apparently derived from traditional northern European Yule celebrations. When the first missionaries began converting the Germanic peoples to Christianity, they found it easier to simply provide a Christian reinterpretation for popular feasts such as Yule and allow the celebrations themselves to go on largely unchanged, rather than trying to suppress them. The Scandinavian tradition of slaughtering a pig at Christmas (see Christmas ham), and not in the autumn, is probably the most salient evidence for this. The tradition derives from the sacrifice to the god Freyr at the Yule celebrations. Halloween and Easter are theorized to have been likewise assimilated from northern European pagan festivals.

English historian Bede's Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum ("Ecclesiastic History of the English People") contains a letter from Pope Gregory I to Saint Mellitus, who was then on his way to England to conduct missionary work among the heathen Anglo-Saxons. The Pope suggests that converting heathens is easier if they are allowed to retain the outward forms of their traditional pagan practices and traditions, while recasting those traditions spiritually towards the one true God instead of to their pagan gods (whom the Pope refers to as "devils"), "to the end that, whilst some gratifications are outwardly permitted them, they may the more easily consent to the inward consolations of the grace of God". [1] The Pope sanctions such conversion tactics as Biblically acceptable, pointing out that God did much the same thing with the ancient Israelites and their pagan sacrifices.

Try 9th century not 16th....

Another link:
http://www.religioustolerance.org/xmas_tree.htm

 

Hardly, i dont care that there is a holiday tree as long as there is a christmas tree too.

The sum of my arguments is this: Religion is not to be shut out of public life. Should we not decorate cities with wreaths, trees, menorahs, and whatever else we want because someone believes that an inanimate object is forcing a religion on them? No, i dont want to live in a society where we have to keep our cities bare or dumb down everything into one giant cluster fuck/schmorgusborg(yeah i spelled it wrong) of a holiday that has no meaning. We should be proud of who we are and what religions we believe in and we should damn well be allowed to show that in our cities and towns without being called 'insane.' It is as simple as that.

I'm done.

 

AGAIN:

No one is being stopped from celebrating their holy-day.
It's not supposed to be celebrated on public (courthouse ect) grounds.
ITS THE SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE LAID OUT BY OUR FOUNDING FATHERS.

According to this summary of yours, you basically just feel uncomfortable without a xmas tree in the town square?

Get over it.

 

easy solution to the separation of church and state debate: Has ANY court in america ruled the USE of a christmas tree as UNCONSTITUTIONAL? Not that i can find..so please prove me wrong and show me that it is infact unconstitutional.


Usually it is the nativity that gets ruled unconstitutional and the christmas tree is the acceptable substitue because it has "secular" connotations.

i know the response i'll get to this: slavery used to be constitutional, that doesnt make it right(reallllllly constitutional)..so please, spare it.

 

Not yet.

 

Dude, you're just using the same games religious fanatics always use to get around reality;

Vague generalities without any examples--game.

Framing a question as if it's been asked before when actually it hasn't--game.

Playing stupid--game.

The difference between private and public display has been addressed repeatedly in this thread.

Selective perception--game.

Still misquoting me. We both know I said "They're not changing it they're changing it back".

misrepresentation--game.

No doubt right along with christian symbols, unless it's a private school in which case they have a right to display whatever they want.

Selective presentation of the facts---game.

Interpreting the constitution in whatever way's convienient for you and your cause--game.

(anyway this has also already been addressed).

so you're saying the mayor wanted to call it a "christmas tree" but the mayor wouldn't let him? (if you backtrack and read the last couple posts in this exchange you'll see that that's exactly what you just said).


Game game game.

See, that's the problem I have with the religious right and anybody with a similar ideology; With them it's never about what's fair or right or reasonable (or even scriptural), it's about getting what they want any way they can. period.

And they'll use whatever shady tactics they think will work.

Just like right now you're not interested in understanding where everybody else is coming from, or presenting your side in a reasonable manner, you just want to win the argument, thinking that if everybody else gets tired of trying to reason with you and gives up that means you've "won".

You think if you shut your eyes to everybody else's point in here that that somehow makes your point valid.

 

*Gives NayKidApe high five and passes pipe*



Glad i'm not the only one seeing it.

 

i honestly think it is you who is insane

Cutting off what i say BEFORE the example doesn't make it so. - Game

"please say something that makes sense. The story said it angered "christian conservatives." Now, unless you're going to argue that christian conservatives voting/voicing their opinions is somehow a violation of church and state, you're wrong.

oh, "Christmas has become too politically correct, said 64 percent of people who responded to an online poll by a CBS television affiliate in Boston."

Yeah, its JUST the church. Right."

i then asked this

"Do Conservative christians = the church? Yes or No"

You forgot to answer the question- Game.

Don't answer a question- game.

 

I know you are but what am I?:X:X

 

*hits pipe. repacks it and passes it back to Shane*

Yeah man. The thing that gets me is that I get the feeling christians know they're doing it, but if they do it (lie, dissemble, etc.) "in the name of the Lord" it's somehow OK.

there's something really creepy about that.

 

lol

 

Oh I see, you were just getting ready to huh?

You "forgot" I answered the question--game.

Don't acknowledge an answer--game

We'll all pray for a miracle.

Bet you didn't backtrack and see how you put your foot in your mouth. Bet everybody else did.

Speaking in tounges?

But we were just starting to have fun.