DescentBB

found this rather tickling although i don't necessarily agree with the Thanksgiving reference

THE LAW IS THE LAW

So if the US government determines that it is against the law for
the words "under God" to be on our money, then, so be it.

And if that same government decides that the "Ten Commandments" are
not to be used in or on a government installation, then, so be it.

And since they already have prohibited any prayer in the schools, on
which they deem their authority, then so be it.

I say, "so be it," because I would like to be a law abiding US
citizen.

I say, "so be it," because I would like to think that smarter people
than I are in positions to make good decisions.

I would like to think that those people have the American Publics'
best interests at heart.

BUT, YOU KNOW WHAT ELSE I'D LIKE?

Since we can't pray to God, can't Trust in God and cannot Post His
Commandments in Government buildings, I don't believe the Government
and it's employees should participate in the Easter and Christmas
celebrations which honor the God that our government is eliminating
from many facets
of American life.

I'd like my mail delivered on Christmas, Good Friday, Thanksgiving &
Easter.
After all, it's just another day.

I'd like the US Supreme Court to be in session on Christmas, Good
Friday, Thanksgiving & Easter as well as Sundays. After all, it's
just another day.

I'd like the Senate and the House of Representatives o not have to
worry about getting home for the "Christmas Break." After all ~ it's
just another day.

I'm thinking that a lot of my taxpayer dollars could be saved, if
all government offices & services would work on Christmas, Good
Friday & Easter.

It shouldn't cost any overtime since those would be just like any
other day of the week to a government that is trying to be
"politically correct".

In fact....
I think that our government should work on Sundays (initially set
aside for worshipping God...) because,
after all, our government says that it should be just another
day....

What do you all think????

If this idea gets to enough people, maybe our elected officials will
stop giving in to the minority opinions and begin, once again, to
represent the 'majority' of ALL of the American people.

SO BE IT...........

Please Dear Lord,

Give us the help needed to keep you in our country!

'Amen' and 'Amen'

whuppinboy wrote:What do you all think????

I feel stupider after reading that.

It probably would have been more funnier if it wasn't wroten by a Jesus lover.

Jesus lover or not, it shows the hypocrisy within our system.

★■◆● ★■◆● ★■◆●....


Actually my workplace is moving twards "politically correct holidays" IE... they give you less days, but you can pick when to take them.

Gotta love it

My mom sent me that email a few days ago.

I deleted it about halfway through reading it.

I concur on all his points he'd like.

Fusion pimp wrote:Jesus lover or not, it shows the hypocrisy within our system.

Yes, because allowing people to recognize religious events but not promoting it officially is hypocritical.

OMG - you aren't under the impression that Christmas and Easter are religious holidays are you?

Wake up and smell the coffee man! Xmas and Easter have NOTHING to do with religion. These are COMMERCIAL FESTIVALS! They just happen to fall on days which USED TO BE CELEBRATED by religious people.

They are solely designed to make you SPEND MONEY, BUY CHOCOLATE and DRINK TOO MUCH BOOZE.

There - nothing hypcritical about that, now you've been enlightened.

Shut your foreign trash hole Mobius.

Mobius wrote:OMG - you aren't under the impression that Christmas and Easter are religious holidays are you?

Wake up and smell the coffee man! Xmas and Easter have NOTHING to do with religion. These are COMMERCIAL FESTIVALS! They just happen to fall on days which USED TO BE CELEBRATED by religious people.

Uhhhh, nothing? where'd you grow up?
Christmas is the day Christians celebrate Jesus' birth and Easter is the day we celebrate hes ressurection, I'd say, yea, they have some religious significance.

No Hostile - you go and get a big black dog up you.

If you can't appreciate the humour and the truth of what my post says, then you got a problem.

Yeah - Christmas aint commercial. Yeah Right.

And Easter, yeah - all that chocolate celebreates Jesus.

LMFAO.

Yes, because allowing people to recognize religious events but not promoting it officially is hypocritical.

Gay. I'm going to assume you're taking a stab at being funny, Tetrad.

If you can't appreciate the humour and the truth of what my post says, then you got a problem.

Actually, what you're saying is "if you don't agree with me, you have a problem."

I do agree that both have been commercialized. There are some that celebrate the intended meaning of both holidays, Mobius. Furthermore, I don't think they'd appreciate you suggesting that everyone who celebrates does so with(only) gifts and candy.

But hey, thanks for enlightening me.

Hostile wrote:Shut your foreign trash hole Mobius.

Wow...

honestly, mobi and I don't see eye to eye most of the time. But to tell someone to stop expressing themselves..

You have a fever today Fritz?

I mean, why just foreigners? Why not niggers, spicks, Jews, chinks and the rest? If you're going to target one, you may as well be consistent, Fritz.

Oh wait... You're from German blood, so that makes you foreign too, right?

Yea, you shut your hole too then....





no intentional disrespect was meant in this post to any minority group. It was to press forward with the point of sectioning out a particular group as hostile did in his post. I too am from minority blood and apologize if I offended any innocent parties

That 'humourous rant' is hardly funny, because it's so pointed. It's hardly a good rant, either, because the point is so dull. It almost seems stupid to explain. There is no hypocracy in continuing traditions with religious roots, while removing explicit recognition of religion. All that's needed is for those traditions to serve other purposes.

For those of us who are Christians, Christmas is about Jesus' birth. For others, it's a secular festival about Santa and the giving of gifts. It's not like the Christians started it, anyway--they themselves were co-opting a Pagan festival. It cannot be fairly said that for this culture, as a whole, the holiday is a religious one.

Easter likewise can be about Jesus' resurrection, or it can be a secular holiday where we look for eggs--for no real reason. How many holidays are there with religious roots that we celebrate simply in the name of fun and games? Do we think of Halloween as the Celtic festival for Samhein, Lord of the Dead--or even of the holiday the Catholics co-opted it to become, All Hallow's Even--for honoring the dead? Mardi Gras comes from the Catholics too, the Carnival before Lent--but those of us who aren't Catholics don't really think of it that way. Even something so recent and American as Thanksgiving means more "Turkey and pie" to us than "Thanks to God for the harvest."

I find in that an interesting commentary on our culture, really. Our holidays literally mean nothing to us as a culture. We get romantic on Valentine's day, exchange gifts at Christmas, and dress up for Halloween because... well, for no reason. It's fun. It's tradition. It's what you do.

Holidays change meaning, cultures merge and adopt each others' symbols. It doesn't matter how a holiday started, or what it originally meant. It matters what it means to us, these days, in this culture. And it is my firm conviction that with the possible exception of national holidays like the fourth of July or Martin Luther King Day, our holidays are celebrations in commemoration of nothing, just excuses to party. Which is fine. We like to party.

But is it hypocracy when a secular culture celebrates Christmas and still has a weekend? Nah. They serve their own secular purposes. Saturday may mean rest to a Jew, and Sunday may mean worship to a Christian, but to everybody else it's just "weekend." Wahoo, no work. In a secular culture we may not have a God-given reason for the weekend, but we like our weekends just the same. And we're perfectly within our rights to celebrate them!

Sure, I may not like the harsh secularizing of the culture very much--I think we are getting away from our roots and dampening religious liberty. But that's a topic for another day. Even given that, this whole charge of hypocracy is just silly. Unless people are doing something so senseless as trying to do away with anything and everything that ever had historical religious roots (and you'd be surprised how many things are grounded in ancient religions) the claim makes no sense.

Stop talking nonsense!

the poster has a point, sorta. Gimmie my damned Xmas day mail!

This is a NHB kind of topic.

Lobber wrote:This is a NHB kind of topic.

I'd say E&C, for those of us who don't have access to aforementioned forum.

And amen to that post, whuppinboy . There are those of us who know the TRUE meaning of Christmas/Easter. Mobius, watch some Charlie Brown, if you don't think it will kill you .

Fusion pimp wrote:Gay. I'm going to assume you're taking a stab at being funny, Tetrad.

No, actually, I wasn't. Sarcastic as hell, and too lazy to explain myself as long winded as Drakona... yes.

Top Gun wrote:

Lobber wrote:This is a NHB kind of topic.

I'd say E&C, for those of us who don't have access to aforementioned forum.

Hey, theres an announcement right at the top of this forum with how to get in. Not that 99% of this board doesn't already have access anyways...

That being said, excellent post Drakona. I like how that 'article' infers that just because a few don't celebrate religious holidays, that none of them do. Just because we don't have an official religion doesn't mean that government workers can't celebrate them. Furthermore, every organization is free to choose their own hours of operation. That includes the government, which is effectively a very large business. The sheer stupidity of that article is flat out mind numbing.

Mobius wrote:Wake up and smell the coffee man! Xmas and Easter have NOTHING to do with religion. These are COMMERCIAL FESTIVALS! They just happen to fall on days which USED TO BE CELEBRATED by religious people.

They are solely designed to make you SPEND MONEY, BUY CHOCOLATE and DRINK TOO MUCH BOOZE.

For me to appreciate humour, something would have to be actually funny. There is nothing funny in your statement. It was incorrect on every level and made us all dumber for having read it. Maybe it's different in Middle Earth where you live, but Christians, and a lot of them, do celebrate the birth and resurrection of Christ with no reference to Clause and his minions. Sadly enough, these holidays sometimes represent the only times during the year that some Christians actually make it to their place of worship for whatever reason. Is there exhausting capitalistic exploitation of these holidays by the secular population? Yes. But what you said was (imo) insulting, inaccurate, and out of context.

As for you Bill, I have no idea what point you are trying to make, but I'll put my comment into context so everyone will understand my reference. Mobius is from New Down Zealand Under Australia or some sh*t which makes him a foreigner (to the U.S.). I was born and raised here in the U.S., which makes me not a foreigner (to the U.S.), regardless of my heritage. I didn't tell him to stop expressing himself in general. He made a comment and I told him to shut his trash hole (and he is a foreigner to the United States of America so I modified that too) because I thought that the comment he made was way off base. I fail to see how that tells him to just shut down and never express his opinion again about anything ever in the universe. Maybe I exaggerated and was indirect, but my point was I didn't agree in case you didn't understand.

The last time I checked, calling someone a foreigner who is foreign to the country I live in was not a racist comment. I think you are digging to provoke an adverse response and you will not get one. You don't care for me for whatever reason and that is cool with me. I will refrain from speaking to you again. So if I don't respond to you directly in the future, know that it is with purpose. I only responded to your recent comment because I felt context was needed.

Good day.

Oh and Mobius .I..

P.S. What does it mean to get a big black dog up me? Do you mean a black lab? Heh.

Drakona wrote:Holidays change meaning, cultures merge and adopt each others' symbols.

yes, and one symbol has won the culture race.

all bow and pray to the holy symbol:

$

it shall be your salvation.

Or sometimes

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Many-a-time I've taken the stance of anti-religion. I have a strange belief. I believe in God, but not religion. Religion no longer worships God, it worships itself. They collect money every Sunday to do what? More gold for the outside of the church, a bigger church. whee Now tell me how that helps everyone worship God. That's what pisses me off and why I'm so anti-Christian. So you want to start a worship group. That's great! Say "God is great" not "COME TO WORSHIP! WE HAVE PIZZA! ALL THE COOL KIDS ARE DOING IT!"

But this is just as bad, the opposite way. How can having "In God We Trust" on our bills offend you so much, no matter what religion you are? If I went to Saudi Arabia and their money had "Praise Allah" on it, who cares? AIEEE people just need to leave things alone. The world works! Stop trying to fix something that's not broken.

Yeah, no doubt. After I became a serious Christian, I spent 3 years without being attached to a "real church," preferring a Bible study with my husband for teaching, and a group of friends online for prayer and worship. I lacked discipleship and community, though.

Funny, really. I've been attending the church I'm at now for three years, and it -still- isn't really church-like enough for me. And it's part of an alliance of churches trying to reform -other- churches to think more about God and less about tradition! Which is to say, I doubt I'll do better, and it's still short. (Oh, don't give me that look--I already know that means it's my job to change things.)

I definitely know what you mean about the "Come to worship! We have pizza!" mentality. It's a cycle of low expectations, if you ask me. Churches don't expect much, spiritually speaking, from their members. I remember having a discussion with one of the leaders of my church about service, and my take was, "You need to tell people when the church has a need, they'll step up to fill it." And his was, "No, they won't. They don't. They don't care enough or they'd ask." And my thought was, "Of course they care! What are they Christians for if they don't want to serve? What exactly did they think this gig was about?" But I guess, about most people, he's right. But then, in response, the members don't expect much, spiritually speaking, from their churches. Warm fuzzies from worship, a bit of guilt tripping from preaching. None of the terrifyingly invasive life-changing stuff that's supposed to be happening. Confession before the body? Accountability to each other? Encouragement and spurring each other to spiritual maturity? Spiritual intimacy--following hard after God? Shockingly unworldly teaching? Intimate, passionate, corporate prayer? Generous, free giving to anyone in need? Exhortation to righteous living with brotherly self-restraint in the midst of utter Christian liberty? Nobody expects that sort of thing at a church. And church doesn't do it because nobody expects it--that would scare people. (Ah, I'm so cynical--some churches are better than others in some of those respects. The one I attend is actually quite good. But churches as a whole paint a sad picture...)

Heh. Ah well. The failure of man to realize the dreams of God has been a theme in every age of history. So what else is new? I had rather hoped the church age would be different, what with the whole regeneration thing, but... man is man, I guess. Maybe we'll get better.

The whole "Christian culture" thing in the US does make me laugh bitterly sometimes. On the one hand, it's true and fair--the western world *did* grow out of the medieval Christian empire, and even thereafter its thoughts were and are dominated by Christian influences--even the people that aren't themselves Christians rarely get away from the culture's influence. You can't deny that, and I think trying to is unhealthy. But on the other hand, like when Christianity first became a state-sponsored thing under Constantine, it completely waters down the idea. All of a sudden, church becomes a safe, traditional, conservative thing--rather than a dangerous, radical, counter-cultural force.

Ah well. It does no harm to the church, really, for the nation and culture to try to rid itself of its Christian roots. I think it would do a lot of good for the church, actually. It might do a lot of harm to the nation, though--that's more what I worry about. Until we can find another common metaphysical footing, everything will seem injust and inconsistent. And I worry because you've got to get your metaphysics from somewhere, anyhow, and I really do think the Christians have things right.

Ah well. Cultural forces are so interesting to observe. I wish I had a time machine so I could skip ahead 200 years and see how this leg of history works out. I both hate and love living in history.

LMFAO!!

knew i should have posted this in E&C cuz i figured no one could just enjoy a bit of funny hypocrisy and leave it at that.

lighten up already, heh.

Actually, it would've been picked apart even more if you had.

Heh. Not all jokes are equal. Some are just jokes, some are jokes with subtle points, some are serious points with a twist of humor, and some are seriousness thinly disguised as humor. (The latter can be distinguised by the lack of laughter they provoke.) It is not stupidity to respond seriously to the serious half of a rant-joke hybrid. It doesn't mean you missed the joke, it means you got the point. This is true, even in the Cafe.