Two sisters sing Cohens Halleluyah

[GeorgeParker]

GP, picky picky picky. If one has an event on the same day to keep the public interest that might be diverted, it is an adoption per Merriam-Webster.

What exactly are you disagreeing with? I said Christians didn't adopt the pagan holidays, and they clearly didn't. Christians began holding Christian celebrations on the same dates as pagan holidays for pragmatic reasons. For Christians to adopt the pagan holidays they would have to celebrate those holidays in the same way the pagans did and for the same reasons. Clearly that didn't happen.

Re-read your own preferred definition:

"Adopt | Definition of Adopt by Merriam-Webster http://www.merriam-webster.com/dicti...ctionary/adopt adopt, embrace, espouse mean to take an opinion, policy, or practice as one's own. adopt implies accepting something created by another or foreign to one's nature."

Did the Christians "take an opinion, policy, or practice as one's own...accepting something created by another or foreign to one's nature."? Absolutely not! They rejected paganism and scheduled Christian Holy Days on the same dates as pagan holidays to compete against the pagan festivals and to make their own activities less visible.

TT said "I was just reading how Easter was originally a pagan holiday and then adopted by other religions." That statement is totally untrue. Various pagan beliefs and practices did bit by bit creep into other religions, especially among people who were forced to convert, but that's a far cry from claiming that Easter was created by pagans and adopted by other religions.

Easter, as a Christian religious observance, is based on the New Testament story that Jesus was crucified just before Passover and rose just after it. So if Christians "adopted" Easter at all, they adopted it from the Jews, which isn't really an adoption since most of the early Christians were Jews.

[iris lilies]

You could argue that Christian holidays have been "adopted" or "co-opted" by secularists. I remember looking for an Easter card and they had one very small section marked "religious"--I remember laughing and thinking--but Easter IS a religious holiday! Same with Christmas--Christmas IS a holiday founded in Christianity but there's barely a drop of its religious significance left.

You can make it as religious as you like.

Just as I can make it as secular as I like.

Freedom! These United States rock.

[GeorgeParker]

Christmas IS a holiday founded in Christianity but there's barely a drop of its religious significance left.

Christmas and New Years Eve both exist because of the Winter Solstice, as I explained in post #8.

And if you want to be historical about it, the New Testament story about the shepherds being out in the fields watching over their sheep at night means Jesus was born in a warm month, not in early Winter. (Not that I think there's any historical accuracy in any of those stories anyway.)

[catherine]

Christmas and New Years Eve both exist because of the Winter Solstice, as I explained in post #8.

And if you want to be historical about it, the New Testament story about the shepherds being out in the fields watching over their sheep at night means Jesus was born in a warm month, not in early Winter. (Not that I think there's any historical accuracy in any of those stories anyway.)

Oh, dear. I know that December 25 isn't really Jesus's birthday-that it is a symbolic date chosen probably for all the reasons you mention--it's a perfect time at winter solstice to bring some "light into the darkness" of the season. Another rationale for December 25 is stated in this interesting collection of facts/stories about the history of Christmas.

To IL's point my personal lens, having grown up in a religious household is that Christmas and Easter are religious holidays. To the secularist, they symbolize something different. I agree there is no point in arguing that. But if Christianity had not developed, there probably would not be a holiday called "Christmas" in the Western World in particular and it would not be a holy day celebrated by millions of Christians. It would be called something else--maybe it would still be called Saturnalia. Others can celebrate it as they wish. As IL said, it's a free country. But you would never say that Hanukkah has secular roots. Sometimes I think that the "Christmas is a pagan holiday" argument is used to diminish its religious significance.

[GeorgeParker]

Sometimes I think that the "Christmas is a pagan holiday" argument is used to diminish its religious significance.

The only place I've ever encountered the claim that Christmas and/or Easter is a pagan holiday is in propaganda spread by fundamentalist Christian cults/denominations that believe almost everything about modern Christianity is tainted by the Roman Pope, Satan, secularism, or some other "un-christian" power.

[Teacher Terry]

Children, children I can see that I have caused quite a little argument). I was raised Lutheran which is similar to catholic. My second husband was raised religious and quit believing after spending a year in Vietnam. When I started college at 31 he said you won’t believe anymore by the time you graduate and he was right. I forgot who said that religion is the opium of the masses but it’s true. There’s something extremely comforting about the rituals of religion. Also comforting is the belief that we will be reunited with our loved ones and live on forever. That’s why people cling to it and many never questioned it. The Bible is a collection of stories to help uneducated people have a set of rules to live by. I have actually read it years ago because I was interested in it.

Churches have become big business and have caused so much pain and death in this world. You don’t need to be religious to have good moral values and to help others. I went to a Lutheran college when I was 31 and had a minor in religion but it was taught as historical and not as fact. It was very fascinating. People of all faiths went there and were required to take 2 religion courses. We had Catholic nuns in some of the classes and that made it interesting. It was the best college for teachers which is why the nuns went there versus a public college.

Religion gives people something that they need and is a substance for comfort just like any other that people use to feel better. It’s only a problem when it causes harm. If religion and any memory of it could be wiped off the earth the world would be a better place.

[catherine]

Children, children I can see that I have caused quite a little argument). I was raised Lutheran which is similar to catholic. My second husband was raised religious and quit believing after spending a year in Vietnam. When I started college at 31 he said you won’t believe anymore by the time you graduate and he was right. I forgot who said that religion is the opium of the masses but it’s true. There’s something extremely comforting about the rituals of religion. Also comforting is the belief that we will be reunited with our loved ones and live on forever. That’s why people cling to it and many never questioned it. The Bible is a collection of stories to help uneducated people have a set of rules to live by. I have actually read it years ago because I was interested in it.

Churches have become big business and have caused so much pain and death in this world. You don’t need to be religious to have good moral values and to help others. I went to a Lutheran college when I was 31 and had a minor in religion but it was taught as historical and not as fact. It was very fascinating. People of all faiths went there and were required to take 2 religion courses. We had Catholic nuns in some of the classes and that made it interesting. It was the best college for teachers which is why the nuns went there versus a public college.

Religion gives people something that they need and is a substance for comfort just like any other that people use to feel better. It’s only a problem when it causes harm. If religion and any memory of it could be wiped off the earth the world would be a better place.

I think you are right about religion being a comfort for many/most people and that's as far as it goes. MLK said that too many churches are social clubs with a thin veneer of religiosity. But I would argue that the people who take their faith seriously and consider it more of a command for righteousness see the practice of religious faith as more of a challenge than a comfort.

One of my very favorite Christians is a Lutheran: Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Of the few books I kept after The Purge, The Cost of Discipleship is one of them. It's severely dog-eared and highlighted. Discipleship should not come easy if it's true discipleship. I applaud those who walk the walk and I am inspired by them. Just yesterday I spoke to a woman of faith. Her husband is a pastor. and the topic was a very serious rare genetic disorder. A child who has this disease presents huge challenges to the family on many levels. She and her husband applied to adopt a child from Ethiopia, and even after the orphanage gave her the option of rescinding her application after they told her it was likely he had this disease, she thought about the other family who rejected him and she wanted him anyway. He is 5 years old now, has had 6 back surgeries, wears a neck brace, has cognitive disorders and a host of other things.

I am technically a lapsed Catholic and I never go to church on Sundays. But I still feel the pull because of the Bonhoeffers and the Dorothy Days and the St. Francises and all the people who have decided to pick up their crosses and truly follow Christ. All the rest give religion a bad name.

[Teacher Terry]

Catherine, how wonderful of those people to still want to adopt that little boy.

[catherine]

Catherine, how wonderful of those people to still want to adopt that little boy.

I know!! I was so moved by that interview. And she had absolutely no self-pity or complaints. Talk about "saints among us."