Are Atheists Hypocritical in Celebrating Christmas? (page 2)

PioneerSchmioneer

People used to give to the poor on the Feast on St Stephen, the 26th of December.

This became commercialized in the US to the "getting gifts" from "Santa," especially after both the Macy corporation made its Thanksgiving parade in the early 20th century a regular part of Americana via radio, and around the same time Coca-Cola and the Saturday Evening Post published similar depictions of "Santa Claus" that became the America standard in many advertising minds.

None of this originated with Christianity or even Rome. Americans, unfortunately, tend to believe that if they celebrate Christmas "like this, then everbody else does too." Watchtower, being an American religion, merely ran with this shortsightedness and taught its followers that "Babylon the Great" celebrates Christmas this way too.

In the end, the point is that there is nothing wrong with an atheist who celebrates a "Victorian Christmas" because he or she is not going to a church to worship. The customs don't come from the liturgy (meaning the church). They come from non-church or secular sources.

peacefulpete

Pioneer....I also very much enjoy Gregorian chants. There is nothing hypocritical about appreciating the beauty of trained voices. I also enjoyed our recent time at the Louvre. The art of Christians (or Egyptians, Buddhists, Muslims etc.) is still art. Humanists have a much easier time with this than Fundamentalists (of any brand). Believers far too often take what is beautiful and declare it ugly.

It's not hard to see why the Romans thought of Christians as "haters of humankind".

Ron.W.

Anyone read/remember this book?

PioneerSchmioneer

I remember a funny incident when I was a JW and visiting a JW friend back in the late 1980s. He became upset because his younger brother started watching a holiday special when it came on television.

The exchange went like this:

FRIEND: Dad, Tommy is watching Frosty the Snowman on television!

DAD: Tommy, you know we don't watch those kind of programs.

TOMMY: C'mon, Dad! It's not like because I watch this program I gonna run out and build a snowman or something!

stan livedeath

i'm atheist--and cant be bothered with christmas. But my wife loves it--tree decs on in november--loads of prezz for everyone. But then she is Roman Catholic filipina--so what do you expect ?

By the way--Seabreeze --are you in the UK ?

Leathercrop

For Stephen Hawkins to celebrate anything remotely associated with religion, which Christmas most certainly is, makes him a hypocrite lol.

TonusOH

Stephen Hawking hasn't had an opportunity to celebrate Christmas for five or six years, now.

Sea Breeze

By the way--Seabreeze --are you in the UK ?

No, but I geeked out for hours and hours at the British Museum recently. Amazing country with an amazing history. I am from the country of Texas. Dad is Scots / Irish descent from the borderlands area. Ancestors sometimes were on the side of England, sometimes Scotland - depending on which way the winds were blowing from what I understand. Mom is Sicilian.

BTTT - So, here's a question: If it is not hypocritical to celebrate God's birthday while saying to yourself that he doesn't exist, what is an example of hypocrisy that an atheist could engage in, if any?

If a person honestly looks at the claims that Jesus made, there are only three conclusions that a person can logically come to. He was the world's greatest Liar, Lunatic, or Lord. But a good man is not one of the options that Jesus left us with.

PioneerSchmioneer

Christmas is not actually the "birthday" of God or Jesus Christ. That is not what the feast or solemnity is on the calendar of the church or Christianity.

As Heidi Russell, Loyola University professor explained in teaching litrugical theology:

Christmas is the feast of the incarnation. In Christmas we do celebrate the nativity or birth of Christ, but what we are celebrating is not simply Jesus’ “birthday,” the way we celebrate our own birthdays. We are celebrating the mystery of Emmanuel, God-with-us, God revealed in time and space....St. Athanasius, one of the great fathers and theologians of the Church, tells us: "The Son of God became human so that we might become God." Obviously we do not become God in the way that God is God, but we become God-like, we are divinized...We partake in the divine nature. St. Irenaeus puts it another way: "For this is why the Word became man, and the Son of God became the Son of man: so that man, by entering into communion with the Word and thus receiving divine sonship, might become a son of God."

It is centered around the theology of Isaiah 7:14, Matthew 1:23 and 2 Peter 1:4 where the texts tell us that God comes to be with us and we become partakers of the divine nature.

The early church did not teach the Jesus was born on this date necessarily. And it is not celebrated as a 24-hour day (except perhaps by Fundamentalists). Even by Protestants the date is observed as Roman Catholics and Greek Orthodox Christians do, for 8 days, beginning at sundown on the 24th of December until sundown on January 1st.

A birthday does not last 8 days. An octave is a liturgical observance based on Jewish festivals which included a week surrounded by two Sabbaths, one on each end, like Passover which begins with a Sabbath, has six days in between, and then ends with another Sabbath.

In Christianity, birthdays are not celebrated. Instead martyrs and saints are given memorials, usually on the day of their death or burial because that is considered the day they enter their eternal reward in Heaven. There are no birthdays on the Christian calendar, including for Jesus of Nazareth.

Interestingly, his death is celebrated. It is called "Good Friday."

Christianity uses the Divine Office (the Liturgy of the Hours) or the Book of Common Prayer to count the days of the year, placing holy days like Easter and Christmas, etc. in their place, including many memorials of saints. For Christmas the first day is considered a Christian Sabbath, which requires that all Christians attend Church services, and the 8th day, January 1st is also a holy day of obligation, another Christian Sabbath, regardless of what day of the week either day these land on.

I would say it is no more hypocritical for an atheist to play with cultural holiday traditions anymore than it is for people who claim to be Christian to not know how the Nativity of the Lord is actually observed--and that it is not really a "birthday."

Are Atheists Hypocritical in Celebrating Christmas?

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