we are celebrating xmas this year for the first time.
it's kinda weird because, even though we're doing a xmas tree, decorations, gifts, we're more or less taking the christ out of christmas.
so how about the rest of you non-christian heathens?.
Gotcha, TrueOne. I see what you're saying now, I was just making sure you knew your earlier comment...
Why is it that people who leave the JWS think they have to automatically celebrate anything,
...doesn't apply to all who leave and celebrate holidays.
we are celebrating xmas this year for the first time.
it's kinda weird because, even though we're doing a xmas tree, decorations, gifts, we're more or less taking the christ out of christmas.
so how about the rest of you non-christian heathens?.
Who says you have to celebrate Christmas or any other far flung festival of religious origin.
Yeah, TrueOne, I'm also wondering who said we have to celebrate it . Because last time I checked it was our choice.
I totally respect your choice to not celebrate and I understand your viewpoint but I explained our stance on holidays on another thread, which I'll paste here....
Okay, so before we got DF'd a few weeks back, we weren't sure if we were going to start celebrating holidays... for a few reasons:
But once we found ourselves being shunned, our perspective totally changed:
After arriving at these conclusions, we decided that holidays are fair game for our family with one little stipulation: we explain to our children the origins of the holidays, what they do/don't mean to many people in modern times, and what they do/don't mean to our family.
Ultimately our perspective changed from "why celebrate?" to "why NOT celebrate?" and after coming to the above conclusions, it was a pretty easy decision.
we are celebrating xmas this year for the first time.
it's kinda weird because, even though we're doing a xmas tree, decorations, gifts, we're more or less taking the christ out of christmas.
so how about the rest of you non-christian heathens?.
Anything that brings people togther in the spirit of love and friendship is a good thing...
Even if you don't have a prescription for it?
The Bible is a story of progressive revelation. In a sense, it is not so much a story of God, but a story of man's improving understanding of him.
Then I suspect that someday the writing of the Bible will be completed by an atheist.
Yes, BTS, and an old WT QfR claims that the passage was talking about "pressured seduction" or some BS like that.
From what I hear, "pressured seductions" happen in prisons quite often, too.
we are celebrating xmas this year for the first time.
it's kinda weird because, even though we're doing a xmas tree, decorations, gifts, we're more or less taking the christ out of christmas.
so how about the rest of you non-christian heathens?.
Very nice, LH. I like your style. The humanist perspective, or what little I know of it, is a positive one. I plan on investigating it further in the near future.
I'm expecting that we will let our means of celebration evolve as the kids get older. Right now, we explain to them that it has no religious significance to us, but is a general celebration of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The fact that we are taking part in xmas traditions is symbolic of our new freedom from JW superstition and bondage.
It was a male dominated society, not very different from what the middle east looks like today. A violated virgin was "damaged goods" on the marriage market and would never be able to have a husband support her. For the violator to be forced to marry her without possibility of divorce was in order to guarantee her for her economic loss.
So god can supposedly suspend the physical laws of the universe to part the Red Sea or make the "sun stand still" but he doesn't have the ability to implement and enforce laws to change a nation's perspective of women and protect their rights? I suppose god was restricted to accepting the norm for the times as well?
Seems he lacked the care or the ability. OR perhaps it was a very different society and the bible reflects the thinking of that society because it was written by men of that society and not a higher, compassionate intelligence.
@ Lore
we are celebrating xmas this year for the first time.
it's kinda weird because, even though we're doing a xmas tree, decorations, gifts, we're more or less taking the christ out of christmas.
so how about the rest of you non-christian heathens?.
They [atheists] are very adept at integrating all the good ideas and using all the good things a judeochristian culture has produced while simultaneously undermining it. Yet when the host organism dies, so do the parasites.
Good point. I think I'll celebrate Saturnalia this year instead. Oh, wait....
Yes, it would be nice to get a concrete, " Slavery is wrong you assholes and what kind of sick bastard rapes women and children??"
Now see, that's the kinda direct message I'm talkin about!
Overturning the money-changers' tables and roughin' up dove vendors - that was great and all, but why not beat the crap out of a rapist to really show his compassion for the half of the population that was truly oppressed? Or send Legion into a horde of pedophiles instead of pigs so that THEY stampede over a cliff.
I'm just thinkin out loud here but considering he gave specific directions on other matters, why not these?
we are celebrating xmas this year for the first time.
it's kinda weird because, even though we're doing a xmas tree, decorations, gifts, we're more or less taking the christ out of christmas.
so how about the rest of you non-christian heathens?.
Well, I knew you would CJ. You're probably hanging little Ouija board ornaments from your tree.
I'm feeling a bit like a JW in that I'll put up a tree but I refuse to top it with a star. (Maybe a snowman or snowflake, but not a star.) The difference is I know I'm being irrational.
