War is over, if you want it
People ask me fairly often about my religious beliefs, and I’m usually a little cagey about it, because it is difficult to explain how I can both feel differently about the structure of the universe and feel deeply connected to the same things my more religious friends do. I kinda wrote this to address that, in the context of christmas. Comments and personal stories are welcome, as ever (… especially anyone I’ve been with for any sort of ritual holiday. This means you, L-town).
So, as I’m driving to work today, I notice that 100.3 has started in on their ‘ultra-early christmas xtravaganza’ of music, and I started thinking about how I feel about christmas.
First, let’s talk religion: I should say I’ve participated in many varieties of religious ceremony. My family isn’t religious, though my grandmother has been a student of religion since long before I was born, and I’m the only person in our family who’d put up with (and enjoy) that kind of discussion, from an early age. I consider myself (if I had to identify) humanistic, and those ideals don’t specifically reject the beliefs of others like, say, Atheism does. I don’t actively disbelieve in a god or gods, I simply don’t consider their existence (or absence) important in determining the direction or morality of my life.
I don’t spend my time, in these ritual circumstances, concentrating on those parts I reject. I’ve never had a problem with lending my energies or heart entire to the common ritual, and I rarely feel that I specifically don’t belong (catholic communion being the only exception, and that’s entirely due to the looks I’ve received). I’ve spent christmas eve at church with Rachel’s family, for instance.
I first experienced the sensation of connecting without having to judge validity on one Samhain with Childe, Scott, peculiaire, John the Pirate, and others. We’d gathered to say goodbye to the old year, and welcome the new; while we were there, we discussed those parts of our lives, ourselves, and people we wanted to say goodbye to, and what we wanted to welcome into our lives. We shared very personal experiences, and grew closer together with the telling and the resolve we shared. My whole heart was there, and that I didn’t have a god to pray to didn’t matter.
I take in those parts that resonate with me. I am a joyful person, and I love family and friends, and the community environment. I’m often touched by the ways we (as communities) work together toward a common good – mactavish‘s scooter, for instance, or the carpet-whoring for karinny. When Beltane comes around, and my friends gather to express their joy at the coming summer and the joy of living and loving, I am right there with them, entirely. It doesn’t at all bother me (or, it seems, them), that I do not, personally, defer to any god. I send my energies out into the world in my own way, and they are just as effective.
The same goes for this holiday. I am a firm advocate of moderating one’s confidence/humility, and I consider that an important part of christmas. For christians, they are humbling themselves by admitting that we are all weak, and must rely on others sometimes to forgive us, and struggle on in the face of our weakness; I can dig that. We are selfish beings who must work hard to treat others well while maintaining our own rights as humans.
This time is also about joy, and about forgiveness of others. Families reconcile, lovers make peace, and strangers, absolute strangers say hello and wish each other well. I love that. I often wear a santa hat about town around december for the same reason I wear my ‘free hugs’ shirt. I’m welcoming those other human beings I wouldn’t otherwise interact with to express their joy/siblinghood (if I can use that phrase), because most of us need an explicit reason.
There’s a whole season wherein people consider it acceptable to greet strangers, y’know, like they used to do in ye olden days. You might focus on the word “Christmas” in the phrase “Merry Christmas”, but what I hear is, “May you have happy times,” and I am only too happy to wish the same in kind. When it is “Happy Yule!” I feel the same warmth.
Sure, there’s materialistic abandon for some people, and there’s over-marketing, and there’s those on both sides of the cross (heh) who feel either excluded or empowered to exclude others during this time. But that’s not the part of the holiday I choose to accept for myself.
So, though I may be as christian as I am pagan or buddhist, I still have a personal attachment to this holiday that I’ve celebrated every year of my life, even though I do not, personally, hold to a god or gods. I can gather with my various families and, hopefully, remind them of how very, very important they (you) are in my life.
I can’t wait.
The views expressed in this post are among the many reasons why I love you and cherish you as a friend. There should be more people like you.
I identify with humanistic philosophy more than anything else. My thoughts on god are, well, if an omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent being does exist, they’ve got quite a bit of explaining to do before I can fathom why I would worship them, because they’ve allowed too many injustices to occur with no good reason. I don’t think there is any reason that they could cite which would convince me that they were worthy of my adoration, respect, and homage. In other words, if an all-powerful, all-knowing, ever-present god does exist, I’m pissed.
I see much more sense, righteousness, and happiness in treating my fellow humans as I wish to be treated, and trying to constantly improve who I am, not only for my own benefit, but for those around me. I don’t blame my errors on anyone but myself, rather than excusing them to a concept of “sin” that I can then, by extension, claim forgiveness from through some sacrificial deity, instead of taking responsibility for my actions and correcting the wrongs I may have done to others. I believe firmly in the latter, in taking responsibility.
As far as holidays, I participate in them because it is a traditional time for families to come together, and my interest in treating others well and spending time with my loved ones is my primary motivation. Since civilization started, humans have found different reasons for celebrations and commemorations which have been a reason to come together and share meals, each other’s company, and traditions that may include gift-giving. These occassions just have different labels as humans evolve. :)
You might focus on the word “Christmas” in the phrase “Merry Christmas”, but what I hear is, “May you have happy times,” and I am only too happy to wish the same in kind.
As a person who has been reprimanded for saying “Merry Christmas,” that really, really warms my heart.
As a person who has been reprimanded for saying “Merry Christmas,” that really, really warms my heart.
Whoa Nelly! WHAT??!!!
Yeah, someone told me that saying Merry Christmas was offensive because I’m projecting their religion onto them. I responded by saying that I was wishing them well in the season, whether Christmas was a cvelebration of Christ’s birth or simply a day off of work to them. They still weren’t satisfied.
*shurg*
Yeah, someone told me that saying Merry Christmas was offensive because I’m projecting my religion onto them. I responded by saying that I was wishing them well in the season, whether Christmas was a celebration of Christ’s birth or simply a day off of work to them. They still weren’t satisfied.
*shurg*
Jaysus, Joseph and Mary – sounds like they need to take a chill pill. I’ve had people which me “Happy Chanukah” and although I’m not Jewish, I usually smile, wish them the same and move on.
Ditto. I’ll never understand people getting offended by a wishing of happy times.
I’m surprised at the turn this conversation has taken, considering the point I was making in the post.
As for people getting offended by a wishing of happy times, please keep in mind that minority religions do not feel as free to mention their own religion in casual conversation. I, personally, ignore the subtle assertion in the statement “Merry Christmas” that I must be christian or at least must celebrate Christmas – not because I do celebrate christmas, but because I know that most people are just being friendly, and not trying to shove their religion down my throat.
I say MOST people. I’ve seen some pretty vicious looks on people who are grimly determined to use the holiday to push J.C. down peoples’ throats, in person, so it’s not like I’m unaware of the potential for harm.
Eep! Sorry, didn’t mean to turn it into a negative conversation. I really just meant to underscore how much I appreciate the attitude you have.
And you’re right, some people do use it to push J.C. Those people offend even offend me, someone who celebrates Christmas as J.C.’s birthday.
Families reconcile, lovers make peace, and strangers, absolute strangers say hello and wish each other well.
As someone who is currently working on reconciliation with a few family members, I love that holidays are traditionally about family and try so very hard to embrace that aspect of all holidays. Granted, I may not embrace said holiday with my bloody family but I tend to embrace said holiday with people I love, whether that’s my chosen family, close friends, blood family, etc.
As for Christmas and the true meaning, I tend to make a bigger deal out of an individual’s birthday rather than Christmas as so many, myself included, miscelebrate the traditional Christmas. That’s not to say that I don’t agree with the way Christmas is celebrated these days, just that I’d rather celebrate and place more importance on an individual’s birthday than that of Jesus.
Considering the other aspects of the holiday, including what you might consider the co-opting of this time period by one religion to make itself more appealing to others (highly debatable I’m sure), I think it’s fair to say that there is no more miscelebration of christmas than, say, there is a miscelebration of harvest festivals, which were quite different than they are today.
I am terrible about remembering birthdays. Dates, in general, are bad for me – that’s why I keep a calendar. However, as I found out when LJ’s “birthday” function was still active, if I posted a ‘happy birthday’ every time I wished one for one of my friends, I’d be doing it every other day.
I don’t expect cards for my own birthday – I just try to have a public event if I can (and if I’m feeling it that year). An excuse to be social, and to see the people I love interact with more people I love, is all I need to feel valued on my birthday. :D
Also, yes, I spend much more time with the family I choe – my blood family, mostly, lives in Philly, and before a few years ago they were scattered around the country.
The co-opting of this time period is really beside the point – having mentioned it kind of detracts from my original point. It has a meaning for christians, and a meaning for various groups of non-christians, and it has a meaning for me. The meaning for me has much more to do with how we treat each other at this time of year, and how we may look at ourselves, than it does with historical tradition.
I’d say that harvest festivals are less celebrated by the masses than Christmas.
Many small towns have harvest festivals, but yes, that is quite true. Being true, it doesn’t at all (that I can see) change my point, that being that any tradition that has existed for a significant length of time evolves significantly.
I think that there’s evolving significantly, and then getting so far away from the original intent that it’s freaking ridiculous….
Okay, I’m happy to debate if you’d like. Do you consider my own method of celebrating christmas, that being a celebration of family, humility, and joy, to be freaking ridiculous, because I don’t choose to personally recognize J.C.?
*laughs*
No, not at all, what I find abso-bloody-lutely freaking ridiculous is the blatant over commercialization of something that was intended to celebrate the Christian saviour and was a time for families to come together. These days it’s about who got the bigger sack of loot.
I find the over-commercialization annoying and absobloodylutely freaking ridiculous, regardless of it’s original intention. There’s really no way to look at this holiday that DOESN’T make it annoying.
As for the bigger sack of loot thing, that may or may not be generally true – I have to admit that my friends and family are -not- a cross-sample of society. I find that ones someone gets out of their teens, they start to be a bit less concerned with their loot. Perhaps it’s because they have to start buying their own presents *grin*
Christmas has been evolving for thousands of years, and the celebration of the “savior’s birth” has been celebrated on December 25th for thousands of years. Sometimes the name of that savior was Dionysus, sometimes Buddha, other time Mithra or Sol Ivictus, later it became Jesus of Nazareth.
Christmas started out as a solar holiday, and it gradually evolved into a day of gift giving. The Greeks were doing this three thousand years ago. Germanic tribes celebrated Yule, marking the longest night of the year as one of hope of a brighter tommorow.
Due to the overwhelming Pagan overtones of the holidays, the Christian celebration of Christmas went out of favor in England and the United States until the 1860’s. Christmas gained in popularity due to the works of Charles Dickens (perhaps the inventor of the modern Christmas in many ways) and Prince Charles (German husband of Queen Victoria), who wanted to celebrate the holiday he loved so much in his new country.
Christmas has only nominally ever been about Jesus, it’s certainly not a holiday he spoke about or his apostles wrote about.
You scare me.
Truth is truth.
I’m always amazed at how little people actually know about the holidays they celebrate. If you want to celebrate the birth of Jesus at Christmas and it has spiritual significance to you, that’s wonderful. It means something to me in that regard as well, but that doesn’t change the fact that the celebration of a holiday on that date predates the life of Jesus.
Religions don’t spring up in a vacuum, and Christianity is no exception to this. The holidays that make up the Christian calendar are nearly all re-workings of Pagan ones. If you want to stay true to Jesus, you should probably celebrate Jewish holidays, like he would have.
Just from a rational perspective it makes no sense for shepherds to be out “watching their flocks by night” on December 24th anyways, that’s winter. Jesus was obviously born in the spring or summer, there has to be a reason to put his birthday on Dec. 25th, and the reason is that there was a holiday already being celebrated then.
I was over-simplifying if that helps at all.
Half of all American Holidays are “harvest festivals,” or at least celestial influenced ones.
Thanksgiving-Harvest Festival
Halloween-Harvest Festival
Why do you think we celebrate Memorial Day and Labor Day when we do, they have solar significance, the start and end of “summer.”
Since most holidays were created when our society was still more rural than urban, most of them have something to do with the change of the seasons. This doesn’t make them “Pagan” though.
As an interesting experiment, you might try wishing christians a “Happy Hannukah” or a “Blessed Winter Solstice” or whatever other non-christian (preferably as pagan as possible) winter holiday wishes and see how many wish you them back, and how many make a point to wish you a “Merry Christmas.”
I mean, you’d think that after having been forced over and over again by other pushy religions (Roman pagans, Inquisitions, Anglicans) to comply with the majority religion, that they’d generally have a little more sensitivity about forcing their religion on the minority who have different beliefs. Oh, who am I kidding?
I must admit that I do believe that most christians would feel distinctly uncomfortable with being wished a happy season that is not of their religion.
Of course, I also think most people would do so simply out of spite, anyway, and that’s pretty visible. :D
I wanted to sort of address all the responses of what people wish each other during this season. This is my preference. “Happy Holidays” I have far better things to do that to get pissed because someone wished me well. I like to say Happy Holidays because there are so many of them around this time of year I figured I’d leave it to the person I am wishing well to decide which holiday they should enjoy.
It’s a rich season of traditions, so why get petty? *shrug* I hope everyone has a wonderful holiday season, even the jerks. Isn’t that the point?
I must admit that, even though I enjoy the greetings back and forth, and I encourage it with my attire, if I initiate the brief conversation, it’s usually with a “hi” or “good evening”, and I’m much more likely to respond with a holiday greeting to someone else’s than to initiate it.
Unless it’s a friend of mine. I’ll say Happy Yule or whatever it might be, if I know what someone’s particular holiday is.
On this vein, keep the evening of Dec. 22 open if you don’t already have plans. *hugs*