Thanksgiving
Offline I recall when I was young hearing a Christian woman wish that the powers that be would make Thanksgiving be on a Sunday instead of a Thursday because then everyone could go to a church service before they eat with their families. She felt that it could be more religious, like it was with the pilgrims.
.....But what about the North America Native Americans? That's why we have Thanksgiving. Any 2nd grader can tell you that the Native American people saved the pilgrims from starving to death, so the pilgrims invited them to share their first harvest feast, and I highly doubt that not one single real American was a Christian and I doubt they prayed to Jesus Christ with the pilgrims before they ate, and if they were asked to, I suspect they most likely refused. But hey, I wasn't there so I don't know. I also don't know why the pilgrims were thanking Jesus when they should have thanked the people who saved them....who weren't Christian....so they couldn't have been sent by God. But instead of thanking them...they decided to slaughter and rape them and take their land away! Happy Thanksgiving! *sings* "Jesus is just alright with me, Jesus is just alright...oh yeah...."
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Interestin - the Christians slaughtered people unfamiliar to them but the (pagan) Native Americans saved them from stavation.
Matt Shizzle has been banned from the Rational Response Squad website. This event shall provide an atmosphere more conducive to social growth. - Majority of the mod team
Yeah, shakes head in embarrassment ....
"I claim this land in the name of England!"
"You can't do that! We live here!"
"...do you have a FLAG?"
"What the fuck are you talking about? We've lived here for over-"
"No, flag, no country! That's the rules that I...just made up!"
Eddie Izzard is awesome.
This may or may not be related, depending on how you look at that woman's comments, but I wanted to toss in how much I loathe every holiday beyond Halloween. From November, clear until February of the next year, it's an unrelenting abrading of bathos, judgement, and grey days. Aside from giving the kids their Christmas traditions (however decontextualized), I wish the end of the year would seriously fuck off.
magilum,
Yeah, I agree, especially on the abrading part. My abhorrence goes way beyond February though. In general, I find most holidays, whether holy or not and whether 'official' or not, to be both trivial and repugnant.
As to the OP.... my fingers are feeling especially sarcastic as they grace the keyboard this morning....
But Zeeboe, didn't you know that god "uses" non-christians to accomplish all his goals ? So, of course them injuns were sent by yeehaw, err, I mean, yahweh. See now doesn't that prove to you, regardless of race, that all people are the children of god ?
So, why is Halloween so terrible? Go to a party, drink a little and throw on a makeshift costume. When you're little, either go trick or treating or watch scary movies. What's the problem? On Thanksgiving, you can celebrate the fact that your ancestors raped and destroyed an entire culture through lies, deceit and a language barrier that led to broken treaties and all you have to do is be with family members, argue over who's fucking who and eat turkey or ham. What's the problem? On Christmas, you can buy gifts for people or you can just decorate a tree that you'll throw in the garbage after the 25th or stuff that artificial one back in the closet to gather dust and take up space until next year. What's the problem?
I think you hold holidays in way too much contempt, dude. I'm not sure why, but I'm 100% sure that you didn't always feel that way.
Rather than address the OP exactly, I'm just going to mention my opinion on holidays in general. I think "holiday" is great. People aren't happy when they work 40 hours a week or more 51.5 weeks a year. When we have leisure time, we read, write... think independently... there are lots of good reasons for giving people time off from work.
I only celebrate a couple of American holidays, namely Halloween and a severe bastardization of Christmas/New Years. Before you get mad at me, let me explain the Christmas thing. To me, there's something natural and exhilarating about celebrating at the end of the year. You're in the depth of winter, the crops are in, and you have enough beer and food to last until the growing season next year. It's almost primal.
Typically, I try to get all my atheist friends together for a feast somewhere in the last couple weeks of the year. Everybody chips in booze and either brings prepared food or something I can prepare. (I am a chef, if you didn't know.) We make a celebration out of it, but really, it's just recognizing the value of having many, if not all of the same people here this year as last, and feeling good about having good longterm friends and being fortunate enough to have plenty of food.
Halloween, to me, is an exercise in psychology. Every college girl in America dresses more provocatively than she would any other day, and loves it. Halloween is the closest holiday we have to a celebration of human nature. If you think Rorschach inkblots are effective at digging into people's inner thoughts, think of how much the choice of (and effort involved in making) Halloween costumes could potentially tell us!
People don't have to pretend to be genuflecting during Halloween. No pretense of thanking Jesus for sending those bugs with us from Europe so we had an easier genocide. No thinking we're the best country in the world. No bullshit about colored eggs being symbolic of Jesus' love for everyone except lesbians and gays. Just people debauching and letting go for a night. That, in my opinion, is a holiday.
Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin
http://hambydammit.wordpress.com/
Books about atheism
I really love you guys. lol. These responses are great.
I think I can top you Hamby.
My parants have passed and my brothers and sisters live in the states. So I do the christmas/ new years thing with my wifes very large family, she is one of ten children and most live in my area with their familys'.
Christmas is a big deal with this family all the houses have trees up, and excessive lights on the outside, and the religious ones always pray for snow on christmas day (we get very little snow in this part of Canada). Not to mention a small fortune in christmas presents. My wife has no children but spends a lot on the dozen or so neices and nephews.
My two daughters and their mother, and her family go ape-shit over christmas as well with all the trimmings and abused creditcards.
The catch to all this is that the adults in these families were born and raised in Guyana S.A. And the ones who bother with religion are devout HINDUS!!! It's a waste of breath to try and explain the absurdity of Hindus and non-believers celebrating christmas. Think of the money we could save.
"Very funny Scotty; now beam down our clothes."
VEGETARIAN: Ancient Hindu word for "lousy hunter"
If man was formed from dirt, why is there still dirt?
Wow. In a way, it makes me very happy to hear this. Anytime someone hijacks something from Christians, it makes me smile a little on the inside. Given the choice between a bunch of Hindus going apeshit over pine trees and a bunch of Christians going apeshit over... well... any of the shit they go apeshit over... I'll take Hindu Christmas any day.
Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin
http://hambydammit.wordpress.com/
Books about atheism
Hamby you'll love Easter in Guyana. It's a public holiday; thanks to the British Colonial Authority; the Hindus & Muslims, and non-religious ( about 70% of the population) celebrate with drinking eating and flying kites at the seawall, the devout christians seem embarrased to be in church while their neighbors are haveing such a good time.
"Very funny Scotty; now beam down our clothes."
VEGETARIAN: Ancient Hindu word for "lousy hunter"
If man was formed from dirt, why is there still dirt?
I thought was funny that the idea of christmas has completely overshadowed it's origin- the winter solstice, which we all know is a pagan holiday. In order to lighten the dark winter months, primitive theists would light up trees (does the christmas tree ring a bell? Anyone?) to summon more light to the world via their gods. Lo and behold, the days would start getting longer because they lit up those damn trees and it became a tradition. And easter? Ha, I cannot say the distinct religion, but the easter season used to be about "fertility" and young lovers would go out into the fields after a long winter, and remind the gods what love was all about. And by that I mean, they did the dirty, knocked boots, the horizontal tango, whatever you want to call it in the dirt. For days. I would imagine it would have been quit unsanitary (though oddly arousing). And so, we get the whole easter bunny with his basket of eggs vision... The irony of that origin always brings a smile to my face, though I'm sure it would horrify a sexually-repressed christian.