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Post by 80s Child on Apr 8, 2003 20:56:57 GMT -5
Oh, and concerning the holiday season business - winter holidays have NAMES. If someone celebrates Christmas, then you say "Merry Christmas". If you know someone celebrates Hanukkah, say "Happy Hanukkah". If they celebrate something else, say "Happy [insert name of something else]". If you're not sure, THEN use Happy Holidays. But remember - Christmas is CHRISTMAS, not "holidays". Respect that. Moving along here...
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Post by paradoxPanda on Apr 18, 2003 16:35:57 GMT -5
It's sad that we get every holiday shoved down our neck and yet we can't even mention the one most people celebrate. (BTW, I'm not a Christian anyways.)
When we learn about other religions we have to spend weeks learning about Islam and Buddhism and Hinduism and spend days learning about what 'jihad' really means, yet we assume that everyone knows the basics of Christianity and Judaism. Plus, we have to blame Western culture for everything that's gone wrong in other parts of the world.
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Post by paradoxPanda on Apr 18, 2003 16:46:35 GMT -5
To add something I forgot, I do have a problem with 'Under God' and 'In God We Trust' because the government has a responsibility to not show religious preference. When you teach a 5-year-old to say this, you are teaching them to believe in God and that somehow your patriotism (and your nation) are linked to that belief.
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Post by 80s Child on Apr 18, 2003 19:53:40 GMT -5
^^About the religious business, I agree that we should learn about ALL religions, but it's important to spend a *little* more time on less common ones, because there's so much intolerance for those ones. As for the West being blamed for everything, that's another topic for another thread...
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Post by -*- Little Miss Strawberry -*- on Apr 23, 2003 8:38:21 GMT -5
But remember - Christmas is CHRISTMAS, not "holidays". Respect that.
80s Child, I respect what you think, and it's just the first example I found, but what does it matter if someone says "Happy Christmas!"? What's the deal? If you celebrate Hannukah and someone wishes you happy Christmas and you take that offensively, then you're creating problems for yourself. Expecting people to stop calling it Christmas holidays after years and years of tradition is expecting too much over such a little issue. I've got a Jewish friend, if I say happy Christmas by mistake, then I'll say oh no happy Hannukah, but she doesn't blow up. What does it matter? It's getting the title of a holiday wrong by accident, not intolerance.
Y'know, sometimes I think we can get too politically correct about being politically correct. Sometimes I refrain from saying what I think because I think someone will jump at me, and that's stupid. You can take anything offensively, and stuff. I agree, you should be tolerant, you shouldn't be racist, sexist, or anything like that. But you couldn't take everything to heart and there's just no need to.
About Christianity, loads of people today know nothing about any religion, and it's the Christians that face - I've found - a massive bulk of the intolerance. No one reasonable dares put it to Jews or to Asians... so it's at Christians. I'm being honest here, this has what's happened to me and those around me. You have teachers saying "don't be racist" but they never defend the Christians.
This is what happens, we live in an imperfect world. But sometimes the idea of being politically correct is stupid, because it's never always fair.
Whatever. I'm muddled.
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Post by m on May 2, 2003 8:21:41 GMT -5
I say Merry Christmas, because that's what I celebrate. It doesn't bother or offend others. The latest stupidity and insanity is: There is a group that wants to remove from libraries, all children's books with "snowMAN, MANhole cover, and anything gender specific. Somehow I don't think this is a real problem. A manhole cover is a technical term for an object that keeps a car from destroying itself if it hits a MANhole / a tunnel where water, pipes and communication lines are. A snowMAN is what it is. What's next, "Oh man!" becoming an expletive? Careful, "Hey man, whassup" will now be politically incorrect phrase. "Hey yo, wassup carbon based units." "Whassup personmalegendermanpeoplewoman."
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Post by 80s Child on May 2, 2003 17:48:46 GMT -5
^^Now THAT's stupid! As for Christians getting a lot of prejudice, I don't find that to be the case. Of course, I don't think they don't get ANY prejudice, but it's not as widespread as, say, anti-semitism or anti-islamic sentiments. Of course, this doesn't excuse it any way, but it's not AS big of a problem, at least not where I live. Still, nothing is wrong with saying "Merry Christmas". Hell, I'm Jewish and say it at the holiday season. Have respect for a person's faith by actually ACKNOWLEDGING it, not pretending it doesn't exist!
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Post by paradoxPanda on May 3, 2003 14:45:17 GMT -5
<<As for Christians getting a lot of prejudice, I don't find that to be the case. Of course, I don't think they don't get ANY prejudice, but it's not as widespread as, say, anti-semitism or anti-islamic sentiments. >>
That's certainly true in most cases. I'm basically biased against ALL organized relgion, but especially monotheistic ones.
History has shown that Jews and Muslims have been killed by others b/c of their religion, and Christians really haven't been, at least in the last 100 years. Of course, Hindus have also been killed because of their religion, as have Buddhists and Sikhs. Really, it's impossible to generalize b/c there are so many points of view.
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Post by -*- Little Miss Strawberry -*- on May 4, 2003 4:07:36 GMT -5
History has shown that Jews and Muslims have been killed by others b/c of their religion, and Christians really haven't been, at least in the last 100 years.
Err, in 1999 164,000 Christians were killed for their faith. Search for the 'persecuted church' on the internet, I think you'll find something.
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Post by paradoxPanda on May 4, 2003 8:03:06 GMT -5
The point is that it's much rarer than other kinds of persecution. I searched for the persecuted church and found absolutely no real information.
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Post by -*- Little Miss Strawberry -*- on May 4, 2003 8:59:58 GMT -5
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Post by paradoxPanda on May 4, 2003 13:13:26 GMT -5
As I said, it's rarer and FAR less organized than other kinds of persecution.
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