Also--what's everyone doing for the holdiays (and anyone else ehre lighting the Menorah eight days?)

I've planned for a week to catch with reading all your posts :)

Santa Claus does not exist. St. Nicholas, on whom he is based, was probably a real person. But he's dead now.

noooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Don't worry checkmate, if you believe in him, he is true!

Agreed with Jamiet on the St. Nick thing.

I thought it was a well-known fact that Christmas is a farce. If you look at the Bible, can't you figure out that Jesus was not born on Dec. 25. Rather, the date was changed to collide with a Pagan Holiday? So, even if the Bible were true, isn't Christmas still wrong?

"DEAR EDITOR: I am 8 years old.
"Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus.
"Papa says, 'If you see it in THE SUN it's so.'
"Please tell me the truth; is there a Santa Claus?

"checkmate.
"WebDiplomacy.net"

checkmate, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except [what] they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, checkmate, whether they be men's or children's, are little. In this great universe of ours man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect, as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.

Yes, checkmate, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus. It would be as dreary as if there were no checkmates. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.

Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies! You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas Eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if they did not see Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that's no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.

You may tear apart the baby's rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived, could tear apart. Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, checkmate, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.

No Santa Claus! Thank God! he lives, and he lives forever. A thousand years from now, checkmate, nay, ten times ten thousand years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.

Lighting the Menorah, and sleeping in on Christmas/New Year's. Typical holidays for me. :)

Draugnar, I am seeing confirmations of Popper's theory everywhere.

"I thought it was a well-known fact that Christmas is a farce."

I'm not sure what you mean by farce. As I understand it it's much less sinister than all that. It was common to adopt earlier traditions into Christianity. Saturnalia was a well established gift-giving holiday in December. It coincided pretty closely with Yule in northern Europe and other holidays celebrating the days beginning to lengthen.

From Biblical accounts you cannot really get a birthday for Jesus (I believe the closest you get is coming up with three dates based upon times when an astrological phenomenon appeared over Bethlehem), so the holiday was established in December as a celebration of light returning to the world because to Christians that's what Christ's birth was.

If you look at it from the perspective of a young church growing into power in the Roman World. With the emperor's favor they could have gone the route of trying to forbid earlier celebrations, but co-opting them allowed everybody to keep popular traditions and embrace the new religion at the same time.

Here's an interesting counter-point to the above article about the battling billboards.

From what I can see there is little of the irrational fear mongering here. It's certainly imo a questionable call as it delayed the game all of 3 seconds (that would have been used setting up for the new play anyway). I was struck by how reasonably the people involved were handling it. I'm sure that if it gets any more attention there will be flack about it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xakHFBYNy4Y&feature=related

My daughter told me that non-Christians shouldn't be upset about state-sponsored Christmas celebrations "because it's a really a pagan holiday anyway." I asked her not to make any comments about the 30' Christmas tree in our church sanctuary.

Your daughter should run for City Council in Philadelphia:
http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/heardinthehall/111059314.html

I agree with this guy's take on the whole "Christmas" hullabaloo that just went down here:
http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20101202_Stu_Bykofsky__The__Nothing__Village_catered_to_haters.html?page=1&c=y

haha, +1 pastoralan's astute daughter! XD

*Sigh* I'm so tired of this stupid debate coming up, every Christmas. It's not I roll my eyes every year, but the stupidity never goes away. People don't stop calling things Christmas this and Christmas that because they're worried about offending anyone. I'd be surprised if anyone was actually offended by it. It's because they would like to see Christians and non-Christians shop there. (Let's face it most of the places that have "Holiday" displays are commercial enterprises.) If you put up a manger and say "Come in for the Christmas sale." A Muslim or a Buddhist is likely to think "Oh there's nothing that would interest me in that store, or I have no reason to go shopping right now. If you put up a sign that says "Winter Sale!" They're more likely to go, "Hey, a sale! Awesome! And what do you know, it IS winter!" (OK it's not technically winter till December 21st, but my point stands.) It's just good business.

I think Christmas has become a very secular holiday, especially in the states.

I'm not so sure. Christmas and Easter services are among the biggest inmost churches which indicates to me that people who don't normally go to church do so on those holidays. I'm sure there are some who celebrate it without any profession of belief associated, but how would one ascertain how widespread that is?

It's obvious that it has a secular side, but I doubt that has won out over the spiritual basis.

I think this may be a nice other thread. Sorry Mafiallgator.