The Christmas Wars

Why would they needed to have created an entirely new mythos? Especially considering that most powerful messages are conveyed by using the culture's mythoi that already exist.For example, there's that religious painting of the Aryan Jesus knocking at the door; my very religious Protestant grandmother (originally Catholic, but that's a story in itself that would not interest you) had one. I have a graphic file in which dialog bubbles are added (Salvation for DUMMIES by Mrs. Betty Bowers):

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Jesus: Let me in.
Other: Why?
Jesus: So I can save you.
Other: From what?
Jesus: From what I'm going to do to you if you don't let me in!

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Now, what if Mrs. Betty Bowers, America's Best Christian, had to follow your restrictions? She couldn't use "Jesus knocking at the door", so she'd have to invent something else. But since nobody reading that would have any idea what she is talking about, it would be meaningless. Similarly, if she had to make up another fictional character other than Aryan Jesus, the entire message would have been meaningless. The Blue Beetle? How could that ever have any meaning?Those of us who have ever had to endure a lit class, be it English or in another language (German in my case), have undoubtedly heard that old truism that there exist only 15 to a couple dozen different stories and that every story that has ever been written has been a variation of those very few distinct stories -- a corollary wisdom is that in evaluating a given work, the criteria do not include whether the story is original (impossible according to the truism) but rather the author's skill in retelling that particular story (another corollary fuels the content-insatiable entertainment industry -- ¹).So then, using iconic figures to retell a story should not only be acceptable, but also expected.And you deftly avoided Hyroglyphx' point:

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FOOTNOTE ¹:When I was a young married airman stationed in North Dakota in 1977 and we lived in a small town miles out of the base, I was assigned to the swing shift (1630 to midnight) so my wife sat alone near the middle of nowhere (the actual Middle of Nowhere was about 130 miles away outside the town of Rugby; visited the marker and took our picture, even though the Middle of Nowhere is actually about 17 miles south by southwest from Rugby) with nothing to do but watch TV from the major-network signals we were able to pull in.One night I came home from duty after midnight, she told me about two shows she had watched that night back-to-back (apologies, but I forget the order). First was a Charlie's Angels episode in which someone had committed a robbery with an illegal pistol that he had shot somebody with so he disposed of it in the bushes of a park while on the run. Then a kid finds it and accidentally shoots a main character and runs away scared while that main character lies mortally wounded waiting for the others to find her and rescue her in the nick of time. Following that was an episode of The Mod Squad which ran the exact-same scenario. At the time, I had BA German and my wife had a BA French (admittedly a mixed marriage, but we were able to make it work for a couple decades), so we had about the same amount of education in literature. I agreed with her hypothesis that many TV writers write a few solid scripts and then shop them around to various productions, changing each one superficially to fit with that particular show and its characters.So not only are most "stories" just retellings of the few "original stories", but many of the retellings are just the result of a few cosmetic changes. I've seen references to a country song that goes something like "99 Channels and There's Nothing On". That describes a ferocious beast that demands air-time content and demands to be fed constantly.Growing up, my father would at times draw us into an argument in which he would insist that he had seen this TV show before even though it was its first broadcast. In high school, my friend and I were into reading the reprinting of Doc Savage stories, when his older sister started pointing out how the same stories were being recycled.Edited by dwise1, : Problems caused by confusion between HTML and BBForum codes. Essentially, punctuation errors.

A woman I am acquainted with runs an independent business. The other night, she remarked about something that rather bothers her: she doesn't know how to offer seasons greetings to her customers. Because of all this "War on Xmas" bullshit, she's literally afraid (or close to it) to say anything to her customers for fear of offending them. It's kind of like being trapped in a bad marriage where anything you say could cause great grief. That is clearly a very bad situation to put her and other business owners into.I do not feel that it is a matter of the mere wording (though that it is for those who have declared "culture war" on the rest of us), but rather the intent. If you are sincerely wishing the other person well and are communicating that in the manner in which you offer that greeting (including all the metacommunication cues of intonation, facial expression, body posture, etc), then the mere words that you use should make no difference.But if you offer your "greetings" in a belligerent manner, then you're just being a jerk and should be treated accordingly. For example, a previous boss described being in a Christmas "Parade of Lights" cruise of private boats around the harbor. As the lead boat passed each home, its skipper used his bullhorn to offer the occupants seasons greetings. When they came to the Morgensterns' home (I forget the actual name of that Jewish family) which was decorated with blue and white lights, that greeting became, "Merry CHRISTMAS, Mr. MORGENSTERN!!!" What a monumental jerk!If you are truly wishing someone well, then that is how it should be taken. If you are just being a hypocritical jerk (like when a "true Christian" proclaims that he loves you as he commits unspeakable offenses against you), then please kindly fuck off.This "War on Xmas" bullshit has nothing to do with religion, but rather is purely political. It feeds directly into the Religious Right's hypocritical campaign of claiming that Christians are being persecuted against in this country.An unfortunate side-effect are some non-Christians who take umbrage at the Christian greeting.Please, let us just cut the bullshit! Offer everyone your sincerest Solstice greetings and well-wishing with no regard for the actual minutiae of the exact wording. And be excellent to each other!

My understanding is that Santa Claus is roughly based on Wotan, the Chief of the Gods. Wotan rode a white horse (der war ein Schimmelreiter), wore a broad-brimmed hat, and an eyepatch over one eye, which he had lost when he had allowed himself to be crucified (ie, nailed to a tree) to die so that he could learn the Magick of the Runes (ie, of writing) -- note how depictions of Wotan in Wagner's Ring Cycle and even of Odin in the Marvel Cinematic Universe include an eye patch. Then the USA image of Santa Claus was given to us by Thomas Nast in 1881.Early Christianity has an established history of assimilation of already established pagan religion. In effect, they were the original Borg. Early Christian missionaries would move into an area, destroy the old pagan holy sites, and build their churches on those old pagan holy sites. At first, the pagan adults could come and still do the old pagan prayers, but with each succeeding generation the pagan ways were lost as they had been replaced by the Christian ways. In addition, many of the old pagan gods were assimilated into the new religion as saints allowing the locals to continue to venerate them, but within a Christian context. For example, in Mexican culture there's the Virgin de Guadalupe and in Mexico City there's the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe, which is built atop an Aztec temple to Tonantzin, AKA "Mother Earth", the "Goddess of Sustenance", "Honored Grandmother", "Snake", "Bringer of Maize" and "Mother of Corn". One reference I heard described her as a virgin goddess. Wikipedia says:

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Some have claimed that upon the apparition of Our Lady of Guadalupe in the hill of Tepeyac where Tonantzin's temple had been destroyed by the Spanish priests, the natives recognized Our Lady of Guadalupe as Tonantzin.

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At one local clan gathering which is sadly no more (Loch Prado), they would set up a medieval camp. During the night, our clan's representative, a Star Trek fan, would periodically approach the camp fire and inform them: "We are the Clan Donald. You will be assimilated. Resistance is futile." In the same manner, the spread of early Christianity is rather similar to the Borg.But, several centuries have intervened in the meantime. How could what had happened several centuries ago have any meaning? It doesn't have to.My first degree, BA German, is rather like an English degree in that in the second two years we concentrated a lot on literature and cultural trends. The 19th Century (1800's) was dominated by the Romantic Period which was itself dominated by nationalism which included delving "deep" into the past of each culture's mythologies, etc. The conceit of the time was that folk tales had been transmitted intact since time immemorial. In reality, the details of any folk tale only went back a few generations at most. Instead, what has been found is that each generation would re-tell the tale in accordance with current events, all while saying that this tale stretches back to the Urzeit ("earliest times").Similarly, we see so many people proclaiming that the USA is "one nation under God" because "it has always been so." Uh, no, those words, "under God", were inserted by an act of Congress in 1954, 178 years after the Declaration of Independence and 62 years after the Pledge had first been composed in 1892. Most of the Americans alive today have only known that phrase, "one nation under God" and nothing else, so they don't know any better.Early Christianity assimilated a wide variety of pagan ideas and practices. But then after that initial assimilation, the past couple centuries have witnessed further assimilation of non-Christian ideas. If anyone wished to really delve into their most cherished Christmas traditions, they would find very few of them to actually be Christian.

Exactly.But since Protestantism is so firmly grounded in Catholicism, ... .Of course, your "Bible believing Christianity" could completely divorce itself from this season.Waiting ... waiting ... waiting .... waiting ...

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot Whatever!!!Presentations I've seen about Xmas have included evaluations of shepards being in the fields with their sheep. What I've seen presented have pointed out that that would have only happened while the lambs were being born, which would have been in the Spring, not at the Winter Solstice.The Winter Solstice is a very important celebration, especially in the Northern Hemisphere. The dichotomy between Light and Darkness is also important in Christianity, isn't it? That importance does remain regardless of whatever deity is being attributed to it, right? After all these months that Darkness is crowding out The Light, isn't the Winter Solstice when The Light does finally triumph against The Darkness? Precisely. We do all seek to have the Light vanquish the Darkness. That is precisely what happens at the Winter Solstice! Which is exactly as it should be! Happy Holidays for you and yours!

Oh come the fuck on!All that the Protestants had to work with was handed to them by the Catholic Church, including what the Biblical texts were.What Catholicism had to pass down was all that Protestantism had to work with.

Yeah, well fuck you too! Yeah, well duh and fuck you too! We already said that! Yeah, well duh and fuck you too! We already said that! Now this begs the age-old question: Does anything ever enter a Christian's mind? So why do you try to minimalize it to nothing?