belboid
Exasperated, not angry.
tho as we usually recognise christmas (even if we dont call it that), we should recognise we are culturally christian atheists.
Revolutionary Islam
- Thread starter Kalfindin
- Start date
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
There is nothing Christian about the way I celebrate Christmas. I find all the Christian shit around Christmas annoying.
For me, it is about having time off work, drinking, giving presents, and being stuck with the family for two days longer than I'd like. Nothing Christian about any of that.
belboid
Exasperated, not angry.
when are you doing it? Of course it's partly christian. Especially as presents, not being at work, being with family, and drinking are all central parts of the christian christmas.
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
jakethesnake
In bed for Britain
Fair point. Perhaps I'll give it a go at some point.
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
Gift-giving at the turn of the year predates Christianity. And winter solstice festivals are also common pre-Christianity.
You could just as accurately say that Christians at Christmas are culturally pagan.
belboid
Exasperated, not angry.
except paganism was (all but) wiped out two thousand years ago - except for the bits that the church adapted into its own practises. So it is meaningless to say its pagan. We live in a society that is nominally christian, that follows a christian calendar and mode if celebration. You can pretend you dont follow it at all, but actually, you do.
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
They're certainly part of modern Christian yuletide culture, although we know through archaeological finds and small amounts of written evidence that gift-giving and getting pissed at Yuletide preceded the arrival of Christianity in much of Europe.
gentlegreen
I hummus, therefore I am ...
Xmas passes me right by these days - it's just one day in two or three weeks off work - and my employer closes for the best part of two weeks so I have to stay home.
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
But giving presents around the winter solstice is not a Christian practice. It is a practice that Christians continue from pre-Christian times. There is continuity there in the celebration of a mid-winter festival. Christians celebrate it in a Christian way, but I don't. Most of what I do around Christmas has pre-Christian roots.
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
Sorry, but you're about a thousand years too previous for "wiped out". Paganism/folk religion was still a going concern in much of Europe until the 9th and 10th centuries, when it was finally enforced upon the labouring classes by their Rome-bewitched "masters". IIRC the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles note the conversion of the last Pagan king in Britain (in East Anglia, naturally!
) as the early 9th century.
belboid
Exasperated, not angry.
so? Whatever the roots, its now christian, and that is the context in which you are doing it. The society around you has pre-christian roots, it has pre-capitalist roots, but its still (basically) christian and capitalist. You carry out those traditions to fit in with society today, whatever its roots were.
belboid
Exasperated, not angry.
fair enough (well, partly), but, so what? It was still (all but) wiped out by the christian takeover.Sorry, but you're about a thousand years too previous for "wiped out". Paganism/folk religion was still a going concern in much of Europe until the 9th and 10th centuries, when it was finally enforced upon the labouring classes by their Rome-bewitched "masters". IIRC the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles note the conversion of the last Pagan king in Britain (in East Anglia, naturally!
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
No it's not. The context in which I am doing it is a midwinter festival. There is nothing whatever that is Christian about what I do at Christmas. I see no reason whatever to defer to Christians on the nature of the midwinter festival now called Christmas, and the cultural things attached to it that I follow all predate Christianity. That's my context.
belboid
Exasperated, not angry.
sorry, but, bullshit. You're deluding yourself.
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
Do you accept that Christmas was a pagan gift-giving, feast-giving midwinter festival that Christianity coopted into a Christian festival? If you accept that, why do you not accept that I reject all the Christian bits and celebrate it in a purely secular manner that has nothing to do with Christianity?
seventh bullet
sovietwave
Yes. Had a chuckle at "ripe", given the involvement of the United Fruit Company.
Also, as part of that failure, post-Cuba the US shifted a lot more money toward exercising the Monroe Doctrine - even more than they'd traditionally spent.
Focalism or 'Guevarism' was/is criticised by Maoists, too, although such detractors in Latin America were at times loose in their own interpretations of People's War.
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
Which would be why there are all those odd folk customs around the time of the winter solstice (okay, so a lot of them are centred around carousing!), because it's all but wiped out?
Fact is, you can't term something to be "all but wiped out" when it's still honoured/followed by people, and has been almost continually (even taking into account troughs such as Puritanism and peaks such as Sharp's revival of folk practices) for more than 2000 years. Yes, Christianity is the overwhelming cultural modality embracing all of this for the last thousand year, but hegemony (remembering our Gramsci
) is and has always been contingent, that contingency here being the accretion of folkways into the wider culture alongside that Christianity.
Yes I can.
I think he was a figure to be respected because of what he did in history. Why don't you?
That Islamophobia is racism?
The only people who disagree with that are racists.
belboid
Exasperated, not angry.
Because that is not what 'Christmas' is, or was. it was a feast that happened at around the same time as an earlier celebration (in certain parts of the world) and it retained some similar - but not identical - aspects of that earlier tradition. I'm not at all sure it involved gift giving tho, iirr that is a fairly recent invention. And even those aspects that were carried on are now changed in a christian manner. I bet you dont have your pagan feast on the 21st, you have it on the 25th. You dont go out and praise the sun and the earth. you celebrate with your (extended) family. That is you accepting the way christianity has adapted and amended the old feats to become there own.
Your argument would mean that, unless you explicitly talk about him up above and Jesus and all that, then it isnt basically following the christian festival. But it is. You could even try and claim going to church wouldn't be christian cos they had big temple type things that people congregated at in pagan times. But that is obviously nonsense.
It's like an Arsenal fan claiming they are going to see Woolwich play at the Emirates. They're not.
Leviathan isn't a defense of monarchy. It's a defense of a strong state, but the form of that state is immaterial.
No you can't.
Most people in the UK are very definitely Christian atheists. Their attitudes, culture and behavior differs markedly from those of Muslim atheists.
And thus we see that terms like "Christian" and "Muslim" refer to cultures as well as to religions.
belboid
Exasperated, not angry.
Sorry, but thats just big words to say the same as LBJ. Christianity took over the old pagan practises and made them their own. they were wiped out until a minor revival in the 1600's and then the late 1800/early 1900's. And much of those 'rediscovered' practises were actually invented then. There is no continuity.Which would be why there are all those odd folk customs around the time of the winter solstice (okay, so a lot of them are centred around carousing!), because it's all but wiped out?
Fact is, you can't term something to be "all but wiped out" when it's still honoured/followed by people, and has been almost continually (even taking into account troughs such as Puritanism and peaks such as Sharp's revival of folk practices) for more than 2000 years. Yes, Christianity is the overwhelming cultural modality embracing all of this for the last thousand year, but hegemony (remembering our Gramsci
Unless you are explicitly going out into the woodlands and waving twigs around to celebrate the Oak King, you're following essentially christian traditions, in a semi-christian manner.
The Hindus have some much cooler gods to not believe in.
That's a good example actually.
Anyone mocking the Hindu pantheon would immediately and correctly be recognized as mocking Hindu culture, and thus as a racist.
The case of monotheism seems more difficult for people to grasp, not sure why tbh.
DotCommunist
So many particulars. So many questions.
belboid and phil in agreement? truly a miracle
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
I don't go out and praise anything, as I'm not a pagan either. It's a festival, and Christians are not pagans for coopting a pagan festival. Similarly, I'm not a Christian for following some of the forms of the version coopted by the Christians.
I'm just not 'culturally Christian'. If I were, I'd be doing some Christian things sometimes, but I don't.
ETA: Is the choice of date 25 Dec a Christian one?
Not many Muslims are pluralists. Islam is a supersessionist religion, like Christianity. That doesn't mean, of course, that Muslims and Christians are incapable of tolerating other belief systems. But they will not acknowledge their equal validity--and why should they?
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
This is hugely contested. In India. And a politically fraught thing given the rise of Hindu nationalism there. You're on the wrong side in this one, phil.
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