buonaparte Wrote:http://i52.tinypic.com/8xqz2d.jpg

Even though I'm a Christian that made me giggle. But to be fair, the word for Christ and Christmas is spelled differently thanks to the wonders of katakana and Japanese pronunciation so even if it wasn't satire it wouldn't be surprising in the least that they wouldn't make a connection.

I believe what i do, and other people believe or don't believe in whatever they do. No one can prove anything on either side, but I guess that's why it's called Faith. Spent my Christmas with my Japanese host family, defiantly a different atmosphere than I'm used to. (I may be Christian but i'm not a very good one, my Christmas's tend not to even be slightly religious so it wasn't in that sense) and the kids made some awesome faces when trying British Christmas Cake for the first time.. guess it's an acquired taste.

I have nothing against believers or non-believers. I can read both Watchtower by Jehovah's Witnesses and 'The God Delusion' by Clinton Richard Dawkins. I find both entertaining.
I like Bible fairy tales, but it doesn't make them true.

In God I do not trust, but when Money talks even Christmas can be merry.

My favourite read:
http://skepdic.com/

[fuaburisu]

I'm with Einstein, on God and atheists:

Einstein Wrote:I have repeatedly said that in my opinion the idea of a personal God is a childlike one. You may call me an agnostic, but I do not share the crusading spirit of the professional atheist whose fervor is mostly due to a painful act of liberation from the fetters of religious indoctrination received in youth. I prefer an attitude of humility corresponding to the weakness of our intellectual understanding of nature and of our own being.

He must have been thinking of http://www.reddit.com/r/atheism/ there.

And apparently that makes me on the same wavelength as Trey Parker too:

Trey Parker Wrote:Basically ... out of all the ridiculous religion stories which are greatly, wonderfully ridiculous — the silliest one I've ever heard is, 'Yeah ... there's this big giant universe and it's expanding, it's all gonna collapse on itself and we're all just here just 'cause ... just 'cause'. That, to me, is the most ridiculous explanation ever.

As for Christmas, it's a holiday and a family time. But maybe I'm a simplet?

No but seriously... nothing is real anymore. We fake things, which become part of culture, and thus part of our "real" lives, which we fake a generation later (reality shows, advertisement etc), so in the end really what's Christmas about, is what you want to make it.

I like colours of Christmas, and miss the chimney and the relaxing open log fire.

Until someone can prove otherwise, I maintain we are here purely out of coincidence.
There's either something or nothing, there just happens to be something.

I still would like to know how many superpowers are required to be considered a god. One can not be referred to as an atheist unless it is known what is being denied.

God can do anything, so SHE decided to commit seppuku just to find out how it felt. She is no longer there. Beware, the end of the world is at hand! At nine o'clock tomorrow.

thecite Wrote:Until someone can prove otherwise, I maintain we are here purely out of coincidence.
There's either something or nothing, there just happens to be something.

Yeah, i've never understood why people must believe everything has a purpose. If i roll a die and it comes up 5, it comes up 5, end of story. Even if we were created, there's no reason to believe the creator still takes an active interest in us or is even still around. It's entirely possible they're not even aware they did it. Given how many different things trigger events and what percentage of those are due to intelligence... i don't think it's at all clear that any intelligence was involved.

[ファブリス]

I don't think it's a question of there being a creator or a purpose. See what I quoted from Einstein. It is a question of humility, to stop pretending that we can even comprehend (today) where the universe came from and where it is going.

The Dalai Lama said something about scientists that surprised me once he said something along the lines that the best scientists in the world actually have views that are far from materialistic or "atheistic", because of their knowledge, he said, they have an understanding of the world that is much deeper than what the man on the street has. In other words, they have gained some sort of wisdom through their knowledge, if only ... humility.

Aaustin Wrote:

ファブリス Wrote:I don't think it's a question of there being a creator or a purpose. See what I quoted from Einstein. It is a question of humility, to stop pretending that we can even comprehend (today) where the universe came from and where it is going.

The Dalai Lama said something about scientists that surprised me once he said something along the lines that the best scientists in the world actually have views that are far from materialistic or "atheistic", because of their knowledge, he said, they have an understanding of the world that is much deeper than what the man on the street has. In other words, they have gained some sort of wisdom through their knowledge, if only ... humility.

For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse - Romans 1:20

I hate when people quote bible verses in ignorance thinking that it somehow proves their point.

The same book of the bible also explicitly quotes the literal reality of Adam and Eve and Original Sin as the necessary prerequisites and literal reason for Jesus having to die on the Cross to gain our salvation from... which not only is absurd and primitive in the idea of ancestral sin... that of a child being able to be held accountable for the crimes of his or her ancestors (and that such guilt can be absolved by proxy through ritual human sacrifice)... but in the fact that we provably know that Adam and Eve are fictional characters. We know that the Earth was not created as claimed in the bible and that human beings were around for hundreds of thousands of years before that even in their modern form, and proto-humans for millions of years before that. And we actually have the overwhelming convergent, independently verifiable objective evidence from numerous disparate fields of science to prove it.... in contrast to the utter lack of any evidence in specific support of Judeo-Christian mythological and supernatural claims.

Romans 5:12-21 NIV

Age of the Earth
Human evolution
Timeline of human evolution
List of human fossils
Timeline of evolution
List of transitional fossils
Evolution
Modern evolutionary synthesis
Ring species
Tree of life (Science)
Evolution of the eye
Human mitochondrial DNA haplogroup ... which leads into terms like Mitochondrial Eve and Y-chromosomal Adam, which the Christian mindset of cognitive dissonance and confirmation bias instantly tries to mold into their mythology of Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden... but these figurative individuals share their name no more than naming the planets after the Roman gods made those gods literally real.

I think you can understand why they chose the names. Not to mention that both of these individuals lived far down in Africa, and many thousands of years separated from each other... and were not the first humans either, but merely the earliest common ancestor genetically we can find due to the way Y chromosomes and Mitochondrial DNA are passed down through generations etc.

Graph of Matrilineal Ancestry

That image shows simply how that early ancestor, while not the only person around, ends up passing her particular mitochondrial DNA on to everyone else...

As a matter of fact, just read Common fallacies about Mitochondrial Eve to clarify these points.

Formation and evolution of the Solar System
Geologic time scale
History of the Earth
Radiometric dating

And on and on and on.

All you're trying to argue is a fallacious god of the gaps. That anywhere that we can't yet prove or understand otherwise, your particular deity must be responsible.

Neil DeGrasse Tyson on the "God of the gaps" philosophy through history.

This not only creates the false dichotomy of the only choices being no god or YOUR god, but goes even further in creating the fallacious equivocation of pretending that an argument for ambiguous "god" of general deism (that of an undefined "higher power" beyond our understanding) has any equivalency to the specific and provably false absurd claims of the "god" of Judeo-Christianity. Which it doesn't. And pretending it does is fallacious... either out of ignorance of the distinction, or through intentional misrepresentation of the issue to try to fool the listener into conflating the two.

Sorry for weighing in with a heavy hand, but I can't stand Christians who quote a bible verse and think it settles an argument. I'd be glad to elaborate on any of these points if need be.

However, since my last comment doesn't in any way address the original point of this thread... I'd like to make a separate comment to do so, because I think it is an important and valid question.

I personally get responses of shock and disbelief when people find out that Christmas is absolutely my favorite holiday of the year.

I wrote the following comment recently in response to a friend of mine who had such a response when he found out. I think it should sum up well enough my feelings on the matter.

phreadom Wrote:Yes, in fact it is absolutely my favorite holiday, by far.

The Jesus songs irritate me a bit, but considering that every single thing we associate with Christmas outside of the nativity itself is all pagan... the tree, decorations, holly, wreath, mistletoe, yule logs, candles, lights, caroling, gift giving, feasting with friends and family, even the date itself... all pagan, and around long before Christianity came along and tried to steal the date and convert everyone to their religion by co-opting the date and stating that they wouldn't make them stop their ancient traditions if they joined Christianity.

It's a time of celebrating the end of the longest and coldest nights of winter and the eventual return of spring, heralded again by the fertility festival of the vernal equinox, where the days finally become longer than the nights again... where we celebrate the return of life to the earth by decorating with fertility symbols... eggs, bunnies... *cough*Easter*cough*

But really Christmas... it's about friends and family and hot cocoa and Christmas lights, Christmas specials, the classic Christmas songs that evoke such nostalgia and warm feelings. And every is sharing that special time of year feeling.

I don't like the commercialism, or the crazy and woefully misinformed Christians (and not all are, mind you... but the ones that go crazy about the "war on Christmas!" etc)... but I don't let them ruin the deeper and older meaning of the holiday for me... the mutual human celebration of life in defiance of the coldest and darkest nights of winter, and the eventual return of growth and life.

Hopefully that helps get us back on point?

(postscript; Even the Catholic Church admits that they co-opted these things, but uses phrases like "Granted, some of our Christian Christmas decorations originated from pagan customs. However, with the evangelization of the pagan peoples by the missionaries, these decorations were “baptized,” giving them a new Christian meaning." So it can be interesting to learn the actual history behind the symbolism, celebration, etc... and at the very least realize that while, for Christians Christmas might be focused on the birth of Jesus, for many other cultures, and since before the time of Christianity, Christmas has and does still hold other meanings. And thus anyone choosing to celebrate Christmas in any of these other ways, or their own way, is not a war on Christmas... and that to claim it does is to ignore Christianity's own attempts to co-opt the older meanings and celebrations for their own purposes.

Merry (belated) Christmas, and Happy Holidays to everyone. )

[ファブリス]

Quote:I'd be glad to elaborate on any of these points if need be.

Please don't. The dude was obviously doing some "online" preaching, having registered just to post. I think we were sharing our opinions lightly. You're wasting your (precious) time, really.

ファブリス Wrote:

Quote:I'd be glad to elaborate on any of these points if need be.

Please don't. The dude was obviously doing some "online" preaching, having registered just to post. I think we were sharing our opinions lightly. You're wasting your (precious) time, really.

I didn't see that his post was removed until after I'd posted mine. My apologies (although having written it, I think it is valid and relevant to the discussion at hand, but hopefully can be left at that.)

I also posted to try to get the thread back on-topic on the Christmas theme specifically. I think everyone would prefer we focus on the OP's theme.

phreadom Wrote:I also posted to try to get the thread back on-topic on the Christmas theme specifically. I think everyone would prefer we focus on the OP's theme.

Yes please do so. There are already far too many 10 page threads here =D.

Christmas is a time when Christians and non-Christians alike come together to honor pagan traditions.

If the definition of atheist is not accepting a god that created the universe out of nothingness, then I would be considered an atheist. Beyond that, I think beings with what are considered god-like powers are probable somewhere in the universe, and will be on Earth some time later in this planet's evolution. Mere humans now have powers previously thought only available to those living on Mt Olympus.

bodhisamaya Wrote:Beyond that, I think beings with what are considered god-like powers are probable somewhere in the universe, and will be on Earth some time later in this planet's evolution. Mere humans now have powers previously thought only available to those living on Mt Olympus.

To me that evokes Clarke's third law; "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."