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Quote J_Joseph  1. The OP who has such a 'deep Catholic faith' unfortunately has a shallow understanding of history in general and the history of his own faith in particular. |
Well, Joseph it's your condescending words like "shallow" and "silly" that taint your argument with hatred and bias. On what grounds do you even base the comment that his understanding of history is not more complete than your own? Because he has faith in something you can't understand?
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Quote J_Joseph 2. We are guests. We should act like guests and not mention topics which the host country or school does not want discussed regardless of our own beliefs. |
I'm not a guest. I have a house here and I pay taxes. I'm a permanent resident. Don't assume we are all on holiday.
<offensive remarks removed> my apologies
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Quote J_Joseph 4. While showing a somewhat better understanding of history by acknowledging the pagan origins of Christmas you fail when discussing Coca-Cola and the current common image of Santa. You also seem willing to ignore what you know about history when it conflicts with your beliefs. You are far from alone on that score so do not feel bad about it. |
I don't. It's called faith, But there are plenty of supporting facts that you "also seem willing to ignore when it conflicts with your beliefs" ...
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Quote J_Joseph 5. If somebody does not understand something, possibly they should not be discussing it in class. |
Fair enough, but let's not call a different opinion a lack of understanding.
You believe you are correct based upon what other people who believed something have spoon fed you.
Please go back and read how many times you've called people stupid in this thread. If you are trying to enlighten someone, insulting them by calling them 'ignorant', 'childish', 'superstitious' ... doesn't add strength to your argument. Let your argument stand and see how well it stacks up. A good argument doesn't need to rely on attacking the opponent.
If you'd like to explain that Christians attached their celebration of Jesus's birth to the timing of a pagan ritual that was in place in an attempt to draw them away from that, that's fine. That would be correct and a good explanation of where Christmas began.
But to say that Christmas was originally a pagan ritual isn't correct, is it? It began as a celebration at the same time to push the other out. Some of the things, like the Christmas tree have been added that were originally pagan. Buddhist festivals here in Japan did the same thing, taking previous local worship services and creating Buddhist events out of them. Corporate America, the arguably ruling authority, is now trying to take what is a Christian holiday, adopt some of it's customs and change it (force the other out) to serve their own agenda. It's not unique to any culture or belief system.
We might have to just agree to disagree.