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Anyone practicing Christmas??
November 22, 2011 at 4:44 pm
(This post was last modified: November 22, 2011 at 4:46 pm by airborne2k10.)
Hello. Around Christmas time last year I began questioning the fallacies of the bible. I began to make a transition towards atheism and by March of 2011 I came out with my atheism to my family and to my at-the-time girlfriend (we broke up due to my atheism among other things). Since then I have received only a couple snide remarks from my family concerning my lack of faith (my family is general pretty accepting). However, as the holiday season approaches I am concerned about things getting heated over religion. I certainly do not want to observe Christmas as seriously as I have in the past, however there are certain aspects I will miss about it. Having been a worship leader in my previous church for 4 years, I have grown fond of many of the Christmas songs I used to play and despite the fact that I don't believe in the songs' message, I still think many of the them are quite beautiful. I am not sure how to approach this Christmas season since it will be my first atheist Christmas.
Do any of you atheists/agnostics have any similar feelings towards Christmas? Do you guys completely ignore the holiday all together? If you celebrate it, what sort of things do you cut out? I am just interested to hear your thoughts on Christmas
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RE: Anyone practicing Christmas??
November 22, 2011 at 4:49 pm
I love Christmas me.
I buy the presents, eat the food drink the drink and spend days wih my relations. I decorate the house and send cards.
I dont go to church of course and tend to think of it more as saturnalia or yule than christmas but you'd never know.
Winter would be dull without it.
You can fix ignorance, you can't fix stupid.
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RE: Anyone practicing Christmas??
November 22, 2011 at 4:51 pm
I dont need practice, this is my 26th go.
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RE: Anyone practicing Christmas??
November 22, 2011 at 4:59 pm
(November 22, 2011 at 4:49 pm)downbeatplumb Wrote: I love Christmas me.
I buy the presents, eat the food drink the drink and spend days wih my relations. I decorate the house and send cards.
I dont go to church of course and tend to think of it more as saturnalia or yule than christmas but you'd never know.
Winter would be dull without it.
If it wasn't for the fact I have kids, plus obvious family peer pressure, oh and an excuse for a piss up, to be theologically honest I cannot come up with a good reason to celebrate christmas.
You are currently experiencing a lucky and very brief window of awareness, sandwiched in between two periods of timeless and utter nothingness. So why not make the most of it, and stop wasting your life away trying to convince other people that there is something else? The reality is obvious.
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RE: Anyone practicing Christmas??
November 22, 2011 at 5:05 pm
I honestly do still celebrate Christmas.
I don't believe, but my family still celebrates it, and I eagerly look forward to it every year, and especially now that a DVD set I've been looking forward to for years has finally come out.
I sometimes go to Church, depending on whether or not my mother is up to it. Last year, she wasn't.
Here's something I posted on this very subject last year:
(December 23, 2010 at 1:41 pm)Rev. Rye Wrote: (December 18, 2010 at 12:44 pm)chasm Wrote: I do celebrate Christmas. Christmas has always meant time for family and lots and lots of presents. 
Well, it's pretty much the same for me. I'm even willing to spend several hours at a church sitting through the same service every year if I know I'm going to finally get the complete Twilight Zone (original series, of course) on DVD or the collected hardcover works of J.D. Salinger (among other things) at the end. And so I did, not to mention the two most recent seasons of The Boondocks.
Besides, Christmas has been pretty much a secular holiday in all but name since the days of Dickens.
Comparing the Universal Oneness of All Life to Yo Mama since 2010.
![[Image: harmlesskitchen.png]](https://i.postimg.cc/yxR97P23/harmlesskitchen.png)
I was born with the gift of laughter and a sense the world is mad.
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RE: Anyone practicing Christmas??
November 22, 2011 at 5:12 pm
Yes. Mostly for the presents & hanging out with family & friends.
"How is it that a lame man does not annoy us while a lame mind does? Because a lame man recognizes that we are walking straight, while a lame mind says that it is we who are limping." - Pascal
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RE: Anyone practicing Christmas??
November 22, 2011 at 5:15 pm
(November 22, 2011 at 5:12 pm)Jaysyn Wrote: hanging out with family I read those words and I knew I just had to post this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cvM3ymUKrn8
Comparing the Universal Oneness of All Life to Yo Mama since 2010.
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RE: Anyone practicing Christmas??
November 22, 2011 at 5:24 pm
I still celebrate Christmas, though for myself, siblings and parents, it's a secular holiday with no trappings of faith whatsoever. We share a wonderful meal, exchange gifts, and have cocktails (those of us that drink, at least). I don't have a xmas tree, but there is one at my mother's where the celebration takes place.
This year, we're not doing a traditional gift exchange. The children are getting their normal haul of gifts, the adults are bringing a single white elephant gift for a random exchange.
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RE: Anyone practicing Christmas??
November 22, 2011 at 5:27 pm
(This post was last modified: November 22, 2011 at 5:27 pm by edk.)
(November 22, 2011 at 4:44 pm)airborne2k10 Wrote: Do any of you atheists/agnostics have any similar feelings towards Christmas? Do you guys completely ignore the holiday all together? If you celebrate it, what sort of things do you cut out? I am just interested to hear your thoughts on Christmas
Christmas, to me, is a solstice festival that existed long before Christianity and will probably exist long after it is gone in one form or another. As for celebrating the religious but, my family usually has a nativity scene and stuff but none of them are religious and just regard it as a light-hearted fairytale kind of thing.
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RE: Anyone practicing Christmas??
November 22, 2011 at 5:51 pm
(This post was last modified: November 22, 2011 at 5:52 pm by Ace Otana.)
(November 22, 2011 at 4:44 pm)airborne2k10 Wrote: Do any of you atheists/agnostics have any similar feelings towards Christmas? Do you guys completely ignore the holiday all together? If you celebrate it, what sort of things do you cut out? I am just interested to hear your thoughts on Christmas
Well for me and my atheist family, we celebrate Christmas in a secular way. No church, no religious songs, no prayer. Just a good family gathering, parties, food and drink as well as good music. It's an event we celebrate happily without any religious reasons.
We do what most people do during Christmas, except we cut out the whole religious shit.
You can still celebrate the event as an atheist, it doesn't have to involve religion. It can be a completely secular thing.
For us (my family) it's a time for everyone to come together and have fun. Pressies and all. 
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence - Carl Sagan
Mankind's intelligence walks hand in hand with it's stupidity.
Being an atheist says nothing about your overall intelligence, it just means you don't believe in god. Atheists can be as bright as any scientist and as stupid as any creationist.
You never really know just how stupid someone is, until you've argued with them.
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