I have often reflected that were Jesus Christ to return today, self-proclaimed "Christians" would crucify him... A fact about Christmas that most "Christians" don't know (or that they deny) is that Jesus Christ's birthdate is unknown -- he could have been born in June, for all we know -- and that Christmas is an artificial holiday that was created during the infancy of Christianity in order to compete with the pre-existing Roman festival in December called Saturnalia, which coincided with winter solstice. And don't even get me started about how Christmas in the United States of America stopped being about Jesus Christ and became all about consumerism and materialism a long, long time ago.
H A P P Y fucking H O L I D A Y S
from Robert's Virtual Soapbox!
"You blind guides, who strain out a gnat but swallow a camel!"
-- Jesus Christ, to the religious hypocrites and fools of his day (Matthew 23:24)
The holy war over "merry Christmas" vs. "happy holidays" might be amusing if it weren't for the sentiment behind it.
The sentiment behind the "Christian" soldiers' War on "Happy Holidays" isn't Christian love, but is the "Christian" hypocrites' fear that other religions, perhaps especially Islam and Judaism,* are overtaking "Christianity" in the United States.
So much for the "melting pot" that these "Christians," who claim also to be "patriots," like to boast about, eh? Merry Christmas in your face, Jew (Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, atheist, et. al.)!!! That's the sentiment behind the "Merry Christmas" Movement -- which is, of course, completely unChristian.
The War on "Happy Holidays," as far as I can tell, began with the publication of this book:
Ignorance, fear and hatred sell, as FOX News Channel Nazi John Gibson knows. (I note that his book gets only 2.5 out of a possible five stars on amazon.com.)
Now, if there is a "liberal plot to ban the sacred Christian holiday," I am pissed, because I'm a raging liberal and I never got the memo whose subject line was "Plot to Ban the Sacred Christian Holiday." I hate it when my fellow America-hating, terrorist-loving conspirators leave me out of the loop.
Of course there is no "liberal plot" to "ban" Christmas. There isn't even a Jewish plot to ban Christmas (that I'm aware of, anyway).
It's that those of us sane and truly patriotic Americans who truly believe in the melting pot, who truly respect and honor differences and diversity, don't believe in alienating and intimidating others who are in the minority -- such as Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists and atheists. Especially during this time of "peace on earth and good will toward men," we sane and truly patriotic Americans don't believe in making minorities feel less human and less valuable than the majority because they don't celebrate Christmas -- which is exactly what Jesus Christ would wish of us. Fucking duh.
Speaking of Jesus Christ, one of my favorite quotes of his -- although I don't label myself a "Christian," I find that I know much more about the New Testament than does the average self-labeled "Christian" -- is "You blind guides, who strain out a gnat but swallow a camel!"
The "blind guides" he was talking to were the Pharisees, the Jewish sect in control in Jesus' place and time. (Recall that Jesus was a Jew and not, um, a Christian...) The Pharisees whom Jesus lambasts in the New Testament are hypocrites and fools, and Jesus lambasts them as such. The religious fools and hypocrites of my place and time call themselves "Christians"; when I read Jesus lambast the Pharisees in the New Testament, I envision him saying exactly the same things to the "Christians" of today, who have bastardized his teachings. (And I am hard-pressed to think of a larger sin than to twist Jesus' teachings of wisdom and love into ignorance, fear and hatred, such as the very title of The War on Christmas: How the Liberal Plot to Ban the Sacred Christian Holiday Is Worse Than You Thought does.)
To "strain out a gnat" (from your beverage before you drink it, if that isn't clear) is to focus on the small, insignificant shit, and to "swallow a camel" (to swallow a very large object that is in your beverage, if that isn't clear) is to completely ignore the big, significant shit that you shouldn't ignore.
For example, American "Christians" ignored that George W. Bush & Co. stole the White House in 2000, and that if you never were elected legitimately in the first place, you can't be re-elected legitimately. They ignore that the Bush regime launched an illegal, immoral, unprovoked, imperialist and wholly unChristian war on Iraq in March 2003, which thus far has resulted in the deaths of more than 27,000 innocent Iraqi civilians and more than 2,160 U.S. troops. They ignore our real problems, such as that the Bush regime has given us the largest federal budget deficit in the history of the United States of America, and that the Bush regime is diverting billions of our tax dollars to Dick Cheney's Halliburton and other members of the military-industrial complex and is diverting billions of our tax dollars away from the things that we need, the things that Jesus instructed us to give to those who need them, such as food, shelter and health care.
Stealing elections, starting fake wars in which thousands upon thousands of people die, stealing from the poor and the middle class to give even more to the already-filthy rich -- these are among the quite satanic, anti-Christian things that the Bush regime has been doing for the past five years, yet "Christians" defend the Bush regime and swallow the many camels that the satanic, anti-Christian members of the Bush regime have been shoving down our throats.
But when it comes to straining out gnats, the "Christians" are all over it. They'll make sure that every non-Christian American feels threatened and afraid during this time of "peace on earth and good will toward men" by shoving "merry Christmas" down everyone's throats.
Ironically, while there is no "liberal plot to ban the sacred Christian holiday" -- I only wish that we liberals were that well-organized! -- there is quite a concerted effort among the wingnuts to shove "merry Christmas" down everyone's throats, and this "Merry Christmas" Movement seems to have been started by the satanic, anti-Christian fascists over at FOX, including Gibson and Bill O'Reilly. And I read in horror recently that my hometown of Sacramento is headquarters to the "Committee to Save Merry Christmas," which, according to Reuters, "organizes store boycotts over holiday advertising." (Sacramento is also where Rush Limbaugh got his start, but I'm living, blogging proof that not all Sacramentans are dumbfucks.)
Bill Press, author of How the Republicans Stole Christmas: The Republican Party's Declared Monopoly on Religion and What Democrats Can Do to Take It Back (3.5 stars on amazon.com), hit the nail on the head when he said that the War on "Happy Holidays" "is all by design. The more people are talking about who's saying 'Happy Holidays' and who's saying 'Merry Christmas,' the less people are talking about Karl Rove, torture, Tom DeLay, the war in Iraq and other hot issues."
*I think of the Abrahamic religions (Islam, Judaism and Christianity) as Gangs for God, since the members of these rival gangs like to kill each other so much -- because surely that's what God would want.
9:00:20 AM 
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