Offensive "Christmas"

[5cupa]

HAPPY CHRISTMAS!!




bite me

[Apex]

do you taste like chicken........

[Stewart]

Christmas isn't even a religious time for most people now, its a holiday, a break. My Christmas cards have Snowmen on them, and Reindeer. And if there is a character who keeps popping up, its Santa, not Jesus.

I'm not celebrating his birth, or anyone's birth - I'm having a break at the end of the year, giving presents, eating a lot of brazil nuts and watching telly. At the same time, those who choose to do so are also ceelbrating the religious version of Christmas.

If you like, I do Santa Christmas, others do Jesus Christmas.

I'm not religious, and I get invovled at Christmas, the same as 99.9% of people not of other religions. Think back to when you were at school... % of people who went to Church or were considered religious? Not many.

Amount of people who were given or gave Christmas presents? Pretty much all of them.

[RVF500]

The people who are actually forcing their belief system/value set down peoples throats are the pc clowns that have instigated this whole affair. The quickest way to p*ss people off is to attack, or appear to attack, their beliefs.

I've seen many systems in action around the world and fundamentally they are the same. Basically preaching peace and offering a comfort to people. Such things are very easy to sneer at in our cossetted, affluent world here in the west. They are much more meaningful to people who have nothing, or virtually nothing.

Religion should be taught in school, but in a balanced format. It is after all, important world history and that which gives each of us our identity. Though having seen some of the clowns on who wants to be a millionaire, for example, fumbling over fundamental UK history it isn't hard to see why we are losing our own national identity.

These belief systems, like our own, provide laws and a framework for society. The demise of these in our own society has led to the environment that is so often complained about on these very forum pages "bleedin' chavs" for example. It's a society of our own making. The me me me culture.

It's easy to thank an ethereal being for bounties, it's even easier to blame the same being for allowing the less savoury acts that man is so capable of visiting on man. A very simplistic outlook imho.

Zathras my question to you was simply a frank question. Not 'that old chestnut'. I wanted to know rather than just launch into a disorganised rant. As it happens I am not some bible bashing God botherer, my kids have their own beliefs worked out by their own thoughts on the subject which they ask questions about and draw their own conclusions. As are mine. Which by and large I keep to myself as I believe they are personal. It just so happens that I have been offended by the pc brigade dissing my (and others) beliefs for a political point scoring excercise. I also get offended when I am told those beliefs are stupid and meaningless when no-one, scientific or otherwise, can prove to me that they are.

Is there an all seeing all controlling God? I don't know. I just happen to believe there is something more than this.

[Zathras]

Zathras my question to you was simply a frank question. Not 'that old chestnut'. I wanted to know rather than just launch into a disorganised rant.

It is an old chestnut for me because it's something I've been asked many many times when people find out I'm not a believer in any religion. After answering your other points one by one, I explained my position on this matter and how I as a 'humanist' (don't like the word but the grouping most accurately fits my opinions) see death. Quite how what I wrote can be considered a 'disorganised rant', especially when compared with the level of some posts in QT, I really don't know. You really must have a different definition of rant to mine. What would you have preferred?

[RVF500]

I was refering to myself launching into a disorganised rant without information. Not you. Assumption being the mother of all f*ckups, I try to assume as little as possible. Hence the reason I asked first. If you had said "no" or hadn't thought about it in such a light then there could have been an extention of the discussion along those lines. As it was an 'old chestnut' then there's no point.

As it happens as a younger man I had very similar views to you as regards beliefs and religion. They just happened to have changed over time. Not trying to preach, just stating a fact.

[Zathras]

Okay, sorry, my misunderstanding.

[G4Z]

RVF, I have also had one or two encounters where I thought I would die, one of them was actually whilst in the TA (you may laugh... but it allowed me to earn beer money at uni). we were traveling down to Catterick one weekend for an exercise and I was sitting in the passenger seat of a land rover. we were overtaking a bedford (one of ours) when it slowly started creeping across into our lan, and then a bit faster and then I realised the driver had fell asleep, now I wasnt driving so there was nothing I could do except watch it all happen in slow motion. we were right along side it as it came across but we managed to break and it crossed about 2 cm in front of us. Dont think I have ever been that scared but I can honestly say that not once did I think of god. I also had another experience when I was driving that involved an overpowered shed of a VW Jetta and a bus... again Nothing supernatrual came to mind. I think that if faced with the real deal its gonna happen this time for sure situation I wouldnt suddenly turn to god.

probably completley unrelated but its bank holiday so im allowed drunken posts.

[RVF500]

Actually g4z I wouldn't laugh. After leaving the regular army I ended up in the TA too cuz I was skint.

Also had a near miss there with a slow opening parachute. Looked up, no canopy just a bundle of washing. With a start height of 800 feet, loss of 200ft before the parachute even begins to open, or not as the case may be. You can begin to see that the proximity of the ground gets critical pretty swiftly. Nothing particularly moving went through my mind. In fact I can quite clearly remember saying to myself 'sh*t, I don't need this right now'. I then reached for the reserve and the main opened. I recall shrugging and thinking 'I don't need this [the reserve] now either'.

Afterwards when I thought about it it had more of an effect on me. I wouldn't call it a defining moment though. More just one of many added together that got me thinking.