Oh yes, because xmas trees, Santa and reindeer are heavy themes in the Bible....
Santa died for our sins
You didn't hear it from me, but word on the street is Jesus faked his death and has been living under the false identity of Santa.
Dang, no wonder he can do it all in one night. It finally makes sense!
To me Xmas is not a religious event. The midnight mass is religious. But the whole bit with Santa, the tree, and the presents. No.
Seriously. Christmas has become ~85% secularized in the US.
Of course it is - its a commercial holiday and they wanna sell to everyone
Why do Christians buy "Christmas" trees when they're explicitly forbidden?
Jeremiah 10:1-5
1 Hear ye the word which the Lord speaketh unto you, O house of Israel: 2 Thus saith the Lord, Learn not the way of the heathen, and be not dismayed at the signs of heaven; for the heathen are dismayed at them. 3 For the customs of the people are vain: for one cutteth a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman, with the axe. 4 They deck it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers, that it move not. 5 They are upright as the palm tree, but speak not: they must needs be borne, because they cannot go. Be not afraid of them; for they cannot do evil, neither also is it in them to do good.
If you try googling any of this, you will find a shit ton of christian cope. Reminder, the Christmas tree started as a winter solstice pagan holiday.
the Christmas tree started as a winter solstice pagan holiday.
I'd always heard that too, but Religion for breakfast put out a pretty interesting breakdown on why that may likely not be the case.
If you try googling any of this, you will find a shit ton of christian cope
"Cope" is basically the foundation of most religions.
Mostly because 90% of what's in The Bible is gobblederemoved, twisted and contorted by a wide variety of opportunistic con men over the course of thousands of years, written in such a vague way as to easily be interpreted to mean whatever they want it to mean.
Similar to the way Trump speaks in vague generalities and word salad, and people hear whatever they want to hear, which of course leads to massive problems when you're the leader or aspiring leader of the free world.
When people take part in Christmas: "Stop enjoying our holiday!!"
When people don't: "They're waging a war on Christmas!!"
Victimhood is their chosen drug...
As far as I can tell, the traditions that surround Christmas have nothing to do with Christianity. Basically most of the stuff was coopted by Christianity at some point from some other belief or religion.
There's no mention of putting up lights or a tree or giving presents to eachother as part of celebrating Jesus' "birthday" (which all evidence would suggest, was not in December).
So I would ask, what's particularly Christian about Christmas trees, lights and decorations, as well as gift giving at Christmas time? What part of the Bible says that's what you're supposed to do?
Simply put, it's not in the Bible.
So I really have up wonder about anyone who criticises an atheist (or literally any non-Christian) about "celebrating" Christmas, since all the traditional stuff about Christmas has nothing to do with Christianity.
Obvious exception for Christmas mass or whatever religious service is happening the same day as Christmas.... Going to a church is literally the only Christian thing about Christmas that Christians do.... Everything else is simply "tradition" which has no basis in the Bible.
People like Sorbo are over here trying to gate keep celebrating the holidays.
What to the more on all that. Xmas is basically just late to the picture as the real holiday is already over on Xmas eve.
The real bit to celebrate regardless of religion, or even, if not especially, the lackthereof, is that this is the day of the return to the sun in the Earth's ellipse of varying distance from such.
Coming at him with a personal insult is not the way to go about this.
The correct way is to point out that most Christmas traditions are not rooted in Christianity, but in paganism.
Exactly. What is Christian about chopping down an evergreen and put it in your house? That's a pre-christian fertility symbol to invoke the turn of the solar year and the next agricultural season.
Also, the man is an idiot.
Nah, simple facts don't work on people like Sorbo. Insults don't really work either, but at least that's funnier.
It's Santa's birthday. What does it even have to do with Christians?
On a serious note it doesn't matter. They don't want to engage and they aren't going to change their views. This is for the echo chamber.
Sometimes I wonder what it must feel like to give yourself permission to be permanently offended before attacking other people for what you view as cultural appropriation so then you can claim you are being persecuted when people get pissed off at your entitlement. It is both fascinating and also infuriating.
You mean putting up a Yule tree and trading presents like the Romans did, two traditions stolen by Christianity?
As others have said, pretty much co-opted from existing traditions https://historyofenglishpodcast.com/2013/05/05/episode-24-germanic-mythology/
Why Sorbo always gotta double down on cringe. Dude needs to get off twitter and smoke some dope.
Frankly, Christmas right now has very little to do with actual Christmas.
Besides the well known tidbit that Christmas tree that was adopted by Christians.
The actual Christmas was about having a family dinner (like Thanksgiving) and then waiting until midnight for the birth of Christ.
The Santa Claus originates from Saint Nicholas, who was celebrated on December 5th. The legend was that he secretly was making and bringing toys to orphanage.
The current Santa Claus is just bastardization of Saint Nicholas in order to sell shit. Same thing with St Valentine. It is Christian in the name only at this point.
Even worse
Modern red suited Santa was reimagined and heavily commercialized by Coca-Cola and Christmas was appropriated from Sol Invictus. Nobody even knows when Jesus was born.
Colonization and commercialization at their best.
yeah if you don't believe in jesus then you can't be part of anything about him. The yule log, santa claus, him being born close to the winter equinix, mistletoe, holly, etc. all good christian things and not something totally anti christ like jew holidays or something. totally not pagan and so biblical. anyway the tree and the gifts are for saturnalia. I didn't really want to get involved in the satanic holiday but xstians don't like athiests doing their thing but the satanists are way cool with it.
Here in Sweden (and presumably our Nordic neighbours) the gift giving began as a sort of jocular thing.
We have a specific word used uniquely for Christmas gifts, and it bears no relation to our other words for gifts, like “present” (birthday gift being födelsedagspresent) or gåva.
A julklapp (Yule clap) began as a rural tradition where youths would sneak around the village and, knock (clap) on the houses and toss in a wrapped bundle, containing a jocular gift, like a straw doll or some firewood. They’d often attach a note with a (usually crude or even mean) rhyme on it, thus you’d do this anonymously and sneaky like.
This has translated to modern tradition. Some keep the giver of gifts anonymous (my mother did this for some gifts despite it being just us two), and it is still really common to attach a note or a label on the outside with a rhyme on it. The rhyme tends to pertain to what the gift is, but etiquette around rhyming differs. Some prefer to keep the gift a mystery for the person to guess, others include what the gift is in the rhyme.
Examples: “For when you’re outside and struck by a breeze, wear these that you may avoid to freeze.”
“Please don’t think me dated or old, but I got you these gloves to keep you from cold.”
Why do Christians buy a Christmas tree and gifts for their kids? It has nothing to do with the birth of Christ and isn't a Christian tradition.
To be fair, after McClellan's notes about the lack of primary data linking Christmas to non-Christian holidays I would gleefully support divorcing government observances of Chrismas in favor of generic winter or end of year festivities.
Republicans in the US have really soured me to anything Christian, which I now associate with property rights of the rich, authoritarian autocracy and white power movements. (That these might conflict with scripture is irrelevant to the policies lobbied by ministries and pushed by Christian-identifying officials.)
Christmas was on its way out when Charles Dickens wrote his potboiler and changed how we saw and celebrated Christmas in the following century. It might be time to put it to pasture and forge anew new winter traditions that mean something to who we are today.
Being raised christian really soured me to anything christian. ;-)
I'd ask, do we even know that actually happens?
Then, why did Christians turn Christmas into a commercial spectacle?
Next, what does he think about things like Christmas in Japan where it's celebrated, but more as a cultural tradition of romance, family and friendship than a religious event (which basically is what he's upset about here, when people do that, even though that's also how most ostensible 'christians' act)
These heathen atheists, not even buying a traditional bucket of KFC for Christmas!
I don’t celebrate Xmas. I celebrate Sol Invixtus. It’s still got the gift giving, but the parties are way more fun
Answer - the same reason Christians celebrate Christmas: so I can co-opt someone else's rituals for my own purposes. If they can steal solstice celebrations, I can celebrate Christmas.
Like, does he want fewer people participating in Christmas? I don't understand the motivation behind his post.
Wouldn't it be great if the sorbo account is a parody account and he's just a harmless luddite in real life, surprised and frustrated to eventually find out someone is using his likeness to say the absolutely dumbest things anyone can say?
Sadly, he's exactly like what his account paints him as, an out of touch jackass who thinks he's the best thing to ever happen to low budget TV.
His ego fucked over Andromeda. That show could have been so much more, if they had just cast someone else.
Part of the problem is he's had like 47 strokes. He's literally brain damaged.
Lucy Lawless has said that he was just as bad before the strokes. And that, sadly, he's made a full recovery.
Does Kevin acknowledge that he committed blasphemy when he played Hercules?
Considering the lore where stars are literal living anthropomorphic beings, I'd say Andromeda was pretty blasphemous too. I guess a paycheck trumps Jesus.
I would ignore Christmas entirely if I could.
I have family members who are really into it.
And the news always acts like the entire stupid consumer driven economy is riding on it. I actually don't care about that. But I bet if we did all choose to ignore it, they'd complain that we're tanking the economy on purpose. You can't win with trolls.
If my wife didn't have a Christian family that grew up celebrating it, I would ignore it. I grew up Jewish, we never celebrated it. I was always made to feel like an other as a kid for it. I still don't like it very much, but I go along with it.
The only Christmas I ever enjoyed was in the UK, where it was just about having a good time. I wish Christmas was like that here in the U.S.
Is Christmas a religious holiday? Since when?
Oh, a snarky takedown. Meh. I prefer this:
This may me wonder if this is supposed to be a perennial reminder to watch Xena: Warrior Princess instead of Hercules: The Legendary Journeys.
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