christianity

I may be losing the plot here but I thought it was suggested that a war would prompt a Christian revival as in people going, or going back, to church. Not just a vigil.
And I'm sure there was a smaller attendance in WW2 than there had been before WW2 started. Of course back in the 40s more people went to church anyway.

This thread started off with an absurdity and progressed to surreal!

In times of stress we all need support emotional or religious. Now if you are believer you would probably go to church anyway.

If you are not a believer and you do go to church because you are in times of deep trouble, frightened, stressed or whatever, would you consider yourself hypocritical?

I think most religions would welcome you on the basis of your need for emotional support at a difficult time.
I am not a believer but occasionally when a minister or whoever blesses me I am not "offended" and I rather like the idea that someone has bestowed their "positive feelings" (call it what you will) my way. It sounds to me as if I am a bit confused by this. Does anyone else feel like this. I was brought up a Methodist and I have no lasting "catholic guilt" or such.

Your not losing the plot Belladonna, just mis reading some posts perhaps

But would an atheist want or need to pray Nellie?

nelliem, I understand what you're saying and I feel the same. I have Mormon friends who pray for me, which is fine. Even though I don't think it does me any good, I know it does them some good so hey ho. And of course, it means they care about me (and what they see as my spiritual welfare), which is nice to know.

Also, I think one's definition of praying can be quite flexible. The praying of a devoutly religious person would be very different from, say, an atheist hoping longingly for a turn around about some deep trouble that was oppressing their feelings, but the two very different things probably serve the same purpose.

religion seems to bring out the worst in People, many of the wars accross the world are to do with religion. Look at this thread, even that causes arguments. I am keeping out of it. I believe in nature.

We are part of nature and religion/philosophy is part of our nature.

Just to name a few

Elizabeth Fry. Dr.Barnado. Chad Varah. William and Catherine Booth .

Their faith brought out the worse in them?

I agree with thatbags. The early Christians had no idea of when Jesus was born, so they appropriated the birthday of a different cult figure, Mithras. It is also true that in Northern lands there have been Midwinter festivals since long before AD.
In fact, nothing of the Christian Christmas story belonged to Christianity originally, and the Gospel tales have no validity in history anyway. There never was a decree from Rome that made anyone go to their ancestral home, that was Matthew trying to match the Messiah thing with the text in Isaiah. Jesus came from Nazareth, if anywhere.
In other words, in this country the shorthand name for this celebration is Christmas, but you can pretty well celebrate what you want.
A Good Yule to you all

Christmas is the festival for Christians to celebrate the birth of the Christ Child,

It was adopted by people of no faith

The choice of the date was pretty arbitrary.

If the first missionaries found the heathens celebrating the turning of the sun from sinking lower and lower to rising higher and higher, there was a great chance for them to say that their God came to earth to halt mankind sinking and start them rising again, so why not celebrate that?

I like that Elegran

Baffles me why atheists celebrate Christmas - Christs Mass - and complain Christians took the festival from pagans. Why not celebrate Mid Winter festival

It has been known as Christmas for so long that the original reason for that has been forgotten but the celebration continues, unlike some others, where the name as well as the celebration is lost. A pity, we could do with more excuses for a feast. The beginning of February would be a good day.

*Martinmass (November 11th), "can be documented back to the 14th century and was at that time accompanied “by conspicuous feasting supplemented by musical entertainment”. In England and elsewhere the tradition was to have blood-puddings and freshly roasted meat stemming from the slaughter of what cattle and other animals had to be culled in November. At the same time it was “settling day”, when servants might leave in order to take up new employments. Sat the same time peasants paid their dues to their lords and the tithe to their church; often partly paid in birds like hens, ducks and geese, the tradition grew to eat these birds roasted at the end of autumn and beginning of winter."

*Candlemass (February 2nd*) "Among the Celts, the pagan celebration of Imbolc occurred on the first of February. This was in honor of the goddess Brigid and was associated with purification and fertility at the end of winter. Peasants would carry torches and cross the fields in procession, praying to the goddess to purify the ground before planting.

In churches, the torches were replace by blessed candles whose glow was supposed to take away evil and symbolize that Christ is the light of the world. They would then take the candles to their homes to bring protection to their homes."

and Lammas (loaf mass, to bless the wheat harvest sometime in August) "In many parts of England, tenants were bound to present freshly harvested wheat to their landlords on or before the first day of August. In the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, where it is referred to regularly, it is called "the feast of first fruits".

Everyone knows Christ wasn't born in December and Christians took over an existing festival, but that shouldn't detract from the Christian message. Yes Christmas has lost a lot of its Christian meaning for many but for those that believe it is a time of celebration. I have no problem with those who don't believe celebrating Christmas/Wintervale or whatever you want to call it - I will be celebrating the birth of Jesus, even if I don't know his real birthday!

Same for me sunseeker, the date of his birth isn't important, what matters is on one day of the year together all Christians throughout the world celebrate and rejoice that he was born

Atheists do celebrate the midwinter solstice, ab. That's what christmas means to atheists on the psychological level. In practice it includes a lot of the celebratory actions and customs that christians also take part in.

And they call it christmas because that's its name now.

Christmas is only Christ's Mass for christians. To everyone else it means something else.

But thatbags, it doesn't mean anything else ,it means Christs Mass . I couldn't care less if some see it as a day's holiday, cards , presents , food and gifts, I do care when they mock those who celebrate Christs birth

You mean it doesn't mean anything else to you, ab. Other people can and do interpret what is celebrated in midwinter in different ways. As I keep telling you. You don't have to like it to accept that it is so.

However, if you want to keep on maintaining that Christmas only means what you understand it to mean, then carry on, but it won't make any difference to atheists. They will carry on with their own understandings too.

Where is your tolerance of other points of view? There are lots of different points of view about various things even within Christianity. Why should that be different outside of christianity?

If I'm not celebrating Christ's mass, which I'm not, what am I celebrating (in a low key style) in my present giving and special food on christmas day?

Not many people mock those who celebrate Christ's birth, though, even if they don't celebrate it themselves. Those who don't go near a church on Christmas Day mostly just accept that others do. Some go to a carol service and enjoy it, but don't step inside the church door until the next year.

Just wondering how those in the antipodes, South Africa, Latin America feel about this Winter Festival, with all the cards showing snowy churches, robins, polar bears? Do they sing 'In the deep mid winter'? and have frosted Christmas trees in their Churches and town squares?

Of course not - they have developed their own traditions around Christmas with a nod to European roots and the particularly NORTHERN European Christian Christmas traditions. In Scotland Christmas was celebrated quietly as the family and Christian Festival - New Year was the big Food, Drink, Conviviality festival. Now the two have merged into a month long orgy of conspicuous consumption, parties and excesses and the already gloomy January/February period is blighted by hangovers, SAD and Credit Card debt.

I blame the Americans, of course, for converting the good St Nicholas (trudging through the snow with gifts) into the all consuming Red Santa who now presides (are there any Sunday School parties where the highlight is not Santa appearing bearing gifts?) and dictates our customs and spend, spend, spend culture.

Thstbags, all I have said is Christmas means Christs Mass , surely saying it has different meaning to some is no different to saying Monday has a different meaning to some people, how the dsy is spent may be different but it's still Monday

Easter however is a clear adoption of the word Oestre. But Christians still manage to do what is dictated by the church despite the name being that of a pagan goddess!