Indiana Town Sued for Displaying Cross atop Christmas Tree
76 replies, posted
He may have been mean but he wasn't wrong.
Any opportunity to show that your country isn't just pretending to have freedom of religion for the sake of pandering to christians should be embraced tbh.
christmas day is a US federal holiday BECAUSE its so secularized, you can't say its a christian holiday in its origins because its not and you certainly can't say its a christian holiday now.
[QUOTE=joshthesmith;51528179]Political correctness etc. Pub owners in England were told to take down English flags they had up when the football was on since it was upsetting to some people. Probably because they never qualified[/QUOTE]
Key factor in your example is that the flags were put up by private businesses, not government entities.
[QUOTE=Xonax;51526940]But it kinda is, it's about celebrating Jesus, cause it's his Birthday.[/QUOTE]
it isn't his actual birthday*, but more when the wisemen were visited him with gifts and shit
* = i'm not 100% sure, i'm a christian but every church i go to says some different bullshit
so breaking secularism is okay if it's a majority religion
Though seeking monetary damages is weird.
[QUOTE=Kecske;51527123]Putting a christian decoration on a tree during a christian holiday in a country where people are predominantly christian is reasonable.
Putting a pentagram up there is just trying to be edgy.[/QUOTE]
Eh, sometimes but not entirely. It's often just a form of protest, some local government will put up some christian symbolism, and then the "satanists" shows up and demands their own public iconography in the name of balance and often either get it, or the christian stuff gets removed.
[QUOTE=J!NX;51526916]But...
its a
[B]Christ[/B]... mas... tree
as in... a [B]christ[/B]ian holiday
WHAT
the holiday is literally about the cross. Like, the entire point is that it's about Christ. :v:[/QUOTE]
It depends who you are. For many people it isn't. For them; the meaning of the holiday has [B]changed. [/B]Just like how it changed from the original pagan celebrations that were adapted to christianity.
[QUOTE=Paramud;51526980]Pursuing a lawsuit isn't cheap. Besides legal fees, you have to actually take the time off of work to appear in court, which probably won't be paid.[/QUOTE]
Maybe he should've thought about that before he made a big deal out of nothing and wasted everyone's time, money, and sanity.
[QUOTE=gk99;51531764]Maybe he should've thought about that before he made a big deal out of nothing and wasted everyone's time, money, and sanity.[/QUOTE]
Maybe they shouldn't have put a cross on a christmas tree.
[QUOTE=thelurker1234;51528961] It depends who you are. For many people it isn't. For them; the meaning of the holiday has [B]changed. [/B]Just like how it changed from the original pagan celebrations that were adapted to christianity.[/QUOTE]
Meanwhile so much as googling Christmas tells you otherwise.
[editline]14th December 2016[/editline]
[QUOTE=Paramud;51531774]Maybe they shouldn't have put a cross on a christmas tree.[/QUOTE]
I fail to see how them being in the wrong makes this any less of an overreaction, especially when he's apparently okay with the fucking tree being there in the first place.
If I walk by him with a shirt covered in crosses is he going to have a fucking seizure?
[editline]a[/editline]
I just really can't defend this guy [I]suing the state[/I] over [I]two pieces of fucking wood and some Christmas lights atop an already religious symbol[/I]
[QUOTE=gk99;51531779]I fail to see how them being in the wrong makes this any less of an overreaction, especially when he's apparently okay with the fucking tree being there in the first place.
If I walk by him with a shirt covered in crosses is he going to have a fucking seizure?
[editline]a[/editline]
I just really can't defend this guy [I]suing the state[/I] over [I]two pieces of fucking wood and some Christmas lights atop an already religious symbol[/I][/QUOTE]
How exactly was this an overreaction? He pursued this in exactly the right manner using the correct channels. If he had decided to get rid of the cross by tossing a molotov cocktail at the thing you'd have a point, but he did exactly what he should've done to get what he wanted.
[QUOTE=Xonax;51526940]But it kinda is, it's about celebrating Jesus, cause it's his Birthday.[/QUOTE]
I doubt it's his birthday. The date was chosen a long time ago because it lands on some Roman holiday and they wanted to convert people.
X-mas is so obviously pagan though I mean goddamn the guys name is Santa [B]Klaus[/B] and he has [B]reindeer[/B] and lives in the [B]north pole[/B]. Not to mention the trees we put up to celebrate it are nowhere near Bethelehem.
[QUOTE=gk99;51531779]
If I walk by him with a shirt covered in crosses is he going to have a fucking seizure?[/QUOTE]
You're a private person, so you're covered by the 1st amendment. This was favoritism & endorsement of one religion by local government, which is prohibited by the 1st amendment, no matter how 'harmless' it is - a cross on city property, requiring a prayer before city council meetings, or sentencing someone differently due to their faith, it's all state-sponsorship of religion. Can't judge what offends you on a case-by-case basis and expect it to work out, the constitution tries to be black and white on that for a reason.
[QUOTE=Talishmar;51527796]What's your argument for that?[/QUOTE]
I posted a few replies on the first page, but in short, Christmastide was appropriated from the germanic paganism Yule (not norse like I thought, but an evolution of norse paganism), almost none of what christmas is was added by christians, its entire purpose was to make converting people from germanic paganism to christianity easier.
Christianity has ALWAYS done this, under this doctrine [url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpretatio_Christiana[/url] , which is a technique that was also used by the greeks to do the same thing, make conquering other people easier.
Now a true christian holiday would be something like easter, which is 100% a christian thing (ignore the highly commercialized version you see most the time in north america), even the easter bunny is part of the mythology, behaving VERY similarly to santa claus, at least in the traditional way of looking at it.
In the end, the only reason that christmas is called a christian holiday is because it has the word christ in it, and modern christmas isn't even a religious holiday anymore.
[QUOTE=Paramud;51527871]Read the rest of the thread and maybe you'll find out.[/QUOTE]
I did, and that's something you never really specified. What I want to get to the bottom of is how do you determine cultural "ownership" of a tradition? Christmas is derived from yule, but if that makes christmas not christian, then it would invalidate all other holidays that have cultural roots to anything.
Regarding this incident, there'd be no such problem if government acted secular.
[QUOTE=gk99;51531779][B]Meanwhile so much as googling Christmas tells you otherwise.[/B]
[editline]14th December 2016[/editline]
I fail to see how them being in the wrong makes this any less of an overreaction, especially when he's apparently okay with the fucking tree being there in the first place.
If I walk by him with a shirt covered in crosses is he going to have a fucking seizure?
[editline]a[/editline]
I just really can't defend this guy [I]suing the state[/I] over [I]two pieces of fucking wood and some Christmas lights atop an already religious symbol[/I][/QUOTE]
What do you mean?
I mean since an absolute statement can be changed with just a single anecdote, Christmas to me isn't about the birthday of Christ. Many other non-christians feel the same, we've stripped that meaning from the holiday. I don't particularly care about the relatively recent etymology or history because no one else does because where you're willing to end is completely up to you. Cultures are amorphous as fuck and always changing, holidays are a part of that. Halloween is an even better example, most Christians in America don't even bother with the religious meaning of it anymore. We should be descriptive about these things, no prescriptive.
Even the "birthday" thing is amusingly arbitrary, we don't know at what time of year Jesus was born. The had to pick a day, and this choice made it easier to proselytise and assimilate.
Also no, wearing stuff on your clothing won't matter. Because you are your own property. The difference is that this is PUBLIC property. You can do whatever the hell you want. Put up a giant nativity scene in your yard if you want, but it's the government that shouldn't be doing things like this.
[QUOTE=Talishmar;51534155]I did, and that's something you never really specified. What I want to get to the bottom of is how do you determine cultural "ownership" of a tradition? Christmas is derived from yule, but if that makes christmas not christian, then it would invalidate all other holidays that have cultural roots to anything.
Regarding this incident, there'd be no such problem if government acted secular.[/QUOTE]
Its not so much that its derived from yule but its yule with a name change. Thats about the only difference.
Its not that its derived some somewhere else, its the reason for it.
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