So, it's christmas time.
A time for us to eat, drink and be merry. A time to spend with loved ones. A time to reflect on the year gone by.
Every christmas the media mourn the loss of traditional christian values.
The church states that the commercialisation of religious holidays by conglomerates such as coca cola has made what was traditionally a time for reverence and reflection into a time of excess and greed.
In western cultures, this may be technically true. The orignal meaning of christmas has been lost by many young people. But is this really a bad thing?
Everyday we talk about society moving forward. We talk about demolishing the racial and religous divides that have created so many problems for so many years. We talk about a harmonious world - one that is open, one in which people have freedom of speech and freedom of belief.
But how can we do this when we stubbornly cling to old traditions, that have ultimately played a large part in so many conflicts? Christmas is a part of christian history, and that's where it should stay, in the past. Yes, we should recognise it, yes we should learn from it. But in a society that is changing so rapidly, we should also have the ability to evolve.
merry christmas :)
heavy...
ReplyDeleteWait, are you for it or against it? It's a good point but... being a Christian, it's a really, really important part of my religion, and I hate the way it's become now. Ok, so I'm a part of the commercialism, there's nothing wrong with wanting a few presents. But it's insulting to us and to what we believe in if we ignore the old traditions and just let people take our celebration and turn it into a money-making, greed-driven ..party. Yes, people are forgetting the true meaning of Christmas. That IS a bad thing, it's depressing. It's like, say, you writing a hit song that's amazing, then in many years in the future some other band covers it and everyone thinks the other band wrote it. Except in Christmas it's a million times worse because it's on such a big world-wide scale and it's such a big part of our heritage.
ReplyDeleteI love religion, and the traditions one keeps with it, although I can see the conflict and trouble that arises from it. I see the common desire for an abolishment of all religions for the sake of peace but if you look at it this way you might change your mind: religion is human-made, so it has it's flaws and people are going to always say theirs is better than others. However, religion is a way of bringing people together, helping them love and learn moral values and helping them believe in God. Whether or not there's a God, the faith and hope in an eternal being is what gives peace to so many people. You can't forget where we came from. You say we're stubbornly holding onto our old heritage, but I see the opposite, I see a generation of non-Christians taking our celebration and trying to make us forget it's real meaning. It sounds harsh and bitter, but there was no other way to put it and that's technically what it is.
Sorry, I'm such a ranter when it comes to religious topics! I'm very defensive of Christianity because we're all too nice and let people walk over us. What would Jesus do? I reckon he'd get rather pissed off. lol.
HEY! After all that I realised I visited to say I linked you to my website aaaand I hope you had a good Christmas, drunk lots and was merry. haha. I'm free all January so we should catch up sometime, that would be lovely. :)
Oh, and I thought I'd add: From a non-religious person's perspective I can see the ridiculousness of religion. All my brother's are atheist. I think, again, whether or not God is true, it adds interest to the human race. What would we be without culture and tradition? Boring, that's what. I think religion is something you can never perfect, yet you can't get rid of. We kind of need it.
ReplyDeleteHmmm.. to be honest I think commercialism in general is the problem. Christmas encourages it for sure but if there was no media driven corporation dependant materialism in the first place then there wouldn't be such a problem around Christmas time.
ReplyDeleteI'm an atheist, so Christmas holds very little sentimental value for me. I agree completely with your views that it should be able to evolve but I think that even that is labelling it as something and therefore giving it a description that need be changed as it evolves. Rather, I think, Christmas should just blend into the year and become just another day. In fact most holidays should. For me, growing up, they were mostly about seeing family and sharing with one another....this should happen far more regularly than on defined days of the year. So there are some that would argue that Christmas tradition is being forgotten etc...but why should we only remember this tradition of love and generosity on a single day? Why not encourage it more frequently with less directive behind it.
And to the Christians out there, I think that if you truly believe in the particulars behind the tradition of Christmas then you should celebrate them. The materialistic "coca-cola" Christmas might exist, but it does not own "Christmas" ... it is just another day. Do with it as you will and that way you will be satisfied.
However, as I stated first up, commercialism itself is a huge problem. The Zeitgeist Addendum showed us all that.
~~ I'm enjoying your blog, keep up the interesting posts :)
~~Brad