If anyone hates most Christmas music like I do, I do have some lovely Christmas songs that I like to try to hijack a speaker to play at Christmas parties.
There is also the type of Christmas song where the artist simply wanted to say the words bellend and ringpiece in a Christmas song.
✋ Santa’s horny
👉 Someone is horny for Santa
There’s also one about Christianity being a fairytale. That was part of the seasonal mix at a place I used to work. It always got complaints, but we didn’t have a way to change it.
Go on…
I’m always a bit surprised about how western Christians place so much more importance on Christmas than Easter.
Only through resurrection on Easter does Jesus become so important (thus the Christ), without it he would have just been another prophet (though part of the trinity).It’s because Christmas is more consumerism friendly.
But wouldn’t that apply mostly to secular/agnostic/atheist people?
Another US perspective here, and one that was raised Catholic:
The loudest christians are often the arch-capitalists as well. I mentioned personal finance talk radio asshole Dave Ramsey in a comment the other day, and he literally says he is teaching people to be good stewards of God’s money.
One way he does this, in addition to suggesting getting out of debt and investing in mutual funds, is to talk about how awesome real estate investing and landlording is. He’s also into tithing, which means you give 10% right off the top of your income to your local church.
And that’s not even scratching the surface once you get into the prosperity gospel. As in, yes Gladys please send me your social security check and that will make God smile upon you and send even more money your way.
Very thick with grifters, much of it is.
I wonder how such people reconcile their vile parasitic behaviour with the teachings of Christ…
We in the US have been living that Mad Lib for decades.
“I wonder how such people reconcile their vile _______ with the teachings of Christ…”
The real answer is easy though. Insert meme for “That’s the neat part, you don’t.”
Maybe in Europe but in the US that’s definitely not the case
I think it’s important to realize that Christmas has lost a lot of it’s religious connotation in the West. Don’t get me wrong, everybody knows it’s a Christian holiday meant to celebrate the birth of the Christ. However, there is no assumption that because you celebrate Christmas then you must be a Christian. That isn’t the case for Easter. People who celebrate Easter in the West are typically Christian. This makes Christmas the more publicly celebrated holiday, which feeds back into it’s own popularity.
I am not super familiar with eastern Christianity, so I could be wrong. It may be that Christmas has the same religious connotations in the East as the West. If that’s the case, then disregard my previous point.
Here are some other perspectives:
Jesus was the Christ before he was resurrected. The resurrection is all good fun, but once Jesus was sent to earth, the whole train was set in motion and salvation became inevitable. The incarnation of a God bringing salvation is something to celebrate.
Historically speaking, I’m pretty sure Christmas is bigger just because it co-opted all the Saturnalia festivities as a concession to the pegans so that more of them would join Christianity. Saturnalia was all about partying and beating up Jews, so it was obviously immensely popular and helped Christianity grow much quicker than if they required the pegans to give up their festival. With all the Greek and Roman influence on the West, it shouldn’t be too surprising that they treat Christmas in the same way - but hopefully with less ethnically charged violence.
Finally, it’s easier to tell cute stories about a birth than an execution and subsequent resurrection. “Look at the cute little baby with the animals” vs “look at the immortal zombie man with holes in his body”. This matters a lot in a hyper consumerist society.
Interesting points for sure. Though I did not mean celebrate as done commercially with Christmas but the religious importance of it.
Orthodox Christianity is very much Roman, very much eastern Roman aka. Byzantine (arguably more so than Roman Catholics and much more than whatever Protestants are doing LOL) and Pascha (Easter) is the most important religious holiday there is.
You prepare for it by fasting for 40 days (and I mean seriously, like not just “I won’t eat candy or meat”, but basically a vegan diet with some days even having restrictions on certain vegetable oils etc.) and then break the fasting (with the eggs, baked goods and whatever is traditional for your region that you brought to be blessed the day before) after partaking in night liturgy and most importantly a procession around your church.
I grew up with the ex-soviet light variant of this (as in real fasting, but not the full on-night liturgy and we skipped a lot of the weekday liturgies and preparations during the Great Fast), but we did have Butter Week before the Great Fasting :)
(Also I’m skipping a lot of details in this comment)
I’m sorry, Butter Week?
Not just Saturnalia, that was just the first. More was incorporated from various traditions as they sought to convert them. But yeah, that was sort of the foundation the rest was laid upon.
Jesus got presents, so we get presents. Imagine if he got healthcare. If only there was a part in the Bible about helping the less fortunate
“Supply Side Jesus” has entered the chat
That’s because most Christians are not very good Christians.
Christmas is a holiday to consumerism and that is what is important.
Also important to remember most of the traditions about it are pagan. Christ wasn’t even born in December. They just decided to celebrate it then to coincide with the existing solstice traditions. Many places celebrated the solstice as a new beginning, the days were now getting longer, and people needed a pick-me-up in the dark season. It was often one of the biggest annual celebrations. So it was co-opted with one of the most obvious Christian signs matching the theme, Christ’s birth being the beginning of the end of a time of darkness. First by giving a new meaning to Saturnalia, then adding more bits from other regions they were trying to convert.
Yeah we should celebrate the return of the Easter Bunny more than Santa.
LMAO
i think that’s a pagan holdover. yule is more important than ostara
Eastern Christianity has essentially the same pagan roots regarding those holidays, no?
You’re surprised how much western Christians and culture values materialism? Really?
I was thinking of actually believing and practising Christians, not cultural “Christians” or those just sticking around because of inertia.
You missed “one of my relatives got killed in a hit and run by Santa Claus”
I think that falls into the “shnackered” category
100% falls into schnackered.
Type 6: Australian.
Santa Claus, where’s my bike? IYKYK
somehow mariah carey managed a song with all five at once
It’s almost September, so any day now the Christmas music should start!
Several shops have already started stocking bulk waste for christmas. I feel like this is a case where I would jury nullification any arson attempts.
Wow. Way to ruin my day. I wish we could go back to the previously agreed upon start date of the day after Thanksgiving to start with Christmas stuff.
I need to make a list of hymns that are better for that period of the liturgical year to spam corporations with to create a bipartisan stand with the secular community against early initiation of Christmas. Even if you want to claim you’re a cHrIsTiAn oRgAnIzAtIoN it’s still inappropriate to begin Christmas festivities before advent.
In my book the only legitimate timeslot to start it is between the first sunday of advent and december the 6th and it must end by january the 6th otherwise you’re liable to be dragged down into hell by the music demon or whatever
I’m going to the front lines of the war on christmas… on the side of Halloween
I’m going to go insane the first time I hear Christmas music while it’s 90 degrees out. Summer heat lasts here until like, October, so goodbye sanity!
Look, snow!
Hardware stores started selling halloween stuff a month ago. Even my kids were confused
34 more weekend days until Christmas!
Costco is already selling wrapping paper here
I’ve heard worse excuses to listen to Twisted Sister.
I really wish Jesus was legit
If I could just let God take care of everything and be assured there’s a plan and the plan leads me to eternal Paradise…
God what a way to live…
I’ve always said that I envied people who can just believe in a religion without immediately being disillusioned. I’m out here just rawdogging existential dread. Lol
Right? Like people wonder why atheists are angry all the time. I have an answer because we are mortal because we are mortal.
If anyone who believes they have an immortal soul suddenly realized they were mortal they’d be pissed too.
All I’m waiting for is one singular shred of evidence. Something explicit and undeniable.
You’d think that someone all powerful who could read my thoughts and intentions would understand that but apparently not…
Meh, that’s the whole rub, though, you can’t have proof, it’s antithetical to faith. If you have proof then true faith is unattainable, and if you don’t have true faith then you’re not a true believer and thus you can’t be rewarded as one of the faithful. It’s a hell of a grift.
Same man. I don’t want to believe in physicalism but… where’s God. I would worship him if he showed himself. I’d lick his feet clean. Anything to be saved via spiritual immortality
But first he has to be real
I dunno man. That guy murdered a bunch of babies via plague, killed some kids via siccing a bear on them to maul them to death, wiped out almost all life on the planet because he didn’t like how the humans—a very small sect of life on the planet—was acting, slaughtered a city, denied man knowledge, and loves songs about babies’ heads getting dashed on rocks.
Oh, and if he really is responsible for everything, then he’s responsible for creating a world where living beings have to kill other living beings to survive in the first place.
Even if he’s real, I don’t think he’s worthy of worship. They claim he’s all-loving, but that love seems pretty darn limited and conditional.
I much prefer Sir Terry Pratchett’s take: if there is a god, then it is up to us to become his moral superior.
Sure, doesn’t even have to be physical. But if the entity isn’t capable of interacting with my day-to-day life then there’s no difference whether I believe in them or not. Might as well just default to empirical evidence.
Well, that’s not what Jesus taught though. Jesus taught that there’s a plan and you need to work at it to fulfill your part of it.
That’s pretty much the same thing every religion and most philosophies teach.
I think that’s only true if you use the word ‘plan’ incredibly loosely
I liked the idea that god has a perfect plan and its all going to work out in the end and he’s got it all under control. Then one day I sat down to try and read the bible. Within 5 minutes of reading god makes everything from nothing, then basically says “whoops” and nukes everything and starts again.
Sorta makes me a little nervous.
Everyone knows that SimCity is much more fun with disasters turned on
That was just a rough draft.
for the Reformed folks that believe in TULIP, salvation is through God’s grace alone
That’s a pretty small group through. Most Christians believe you need to do something to get to heaven.
No, that is absolutely NOT what Christians believe. Certainly all protestants believe the salvation comes 100% through grace, not works. Catholic and Orthodox is more complicated, but even they believe works are a symptom of grace, not the other way around.
Protestants believe you need to have faith in Christ to be saved, and that will lead you to wanting to do good works. They’re basically Catholics, but without the church institutions being central to salvation.
For Catholics and many other churches, you need to be baptised to be saved. For Catholicism specifically, this is done by your parents while a child, but it is also required for converts to be saved.
Born again Christians require a profession of faith and repentence. That’s not a high bar there, but it’s still a thing you need to do.
Calvinists believe in predestination, meaning your salvation is already determined, believe that those who will be saved will demonstrate certain behaviours, thus encouraging people to do things to convince themselves they’re part of that elite group.
So generally speaking, Christians believe you need to do something to be saved.
I think the idea of grace is - there are no good works good enough to warrant eternal salvation, right? No human person is really that good, and we live in a temporal world, our works are temporary. So only by grace can you get something so out of proportion to what you can do.
Like, you can’t do something here that really would earn you eternal damnation, even blowing up the earth isn’t as bad as sentencing someone to ETERNAL damnation. But still it is threatened for human level failings.
Yes, grace is to cover for natural human failings (Romans 3: 23-24). But we also need to do our part to show our faith (James 2:14-26). It is the faith that saves you, but it is works that keep that faith alive. Works alone (going through the motions) isn’t sufficient, nor is faith alone, though we are judged based on our faith and not our works, that much seems clear.
you can’t do something here that really would earn you eternal damnation
I don’t think that’s consistent with the majority of religious thought. For example, Judas Iscariot is commonly accepted as having been damned, so surely there is something you can do to earn eternal damnation, according to Protestantism. In fact, the rule here seems to be pretty simple, to earn damnation, you need to not accept Jesus as your savior, and it seems that, given 1 Peter 3:19-20, you have a chance at that after this life (i.e. if you would’ve accepted Jesus in life, you receive salvation even if you didn’t have the opportunity in life). You don’t get damnation for regular sin, only for that denial.
My personal belief here is a bit different than the protestant one. I don’t think the Bible really supports there being one heaven and one hell, but instead something like this:
- damnation/hell - completely cut off from God because you never accepted him in the first place
- spirit prison - some kind of holding place where you await judgement and are given a chance to accept Jesus if you didn’t have it in life
- heaven - reward for your faith in life, and the reward likely includes some form of additional progression/learning (God is truth, so life with God means life w/ truth, i.e. learning)
The Bible isn’t clear on what the next life is actually like, but it does seem to imply there’s something comparable to this life after we die, provided we exercise faith in Jesus (else why would we need a resurrection?). I think the top priority for God is to ensure we’re comfortable in the next life, so putting someone who denied Jesus in his presence for eternity wouldn’t really fit, they’d instead feel more comfortable away from God’s presence, and the “suffering” is probably largely based on knowing what they could have had (i.e. guilt).
That’s my take reading between the lines. But the important part is generally agreeing that faith is the most import and works are merely there to reinforce that faith, and that we’ll be rewarded based on our faith, not our works.
Well protestant can mean anything from high Anglican to happy clappy Pentecostal.
The big realisation by Martin Luther that led to Protestantism was that it was all about grace and nothing else matters. There are other things (fruits, works, call them what you will), but none of them lead to salvation - only grace. That is the very core of Protestant Christianity in all its forms.
Sure.
My point is that faith is still something you need to cultivate, and that’s what leads to salvation. According to Protestants, Joe Blow who has never heard about Jesus isn’t saved because he hasn’t attained the faith needed to receive that grace. Maybe you don’t need a baptismal service or other ritual to be saved, but you do need faith.
If grace truly was all that was needed, what’s the point of these churches existing, and who doesn’t get salvation? Protestants certainly have a concept of hell, so there’s certainly something you need to do to avoid it (believe in Jesus and that he has saved you).
“Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer” has entered the chat
A new one came out last year that will be added to my rotation from now on: Santa Claus is Amazon by Jesse Welles. It’s a short one but it makes me laugh and also a bit sad.
I liked the ‘…trading elves for slaves…’ line
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3K2kaqUlcUc
There’s the link to the video on his account. I got the name slightly wrong, it’s Amazon Santa Claus. It’s also on all streaming platforms too.
Also, “Christmas at Ground Zero”.
I never heard that one before.
Here’s another witty song about mass death.
https://youtu.be/TIoBrob3bjI?list=RDTIoBrob3bjI
Tom Lehrer. “We Will All Go Together When We Go.”
Tom is the man.
As of recently: was the man.
This falls under “I want shit” for people who hate their grandma.
I’m a school bus driver. Last Christmas a notice went up on the garage board stating that Christmas decorations on the buses were now banned. It was stated that some of the non-Christian parents in the district were objecting to the Jesus aspect of the holiday, although none of the drivers had done anything to their buses other than the standard secular stuff like Santa and the reindeer and presents and shit.
It eventually came out that it was only one parent, and that the bus driver culprit was me - because I had asked my kids to stop singing the same two Christmas songs that they knew and asked them to instead learn “The Little Drummer Boy” which is like the only Christmas song that I actually like. It was especially ironic because I’m a fucking atheist and I just happen to like the melody and structure of that song.
Every other parent in the district went batshit over the decoration ban and it was quickly rescinded, with our director of transportation and our superintendent playing a hilarious game of blaming the other for imposing the ban in the first place. Both have since been replaced.
Also Atheist, also think Little Drummer Boy is the best Christmas song. It’s a lot more forlorn rather than all the “be happy and joyful” crap that gets crammed down your throat every year. My only problem with Little Drummer Boy is the number of people who sing it try to wank it up with stupid timings and long or hurried phrases. Just sing it at an even pace and it’s good!
Damn… Can’t believe you oppressed Christmas like that… 😓 Jesus will be very sad 😠
Par rumpa pum pum motherfucker!
Wow, that’s absolutely terrible. And Little Drummer Boy is a fantastic song with a good message (give from the heart) regardless of your religious beliefs.
Jingle Bell Rock
The penultimate holiday song would be about…
Praising Jesus for saving us from eternal death, but also asking for his return so we can have an age of debauchery full of alcohol fueled orgies with Santa. And it’s snowing, I guess.
And the ultimate?
There’s also that one about how stinky Batman is.
