Happy Festivus!

[Kidlicious]

People are spending less these days even at christmas. I really think it's disgusting that non-christians celebrate the "holidays" though. How materialistic is that? I mean wtf are you celebrating, the fact that you have more than poorer people? That is my grievance. Happy Festivous.

[notyoueither]

You don't need to be Christian to recognise that peace on Earth and goodwill towards men are good ideas.

[Dinner]

People are spending less these days even at christmas.

Not really. There were just six fewer days between Thanksgiving and Xmas. Spending per day was actually up.

[Ban Kenobi]

People are spending less these days even at christmas. I really think it's disgusting that non-christians celebrate the "holidays" though. How materialistic is that? I mean wtf are you celebrating, the fact that you have more than poorer people? That is my grievance. Happy Festivous.

I think it's really sad that you think Christians invented the "holidays".

http://apolyton.net/showthread.php/204786-Merry-Christmas!?p=6282091&viewfull=1#post6282091

[Dinner]

Fox is upset that there are Festivus polls in both the OK and FL's state capitals. Florida should get one of its many strippers to poll dance on the Festivus poll and maybe that will make Fox happy. Everyone likes a poll dancer.

[Elok]

IIUC, there's a pretty strong argument to be made that pagans only started making a big deal about the Solstice after Christians started celebrating the Nativity around that date. Some of the first Christians (incorrectly) calculated the date of the first Good Friday as March 25, and apparently back in the day it was a common belief that holy men were conceived/born and died on the same day. Hence March 25 is the Feast of the Annunciation, and you can guess where the date of Christmas comes from.

As the story goes, one of the emperors in the 200s made the Solstice a feast of Sol Invictus to try and replace the Nativity, Christianity being annoying and illegal. Christians then stole it back, so to speak. I haven't verified it--just read about it the other day--but it makes sense. I know the part about March 25 being Good Friday/Easter is a very ancient tradition, and it did seem odd that the Annunciation just happened to fall on precisely the same date.

I also know that a lot of the information about paganism floating around the internet--and especially about pagan/Christian parallels or borrowing--is bogus. There was a fun Facebook meme a while back that somehow conflated Ishtar and Eostre, and there's plenty more in that vein. Much of the rest of it was cooked up during the nineteenth century by overenthusiastic scholars and/or outright frauds.

Anyway, happy Festivus, you guys. Did that count as a grievance?

[Dinner]

IIUC, there's a pretty strong argument to be made that pagans only started making a big deal about the Solstice after Christians started celebrating the Nativity around that date.

Ah, no, there is great evidence that it was going on long before Christ.

[Elok]

Saturnalia is ancient, I grant you; however, as a holiday, it doesn't much resemble Christmas (it seems to have evolved into Twelfth Night, etc., if anything--a brief period of greatly expanded personal license), and the way the Romans did things you couldn't swing a cat in any season of the year without hitting some form of festival or ceremony. Saturnalia also ended two days before Christmas, on the twenty-third. The festival of Sol Invictus, OTOH, was created by the emperor Aurelian in the year 274, to fall on Dec. 25 precisely. Which is actually a few days AFTER the solstice. Here's a reasonable, if somewhat long-winded, argument for the reverse of the usual argument:

http://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/biblical-topics/new-testament/how-december-25-became-christmas/

[Elok]

(I did overstate my case there, you're right)

[Elok]

I might add that, even if pre-Christian customs were integrated into Xmas, it doesn't necessarily follow that they were deliberately coopted as part of a sinister plan to subvert traditional pagan religion. Plenty of secular Jews celebrate Christmas today, minus everything about Jesus. It's not that they're trying to neuter the holiday; they just enjoy giving presents, chugging eggnog, and spreading some gibberish story about a flying fatty in red pants, and see no reason to bother with the part about a first-century Jewish preacher being born in a stable.

Geez, my first day back and I'm already falling for trolls. Back to doing something meaningful!

[Kidlicious]

I think it's really sad that you think Christians invented the "holidays".

http://apolyton.net/showthread.php/2...=1#post6282091

No. Materialists invented it.

[regexcellent]

I got a deep fat fryer and a book on the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, was a pretty good haul.

[DinoDoc]

I got a deep fat fryer and a book on the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, was a pretty good haul.

I got the Nolan Batman trilogy for Blu-ray and Assassin's Creed: Black Flag for the PS3.

[Hauldren Collider]

I got a leatherman, the new Zelda game for the 3DS, and a whole ****ton of candy. Life is good.

[N35t0r]

Leathermans

I got a current clamp+multimeter, a kindle fire HD (BD+XMas gift from my mother, which she gave me two months ago) so far.