Tim Blair

While at the post office today I checked out a display of John Sands Christmas cards. Those with any actual reference to Christ's birth were in a sub-category- 'religious.' Blimey. Oh well, as long as atheists and anti-Christians aren't so hypocritical as to take a day off work, on December 25th.

Poverty? It's all Australia's fault. (Second story: 'Embarrassingly pathetic'.)

They starve because we drink caffe lattes. Or at least, if we didn't, and contributed their value, Africans would survive.

I've never drunk a caffe latte in my life.

Lefties, get the hell outta those cafes and start saving African lives. Your lattes are killing children.

Oh please. Christmas is not and should not be treated as a religious holiday. Jesus wasnt even born in December, more like April or so.

I agree with Mark, but his pollitical swipe was beyond brainless.

Nic, are you brainless?

Easter isn't the date when Jesus was slapped on a cross, either. The queen's birthday isn't Liz's day of birth. There's no evidence any Muslim or Jewish religious feast occurs on the day that happened in history either.

Christmas was a religious feast even before Christianity.

It's like saying, "I'm sorry, mate, I can't go to your birthday party - it's not on the exact day."

You really are stupid.

Nic, raw facts aside, it's only fair to ask - would you protest if we decided to celebrate Christ's birth on, say, May 1?

Thing is, QG's comment is really pertinent here. The Church, to aid its mission, will not just baptize people, but their cultural practices and ideas. Plato and Aristotle (to name but two) contributed to the thought of the theologians, for example. And rather than outright ban celebrations of pagan festivals, the Church chose to put them on more solid footing, converting them into (for example) Christmas and Easter.

It's a real-life Rumpelstiltsken operation - straw, spun into gold.

..Christmas is not and should not be treated as a religious holiday...

LOL! Maybe not in your world, Nic. Sacrificing your VISA card to Mammon this year?

As an aetheist I demand my right to eat and drink to excess so that I have a valid reason to stay on the couch all boxing day and watch the test and start of the Sydney-Hobart. This must be a human right by now. Is there a UN convention tht supports it or something?

Next thing you know, the ABC will scrap the Queen's Speech on Christmas Day. I'm sure the collective already have plans to replace it with a Sorry Day workshop on indigenous wimmins' rights. Oh wait, I forgot, that's on SBS. The ABC will have Clover Moore on the meaning of Christmas.

Im aware of the facts. Christmas was originally a pagan festival, as was Easter but the Church restamped them to aid with the assimilation of the worshipers of the Roman pantheon religion. I think most people know that.

I am religious, but I celebrate both holidays in a purely secular manner without any of the religious aspects. Christ never wanted us to celebrate his birthday, regardless of what date it was on. And we are supposed to remember his death and ressurection every Sunday.

But since the holidays exist I will use them, but in a secular manner.

QG, the difference with the Jewish passover is that they were actually instructed to celebrate that day each year, whereas christians were never instructed to observe christmas or easter, and early chistians observed neither as they were an invention of the catholic church.

You're such a priss.

Nic

You are a fuckwit lying scumbucket.

I could go into detail, but I don't see the point.

Oh, I forgot.

"STEYN RETURNS"

Mark Steyn is first only to Tim Blair.

Come back Mark - we need you: as PM of Canada