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hairscapades wrote:Absolutely hilarious. I was raised in a fundamentalist Christian household and went to a Catholic school until grade 8. I was the only kid that I knew that didn't celebrate Christmas and I was the only person who could defend their position on the subject.

Christmas is, at its very core, a pagan festival. Saturnalia was adopted by early Christians purely out of convenience and has since been overwritten by a religion that flaunts its reveling in the nonsensical at seemingly every possible opportunity. There are parts of the Bible that expressly contradict the timeframe of Christmas. A most integral part (the angels appearing to the shepherds) is contradicted by every other historical source and, also, common sense in that sheep aren't put to pasture in December on account of it's the fucking winter time. It boogles the mind that this farce is so widely accepted.

=w= wrote:I never thought that anybody actually thought that Christmas was anything more than a Celebration of his Birth, as opposed to, indeed, his birthday. The convenience of taking the Pagan day does not harm the validity of it as a celebration, in my eyes.

hairscapades wrote:

=w= wrote:I never thought that anybody actually thought that Christmas was anything more than a Celebration of his Birth, as opposed to, indeed, his birthday. The convenience of taking the Pagan day does not harm the validity of it as a celebration, in my eyes.

You seem to be underestimating the willfulness of Christians. It is normal to celebrate "the anniversary of the birth of Jesus". It's pretty cut and dry that this isn't just a celebration of a more abstract date, this is taken as the literal anniversary of Christ's birth.

Aethiests

hairscapades wrote:

=w= wrote:I never thought that anybody actually thought that Christmas was anything more than a Celebration of his Birth, as opposed to, indeed, his birthday. The convenience of taking the Pagan day does not harm the validity of it as a celebration, in my eyes.

You seem to be underestimating the willfulness of Christians. It is normal to celebrate "the anniversary of the birth of Jesus". It's pretty cut and dry that this isn't just a celebration of a more abstract date, this is taken as the literal anniversary of Christ's birth.

ＭＡＸＸＸＯＮ wrote:I and everyone I know are fully aware that it can't possibly be Christ's literal birthday, and that Christmas was set on that date to provide an alternative to the pagan day. It's kind of like if one of the most popular girls in school throws a party, and then another more popular girl is like "Well I'll throw a bigger and better party on the same day so nobody's coming to your party!" It's stupid, but that doesn't stop us from celebrating anyway.

hairscapades wrote:a group that believes in the literal transubstantiation of their deity into bread and wine which they then consume?

T̷s͢uk̕a͡t͜ư wrote:

hairscapades wrote:a group that believes in the literal transubstantiation of their deity into bread and wine which they then consume?

You forgot "(but somehow they don't identify as cannibals)".

Theodore_owens_^ wrote:

T̷s͢uk̕a͡t͜ư wrote:

hairscapades wrote:a group that believes in the literal transubstantiation of their deity into bread and wine which they then consume?

You forgot "(but somehow they don't identify as cannibals)".

It's not cannibalism because they only pretend they're eating him!

hairscapades wrote:Do you think it's unreasonable for me take this tidbit of absurdity at face value from a group that believes in the literal transubstantiation of their deity into bread and wine which they then consume?

Skyling wrote:

hairscapades wrote:Do you think it's unreasonable for me take this tidbit of absurdity at face value from a group that believes in the literal transubstantiation of their deity into bread and wine which they then consume?

Surely you realize it's much more metaphorical than that?

hairscapades wrote:

Skyling wrote:

hairscapades wrote:Do you think it's unreasonable for me take this tidbit of absurdity at face value from a group that believes in the literal transubstantiation of their deity into bread and wine which they then consume?

Surely you realize it's much more metaphorical than that?

I forgive you because I'm pretty sure you've never been to a catholic mass and I want you to completely understand what I'm about to tell you.

When I went to a Catholic school and we went to mandatory mass to receive the Eucharist (of which I didn't partake because I was a sinful Protestant) the teacher discourage the students from chewing the wafer that they received because it was disrespectful to chew the body of Christ. You were supposed to let this cardboardesque wafer dissolve on your tongue until you could swallow it whole so that you did not sacrilegiously rend the body of our Lord. Can I be more plain than this? Shit is fucking crazy as fuck!

ＭＡＸＸＸＯＮ wrote:

hairscapades wrote:When I went to a Catholic school and we went to mandatory mass to receive the Eucharist (of which I didn't partake because I was a sinful Protestant) the teacher discourage the students from chewing the wafer that they received because it was disrespectful to chew the body of Christ. You were supposed to let this cardboardesque wafer dissolve on your tongue until you could swallow it whole so that you did not sacrilegiously rend the body of our Lord. Can I be more plain than this? Shit is fucking crazy as fuck!

I'm not Catholic, and no Protestant church I've ever been to has ever done/said that. Maybe that's a Catholic thing?

• Represent his likeness with the most heartwarming and flattering photo I can find.
• Celebrate his accomplishments and his goals.
• Put a high emphasis on praising his positive qualities, particularly the selflessness and bravery which led him to trade his life for mine.
• Dedicate my life to the pursuit of something meaningful.

• Present him to others at his absolute lowest point, putting the focus on the consequences he suffered rather than his personality or his good deeds. Litter the procession with photos of his mangled corpse wrapped around the bus tire.
• Describe his good deeds only to emphasize how great the person was whom I murdered with my negligence.
• Fixate obsessively on the fact that he was killed. Make this the central point of conversation about him, and make sure that others closely associate his name with his death.
• Devote my life to ensuring that everyone knows just how dead he is because of me. Show the photos of the gruesome scene to strangers to show what he was willing to suffer on my behalf. Claim it isn't about me, though.

- Celebrate his accomplishments and his goals.
- Put a high emphasis on praising his positive qualities, particularly the selflessness and bravery which led him to trade his life for mine.
- Dedicate my life to the pursuit of something meaningful.

Also, it mirrors the last supper, where Jesus said something to the same sort of the whole 'Eat my flesh, drink my blood' thing. No, the 12 did not take a big ol' bite out of Jesus' hand.

ＭＡＸＸＸＯＮ wrote:

Also, it mirrors the last supper, where Jesus said something to the same sort of the whole 'Eat my flesh, drink my blood' thing. No, the 12 did not take a big ol' bite out of Jesus' hand.

(I spent minutes trying to word this sentence properly; eventually I just thought "screw it") Like he said, it's metaphorical, and if we don't do what the most prominent figure in our religion told us to do (and the night before he died, no less), how the hell can we consider ourselves followers of said religion?

TRANSUBSTANTIATION, the term adopted by the Roman Catholic Church to express her teaching on the subject of the conversion of the Bread and Wine into the Body and Blood of Christ in the Eucharist. Its signification was authoritatively defined by the Council of Trent in the following words: "If any one shall say that, in the Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist there remains, together with the Body and Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ, the substance of the Bread and Wine, and shall deny that wonderful and singular conversion of the whole substance of the Bread into (His) Body and of the Wine into (His) Blood, the species only of the Bread and Wine remaining - which conversion the Catholic Church most fittingly calls Transubstantiation - let him be anathema." The word Transubstantiation is not found earlier than the 12th century. But in the Eucharistic controversies of the 9th, 10th and 11th centuries the views which the term embodies were clearly expressed; as, for example, by Radbertus Paschasius (d. 865), who wrote that "the substance of the Bread and Wine is efficaciously changed interiorly into the Flesh and Blood of Christ," and that after the consecration what is there is "nothing else but Christ the Bread of Heaven."