The True Meaning Behind Christmas Pt. 2

Now, after the long talk about the stupid claims by the pagans that today isn't our dear lord, saviour of the world, son of God, Jesus Christ's day of birth (How dare they!), which leads

to implications that the many elements of the Christian religion are actually

made up and many of the previous leaders of the Catholic Church used the religion as a political tool (We all know how untrue this is! Well except for the Protestants, that is.), I am now going to talk about the non-religious side of Christmas.

The most concept of Christmas, I dare say, is actually not that of the birth of Jesus Christ. Rather, the most mainstream and popular concept of Christmas, is the version romanticised by literature genius Charles Dickens. Charles Dickens, through his acclaimed classic novel, A Christmas Carol, conveyed that the Spirit of Christmas is generosity and charity.

During that time the Protestants were in power in England, and they being Pope hating (but still very nice) people denounced Christmas, leading Christmas into decline. But Charles Dickens literature was so powerful and touching, it rekindled the Christmas spark.

So for atheists, protestants, non-Christians, and so on and so forth out there, please don't forsake Christmas celebrations just because it might be a made up celebration by the Catholic church. I know it might sound cliche: The true meaning behind Christmas is spending time with your loved ones and spread generosity, and show love.

I myself don't really celebrate Christmas(no tree, no presents, food yes but not the traditional feast), since my family is not particularly westernised, but I would love to celebrate it.

But touching on generosity, which leads one to think of the gifts Christmas herald, I would have to do an extension and touch on commercialism as well. It seems that, people are crazy over gifts and commercialism is strong. It's good for the economy really, and people enjoy it. I don't see the point in whining over it, if it doesn't get in the way of the Christmas spirit. Getting together with family and friends, having a feast, and watch as kids unwrap their presents with expressions of absolute delight, and listen to their elated shrieks or look at their wide but restraint grins when they see presents they love. That's part of the joy of Christmas, is it not?

The Pope though, seems to mind it a lot: http://edition.cnn.com/2011/12/24/world/europe/vatican-pope-christmas/

Superficial glitter? Yes, Christmas is heavily commercialised and is a mainstream pop-culture festival. So? Just because people don't commemorate the birth of our dear savior - who might be born sometime earlier than Winter - doesn't mean you can't appreciate it. Are Christians goddamn hipsters or something now?

The modern Christmas, unlike its previous incarnations, are accessible to everyone from all the different religions and culture, its like a amalgamation of all the Winter Solstice celebrations into one Super Festival, Christmas does not belong to Christians, not anymore.

The true meaning behind Christmas is simple: Generosity and charity, and enjoying yourself with your family. People tend to ignore such stuff throughout the year, so why not just relax and enjoy this day?

The True Meaning Behind Christmas Pt. 1

Ah, the true meaning of Christmas. Christmas, the heartwarming holiday set on 25th of December to celebrate the birth of our saviour, the son of God, Jesus Christ. Don't stop believing that Christians, keep the faith strong.

I am confused by some articles I read online lately. While there is much debate and controversy, I present you with the other side of the story, which I gathered from batshit insane and extremely radical anti-Christian sites that hate you guys, the lovely Christians to death:

Jesus isn't actually born in December, much less December 25th, his exact date of birth could be considered controversial, it is a mystery. But there is a special time of the year, winter solstice, where they experience the shortest day and longest night of the year. The pagans hold festivals during this time. And the Catholic Church set the holy date of Christmas during the celebrations.

For a more detailed alleged and self-proclaimed debunk of the Jesus' Birthday myth: http://www.truthbeknown.com/first-christmas.html

If it proves to be true, the choice of Christmas as the celebration of the birth of the holy saviour was nothing but a political and popularity-winning move, to provide an alternative to the celebration of the winter solstice celebrated by the Pagans. Thus effectively converting the poor, misguided pagans to the one true religion.

The Catholic Church adopted the festival following the Pagans, which mainly fall on dates nearing the end of December, close to solstice. If there was no winter solstice, you could very well say the choice of 25th December was arbitrary and the Church did not respect our much revered saviour.

Though I do admit, if this is true, the Church did prove to like its followers, and wanted them to have the same celebrations the Pagans, whom the hated so much, so they could enjoy themselves.

But who's to say this assertion is true? After all, the Pope is infallible right? Oh wait, there are those Protestant guys.

Thus ends Pt. 1 of my Christmas special, the audacious claims by pagans that the 25th of December isn't actually the birthday of Jesus. I shall continue to talk about the meaning behind Christmas in Pt. 2.

The Battle Between Freedom of Speech and Freedom of Religion

Freedom of Speech v Freedom of Religion

Personally, as an atheist, I view religion as an evil and irrational concept that the world doesn't need and I try to convince religious people to steer away from their path. But I respect that people have their views, and if I cannot convince them, they should be allowed to practice their religion -like how Republicans are still allowed to run for elections- I cannot forcibly separate a fool from his toy; That would be cruel.

But I see that many fools so infatuated with their toys, they worship their toy to such a crazy extent, they place the toy's well being far before anyone else's and they want to protect the toy from any sort of harm. These religious folk are what I consider to be culprits who assume the freedom of religion supersedes the freedom of speech.

And I can tell you, they are very wrong.

Many of these fools come from this country they like to mistake as a "Christian country" on the continent of North America, located South of Canada, the United States of America. For those of you unfamiliar with this country full of misguided people (this is actually directed at Americans, they don't even know their own country), it consists of 50 states, including some famous states such as California (Hollywood here!!!), Hawaii (resorts here!!!), and Texas (Rednecks here!!!). It originally started off as 13 British colonies that grew fed up with the British Empire and declared independence through the American Revolution, led by a group of people commonly referred to as "the founding fathers". They are a democratic republic and the supreme law of the land is the document called the Constitution of the Republic of the United States of America.

Forgive me for my poor understanding and inaccurate information on the history of the United States of America, but that was instrumental in allowing our American friends to briefly understand the history of their country and the nature of freedom of speech and religion.

Where does freedom of speech and religion come from? The constitution of course. If you ever dabbled in American politics, you'd definitely heard of the holy "first amendment". So what is this first amendment? It is an amendment to the constitution to allow freedom of speech and freedom of religion. It also establishes secularism, that is the separation of church from state, whereby the state absolutely must not favour any religion over the other religions. It absolutely must not.

That is why the United States of America is not a Christian country. Not because we atheists say so, but because the supreme law of the land, the constitution says so. In fact, people should be prosecuted for treason for trying to violate the constitution. Anyone with basic knowledge of law should know of the rule of law, whereby no one is above the law, not even the majority at any time. It is ironic that many religious, the conservatives, are the ones that often tout constitutionalism, when they are the ones claiming the nation to be biased towards the Christians.

That aside, let me expand on how the freedom of speech is superior to the freedom of religion. Freedom of religion is only the freedom to exercise religion, citizens have the freedom to believe in what they want, and carry out practices in accordance to their religion as long as they don't violate any laws. It does not protect them from criticism, or gives them special rights in speech and press. Freedom of speech is the freedom to express your opinions and beliefs, everyone has freedom to express their views on any subject, as long as they don't violate laws or infringe on other's civil rights. That is freedom of speech.

Religious people can express their religious beliefs, but non-religious or people from other religions can in return, crticise their views. You can critcise someone's actions, as long as it doesn't go overboard and cause them immense emotional injury and social estrangement, that is defamation and bullying. Insults are fine to a certain extent, but bullying is definitely wrong, and you can be sued for defamation, as the government protects the individual's rights to a healthy reputation.

So before religious people spout off their mouth next time, saying "Keep your views to yourself, don't criticise my religion", they should rethink it. They have the freedom to say such audacious and moronic sentences, but everyone else has the freedom to form their opinion. They don't want to look like idiots, do they? (Though honestly, I think they look like idiots already.)

Revelations about Pseudo Communism

Just yesterday, North Korea's "Dear Leader" Kim Jong Il passed away: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-16261060

In comments of similar articles, you would often see people denouncing him, for example: "Good riddance, you tyrant"(Made up example). But many a times, I often notice extensions to these sort of comments, for example: "Good riddance, to this communist tyrant". That's where people begin to step the line of ignorance.

As a social democrat, I think people don't seem to understand, or even have the very basic knowledge of what communism is. Many of the "Communist" countries in the world, i.e. Soviet, China, Vietnam and North Korea, are nothing but pseudo-socialist countries run by fascist regimes.

Communism, as anyone should be able to derive from its name, is centered on "community". More specifically, for a wikipedia definition: Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, stateless and revolutionary socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production.

Anyone can proclaim themselves to be anything, but actions speak louder than words, these self-proclaimed "communist states" are different from Marxist-Communism. They are definitely run by right-wing fascist regimes, and not left-wing socialist regimes. They most certainly do not protect the proletariat, and most certainly do not support classlessness.

For example, The People's Republic of China, they proclaim themselves as "communists" or "socialists", but in all seriousness, since the days of Deng Xiaoping China has been nothing more than a terribly exploited hybrid capitalist state run by a fascist regime. Do you see the proletariat being protected from the bourgeoisie? No, the income gap inequality is glaring, there is obviously class discrimination going on.

Most of us leftists who would consider themselves "socialists" or even "communists" prefer the original Marxist-Communism laid out by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in their masterpiece The Communist Manifesto, one of a classless, stateless and equal utopia, not this Stalinist-wannabe fascist bullshit. So, people shouldn't be denouncing communism because of China or North Korea, they should be criticising fascism, and the dictators running the fascist regimes.

If they want to critic communism, they should be criticising the design and structure of it, but not blasting it based on "examples" like these.

Racism

So, I realise that one of the biggest taboos around today is racism. But seriously, I don't see any taboo in it.

The concept of racial distinction is absurd hogwash. Humans are humans, the difference in skin pigment and physical traits are just a result of natural selection, why make a big deal out of it? I mean c'mon, with working out, or tanning people can look just like any other race. People who say "Hey look, don't discriminate other races, learn to accept our differences." are, in my opinion, actually racists(not in the actual sense of the word of course, they don't discriminate). Intentionally treating minority races better is just as bad as discrimination.

Firstly, rather than "accepting differences", why not understand that this differences are meaningless? We should be teaching our children to be "colour blind" instead. It is because of the consciousness of racial distinction that there will always be racism.

Secondly, racist jokes are funny. Yes, they are racist, so what? The whole notion of racial distinction is ridiculous, we should just have a laugh at it. It's like laughing at the concept of religion. We are just making fun out of something ridiculous, we are not genuinely racist, in fact I believe many people who crack racist jokes are open minded and accept other races. You can make fun of my race, I really don't care. Ching ching chong chong? Pronouncing "l" as "r"? Tiny eyes? Yeah, these seem to be some general observable traits, laugh at them all you want.

I believe we shouldn't be advocating black presidents over white presidents, in the end, it's his/her policies that matter. So why does it matter if the president is Obama? It shows social evolution in the electorate, so what? Such notions shouldn't exist in the first place. In fact, the Cherokees should have retained their land and have had a president in the past, I mean it's their fucking continent.

And I would like to clarify, while I think those that advocate racial harmony are racist, they are still better than rednecks, as they stand for an equality that should have existed in the first place, they are gradual reformists.

I want our next generation to be colour blind and not racially tolerant. I want them to not be able to understand racist jokes. I believe this is achievable through an efficient education system.

Domination! Domination!

Hello, fellow humans. You can call me Domination, or you can call me Supreme Overlord of the Universe, Mein Furher. Either is fine, though I would really appreciate if you address me by the latter. I'm just making a blog for the sake of making a blog. But hey, I do have a lot of stuff to rant about, which is perfect to post on this meaningless blog.

I am born in 1994 and I have lived in Singapore all my life. General interests I have are music, politics, religion/atheism, rationalism and ridiculous stuff, I love ridiculous stuff. I am still a student, currently studying law(I can only be a paralegal when I graduate, sadly) and I have a lot to learn.

Politically, I am a liberal, more specifically social democrat, I advocate controlled markets and social and fiscal liberalism. I believe that everyone is entitled to welfare, and social justice is paramount, economic growth is secondary. I have a lot of idols, my greatest idol is Franklin D Roosevelt, who's liberalism and love for the American people is well reflected through his New Deal policy and inspiring speeches(i.e. The Four Freedoms and the Second Bill of Rights). I'm also a fan of many political writings, such as Karl Marx's Communist Manifesto to Thomas Paine's Common Sense. I would advocate a Marxist-Communist Utopia, but I find it unrealistic as of the present political and social climate, thus instead, I advocate Social Democratic systems found in European countries(More specifically, the Nordic countries).

As for the matters relating to higher powers, I am an atheist and I do not believe in higher powers. I reject baseless religious dogma, and advocate the physical sciences, with research based on empirical, logical or observable data. Obviously I am not a 100% atheist, there will always be doubt whether higher powers exist, so I am 90% atheist and 10% agnostic. But as far as religion goes, I believe most of them are baseless and untrue, and thus if higher powers existed, they would be completely different from what humans envisioned. You might have noticed how I used higher powers, and not higher power, and the reason is simple, most deists and agnostics like to use "higher power" or "creator", but who is to say the polytheistic religions' concept isn't as correct as the monotheistic religions?

So, hi. Enjoy my posts, if you don't, you can refute me or correct me or something,.