The Reason for the Season?
I try not to make serious posts about issues or topics, but this link: http://standforchristmas.com/pages/home has been showing up several times on my friend's page. Being a Christian myself, who tries to keep an open mind, I felt compelled to share my own opinions as well. Feel free to skip. I've tried to be not offensive in expressing my opinions, and I've tried to be open-minded, but still. I'm sure someone is going to get upset.
To start off, I'm going to say, that on the whole I don't have a problem with the site. ON THE WHOLE. Yes, there are crazy insane bigoted people on it saying offensive and terribly narrow-minded things. Yes, people are going to use it to decide what stores to shop at based on their level of Christianity. But at the heart of the matter, there are three ratings: "Christmas-Friendly", "Christmas-Negligent", and "Christmas-Offensive". It isn't supposed to be that (or it shouldn't be that), "This store supports Christmas, so I'm a gonna go shop there", or that "This store is full of heathens, I'm not going to shop there because I'll go to hell". It's really more "Does this store respect my beliefs at all?". "Does this store even acknowledge what this holiday means for me?" And for the most part, recently, the answer has been no.
Now, I'm not saying I'm not going to shop at a store because it doesn't say "Merry Christmas". Or because it doesn't play "Silent Night". But as a Christian, it would be nice to celebrate the holidays with my own beliefs and not feel like the world hates me for it. I try to respect other religions, to be understanding, and accepting, but if feels like, as of late, I haven't been getting that same respect. I know, there are a lot of insane, narrow-minded, and offensive Christians, but not all of us are like that.
I see the need to respect those who don't believe the same as I do, by not shoving the Christ in Christmas down their throat. But at the same time, I don't really think it should be removed completely either. I'm sorry if this thinking may offend anyone, but doing that is like saying that the world on a whole doesn't even acknowledge that there might be a Christian aspect to the holiday. It can be very frustrating, trying to sort through my feelings, wondering if I'm not being opened minded enough because I feel this way, and I hope I'm not offending anyone, but this is just how I feel.
I'm not asking stores to say "Merry Christmas" to their customers, because if someone isn't a Christian, that may be offensive. I'm not asking for Christian Christmas Carols to be played all the time, everywhere. At Build-a-Bear, they played Christmas, Hanukkah, and Kwanzaa music, as well as your standard fair non-committal songs. It respected all the ideas it could have, while not completely ignoring the fact that they existed. I don't see anything WRONG with that. I don't see anything wrong with a store like Wal-Mart selling a nativity scene (as long as they sell other things for other religions as well). Having it there isn't saying "YOU MUST BE A CHRISTIAN BECAUSE I AM A NATIVITY SCENE AND I SAY SO!!". Having it there is saying, "Hey, some people just might believe that their savior was born this day, deal with it."
Christians are always given this bad rap for taking offense at the littlest things (and I will admit, it's true), but they aren't the only ones. The reason anything about Christ has been removed from almost everywhere ever during this season is because of others complaining about that. It seems as if the only people who should be respected now are the people who don't believe in anything, no offense to atheists. And I'm not just talking about Christianity, I'm talking about anything religious about the holidays for anyone.
We're all about religious freedom, and respecting others beliefs but not acknowledging a religion is not respect. Places like Wal-Mart are neutral ground, they should be able to respect religion without people freaking out that they are being offended. And I'm not saying play gospel music all year around. I'm saying play "Away in a Manger" at CHRISTMAS. If you actually read some of the non-crazy comments on the webpage above, the main problem is that Christianity is not even being acknowledged. It's called CHRISTmas for Christ's sake! And it's not even being ACKNOWLEDGED. THAT is the problem. Not that stores aren't making Christmas the focal point of the store, no one should expect that even if they do, but it shouldn't be ignored either. Or, at least, so I feel.
Again, I hope I didn't offend anyone. This is just what I feel, and I'm not saying by any means that I am right, because an opinion can't be wrong or right. It's just that, an opinion. And as many have given theirs, I have given mine. Decoded, this means, you are free to comment and tell me your opinion on what I said, but please don't be mean to me!! ;____; I love you?
To start off, I'm going to say, that on the whole I don't have a problem with the site. ON THE WHOLE. Yes, there are crazy insane bigoted people on it saying offensive and terribly narrow-minded things. Yes, people are going to use it to decide what stores to shop at based on their level of Christianity. But at the heart of the matter, there are three ratings: "Christmas-Friendly", "Christmas-Negligent", and "Christmas-Offensive". It isn't supposed to be that (or it shouldn't be that), "This store supports Christmas, so I'm a gonna go shop there", or that "This store is full of heathens, I'm not going to shop there because I'll go to hell". It's really more "Does this store respect my beliefs at all?". "Does this store even acknowledge what this holiday means for me?" And for the most part, recently, the answer has been no.
Now, I'm not saying I'm not going to shop at a store because it doesn't say "Merry Christmas". Or because it doesn't play "Silent Night". But as a Christian, it would be nice to celebrate the holidays with my own beliefs and not feel like the world hates me for it. I try to respect other religions, to be understanding, and accepting, but if feels like, as of late, I haven't been getting that same respect. I know, there are a lot of insane, narrow-minded, and offensive Christians, but not all of us are like that.
I see the need to respect those who don't believe the same as I do, by not shoving the Christ in Christmas down their throat. But at the same time, I don't really think it should be removed completely either. I'm sorry if this thinking may offend anyone, but doing that is like saying that the world on a whole doesn't even acknowledge that there might be a Christian aspect to the holiday. It can be very frustrating, trying to sort through my feelings, wondering if I'm not being opened minded enough because I feel this way, and I hope I'm not offending anyone, but this is just how I feel.
I'm not asking stores to say "Merry Christmas" to their customers, because if someone isn't a Christian, that may be offensive. I'm not asking for Christian Christmas Carols to be played all the time, everywhere. At Build-a-Bear, they played Christmas, Hanukkah, and Kwanzaa music, as well as your standard fair non-committal songs. It respected all the ideas it could have, while not completely ignoring the fact that they existed. I don't see anything WRONG with that. I don't see anything wrong with a store like Wal-Mart selling a nativity scene (as long as they sell other things for other religions as well). Having it there isn't saying "YOU MUST BE A CHRISTIAN BECAUSE I AM A NATIVITY SCENE AND I SAY SO!!". Having it there is saying, "Hey, some people just might believe that their savior was born this day, deal with it."
Christians are always given this bad rap for taking offense at the littlest things (and I will admit, it's true), but they aren't the only ones. The reason anything about Christ has been removed from almost everywhere ever during this season is because of others complaining about that. It seems as if the only people who should be respected now are the people who don't believe in anything, no offense to atheists. And I'm not just talking about Christianity, I'm talking about anything religious about the holidays for anyone.
We're all about religious freedom, and respecting others beliefs but not acknowledging a religion is not respect. Places like Wal-Mart are neutral ground, they should be able to respect religion without people freaking out that they are being offended. And I'm not saying play gospel music all year around. I'm saying play "Away in a Manger" at CHRISTMAS. If you actually read some of the non-crazy comments on the webpage above, the main problem is that Christianity is not even being acknowledged. It's called CHRISTmas for Christ's sake! And it's not even being ACKNOWLEDGED. THAT is the problem. Not that stores aren't making Christmas the focal point of the store, no one should expect that even if they do, but it shouldn't be ignored either. Or, at least, so I feel.
Again, I hope I didn't offend anyone. This is just what I feel, and I'm not saying by any means that I am right, because an opinion can't be wrong or right. It's just that, an opinion. And as many have given theirs, I have given mine. Decoded, this means, you are free to comment and tell me your opinion on what I said, but please don't be mean to me!! ;____; I love you?