Happy Generic Federal Holiday
According to the sum of human writings and knowledge, our three most controversial federal holidays happen consecutively during the last three months of the year: Columbus Day, Thanksgiving Day, and Christmas Day.
Yet the people I know all throw their biggest annual parties around Christmas. Christmas Day is turned into an entire Holiday Season with Holiday Parties throughout the month of December, although on the Left we say "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas" in one of our routinely fake gestures toward multiculturalism.
I guess the parties, gifts, and decorative lights help to offset the gloom of the approaching winter solstice in this northern hemisphere, even if you aren't a Christian.
Christmas Day is our only explicily religious federal holiday, which in my mind would make it the most controversial of federal holidays, and if I were King Bug I'd abolish the federal observance of Christmas Day as a violation of the separation between Church and State. If Christian workers want to celebrate Christmas, let them take annual leave like the Jewish workers have to take annual leave for the Jewish holidays, and the Muslim workers have to take annual leave for the Muslim holidays, etc.
But, I also appreciate any day upon which I'm paid not to work, and now that I'm not a supervisor anymore I haven't needed to work on a paid "holiday". My work laptop will remain off today, as I head to the condo for some HONESTLY WELL DESERVED Time to Self.
First, I need to stretch my poor aching 57-year-old body. Then I'll have breakfast with T, then we'll open presents, then I'll see what else I need to clean up before I can disappear for one or two nights.
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As for Christianity itself ... in general I think Christianity would be a net positive force in the world if Christians ACTUALLY FOLLOWED THE WORDS OF JESUS. But, lots of them don't. I've read the gospels carefully, even reinterpreted one of them myself as a writing project. But even those who style themselves as evangelical Christians who take the words of the Bible as God's truth fall into patterns of selectively following only certain words of the Bible while ignoring others or rationalizing away others, while also making shit up like claiming that abortion is against the Bible.
The Bible does not explicitly mention or ban abortion, nor does it provide direct instructions on the topic.
For starters, Jesus was anti-praying in public, yet Christians go to churches every Sabbath to pray together in public, something that Jesus referred to as hypocritical.
Matthew 6:5-6:
"And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you."
I suggest Jesus would not even want a holiday commemorating his own birth. But, what can you do.
Yet the people I know all throw their biggest annual parties around Christmas. Christmas Day is turned into an entire Holiday Season with Holiday Parties throughout the month of December, although on the Left we say "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas" in one of our routinely fake gestures toward multiculturalism.
I guess the parties, gifts, and decorative lights help to offset the gloom of the approaching winter solstice in this northern hemisphere, even if you aren't a Christian.
Christmas Day is our only explicily religious federal holiday, which in my mind would make it the most controversial of federal holidays, and if I were King Bug I'd abolish the federal observance of Christmas Day as a violation of the separation between Church and State. If Christian workers want to celebrate Christmas, let them take annual leave like the Jewish workers have to take annual leave for the Jewish holidays, and the Muslim workers have to take annual leave for the Muslim holidays, etc.
But, I also appreciate any day upon which I'm paid not to work, and now that I'm not a supervisor anymore I haven't needed to work on a paid "holiday". My work laptop will remain off today, as I head to the condo for some HONESTLY WELL DESERVED Time to Self.
First, I need to stretch my poor aching 57-year-old body. Then I'll have breakfast with T, then we'll open presents, then I'll see what else I need to clean up before I can disappear for one or two nights.
-----
As for Christianity itself ... in general I think Christianity would be a net positive force in the world if Christians ACTUALLY FOLLOWED THE WORDS OF JESUS. But, lots of them don't. I've read the gospels carefully, even reinterpreted one of them myself as a writing project. But even those who style themselves as evangelical Christians who take the words of the Bible as God's truth fall into patterns of selectively following only certain words of the Bible while ignoring others or rationalizing away others, while also making shit up like claiming that abortion is against the Bible.
The Bible does not explicitly mention or ban abortion, nor does it provide direct instructions on the topic.
For starters, Jesus was anti-praying in public, yet Christians go to churches every Sabbath to pray together in public, something that Jesus referred to as hypocritical.
Matthew 6:5-6:
"And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you."
I suggest Jesus would not even want a holiday commemorating his own birth. But, what can you do.