Contra mistermix, the rabbinical David Broder, Brad Hirschfield says the war is on, motherfuckers:
That said, there are people who have made war on Christmas. They actively pursue actions, legal and otherwise, to undermine and denigrate the celebration of the holiday. They are angry athiests who are crusaders in their own right, and every bit as dangerous as those who beleive that until we all celebrate Christmas, we are a bad nation. Onbe side wants only Christmas, and the other wants no Christmas at all.
AA+ Bonds
Well, Christmas is oppressive and should be abolished, but I don’t really know how to do it
~(crams all your presents in a sack and wiggles up the chimney)~
FlipYrWhig
Both sides do it! It’s just like how all those militant intolerant vegans want to close down all cheesemongers. The truth lies in the middle.
Yutsano
@FlipYrWhig: And we’ll just have to leave it there…
Fluke bucket
When will we know the total sales figures of Obama Friday?
opie_jeanne
In honor of Black Friday, I give you the master: Stan Freberg.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YSPGJ5-XAcM
Rathskeller
They’re just talking to themselves. Only a small percentage of America truly gives a shit if the nativity scene is only on church grounds, and not down in front of City Hall.
I wish we were talking about needless materialism and personal debt, and not this stream of absurdities from overly excitable people.
Valdivia
can he be the post-messianic David Border?
AA+ Bonds
Republicans hate Christ and the teachings of Christ. Their Christ is a false idol and a blasphemy against God.
Mike G
This is awesome —
Bill O’Reilly’s Nightmare
Obama visits the Cleavers
http://www.gocomics.com/tomthedancingbug
comrade scott's agenda of rage
Remember:
December: We Take the War on Christmas Seriously Month
Alex S.
Maybe I’m missing something but why should a Rabbi care about Christmas?
PsiFighter37
Come on, you can do better than calling someone a rabbinical David Broder. If post-punk was the best, I’m really disappointed that we got the best one first.
PsiFighter37
@Alex S.: He’s secretly part of Jews for Jeebus.
millekat
I get confused…a week ago I thought O’Reilly was dead set against those evil libruls for wanting “stuff.”
I wish he’d make up his mind.
Sophie Amrain
I guess Jon Stewart would call this rabbi a bona-fide denizen of Bullshit Mountain.
Patricia Kayden
@Mike G: That cartoon is hilarious! I love the last panel. Spot on!
Ted & Hellen
WAY more than a kernel of truth in this phrase, with emphasis on the ANGRY.
And way more than a few of this type on BJ.
Yutsano
@Sophie Amrain: In Yiddish that’s a schmendrick.
@Valdivia: What you have achieved there has been witnessed. :)
Common Sense
Wingnuts can’t complain all that much when two weeks ago they were whining about liberal moochers voting for Santa Claus.
? Martin
@Rathskeller:
I figured out a while ago that much of their war is also against those that push against the materialism. They view that as social engineering by atheists to secretly destroy the holiday without attacking the religion. Once they got that into their head, it became impossible for anyone on the right to push against the materialism. Probably also related to the internal fight between the prosperity gospel and the social justice wings of Christianity.
JPL
Doug, Actually nothing says Xmas more than Santa in a deer stand waiting for the reindeer.. link
also, too I posted this down below but thought it might be more fitting here.
? Martin
@Ted & Hellen: Any consideration that atheists might have good reason to be angry? And that the greatest power that we wield is to vent on message boards like this one? Is that really so threatening.
Brachiator
Angry atheists? I haven’t burnt any Christians at the stake. Not recently.
And is the rabbi really taking a pro-Christmas stand here? WTF?
@Fluke bucket:
Well, the stock market has been up today.
OT: it is good to see the movie “Lincoln,” in third place, holding its own against the box office monsters “Twilight” and “Skyfall.” I highly recommend the Abe movie, even if there is no vampire hunting.
Chris
@Ted & Hellen:
Angry crusading atheists are like angry crusading Muslims. They may exist, but in America atheists (like Muslims) of all stripes are so marginalized that the idea there’s anything to worry about there is patently ridiculous. Wake me up when we reach Cultural Revolution style Maoism; I’ve got a feeling I’ll be sleeping a while yet.
(And Broder and others are being equally ridiculous in trying to claim that people who don’t want nativity scenes displayed by institutions that are supposed to be religiously neutral represent that kind of crusading antireligious spirit. If that makes you a crusader for anything, it’s for the Constitution and the “strict constructionist” outlook – no establishment of religion – that conservatives are always yammering about, without any interpretation or rule-bending to avoid hurting Christians’ fee-fees).
fleeting expletive
I liked “Lincoln” a lot and the acting was extraordinary. I wish I had read Doris Kearns Goodwin’s book first though. That would help in understanding some of the nuances.
Sly
@? Martin:
As with freedom of speech, the freedom to believe as you choose comes with an implicit protection against criticism, particularly when believers seek to monopolize the public sphere with the explicit permission and/or assistance of the state.
All they want is everything. Why are you so angry about that?
Mike in NC
@Mike G: Awesome. The local paper runs Billo’s column every Sunday. Lately it’s all been variations on Job Creators vs. Moochers, or Liberal Media Bias Favors Obama. In a week or two he’ll trot out his seasonal crowd pleaser on the “War on Christmas”. Take that to the bank.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@AA+ Bonds: I am going to have to completely agree with you on this one.
MikeJ
@Brachiator:
How I long for the days of double features. Lincoln defeats evil bloodsuckers, then he fights vampires.
WereBear
Gee whiz, I wish I could remember the last time an atheist tried to take away my birth control, my health care, and tried to keep partners from seeing each other in the hospital.
But I think my brain is all right, because atheists don’t do that. In fact, they are some of the nicest people I know.
Some of my best friends are atheists!
Foggy F Follansbye
If there is a war on Xmas, sir, do we get to win this time?
Yutsano
@WereBear:
I am shocked, SHOCKED I tells ya! :)
suzanne
The only people fighting a War on Christmas are those fuckwads camping out in front of Walmart for cheap plastic crap.
Schlemizel
@Ted & Hellen:
Yes, after years of being told black is white, up is down and wrong is right despite the obvious problems caused I’m angry.
After being told I am attacking Christianity by wishing my Jewish, Muslim, Pastafarian, Hindu and atheist friends “happy holidays” instead of Merry Christmas, yeah, I’m angry.
After being lectured on manners by pustuals who feel no such constraints themselves, you bet I’m angry.
Then to have that anger pointed out by vapid asswipes such as yourself, well, thats just the turd cherry on top of the septic sundae people like you have been serving up
MikeJ
I just wish I had no idea what anybody’s beliefs were. How do you know if somebody is an atheist? Same way you know if they use Apple products: just wait and they’ll tell you, at length.
Brachiator
“Atheists in foxholes
Alternate thread title:
Atheists vs the Fox-holes
Ted & Hellen
@Schlemizel:
Thanks for proving my point.
Gunga Dean
OH For Chissake! It was the forerunners of todays Christo-facists, the Puritans who actually banned altogether the celebration of Christmas. These asshats need to put a cork in it!
WereBear
@suzanne: As much as WalMart rips off their workers, it has been a slow, but steady, process of me explaining to people that WalMart rips off their customers, too.
From driving other sources out of town, then moving the SuperCenter fifty miles away so you burn the gas to get there, to forcing manufacturers to cheapen the goods so you have to come back again and again; it’s not a bargain to shop at WalMart.
JohnK
I’m a atheist and I’m mad as hell and I’m not gonna take it anymore. Impeach Walmart and hang an effigy of Santa, ya no good for nuthen basturds! Get off my lawn.
Amir Khalid
@Chris:
This odd phrase made me smile. Bear in mind who the Crusaders are in our (meaning Muslims’) historical memory. The kind of over-the-top, fundamentalist Muslim you’re talking about would be mortally insulted to be likened to a Crusader.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Ted & Hellen: Yes, I know how evil those of us here are protesting – via keyboards no less – against corrupting religion and government by merging them together, as well as decrying the materialism that this holiday has been consumed by.
Ted & Hellen
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
hmmm…did it make you feel good to imagine something I didn’t say and then react to it with your well-nourished anger?
Amir Khalid
@Gunga Dean:
And besides, if someone were really making war on Christianity, wouldn’t they be going after Easter rather than Christmas?
Del
@MikeJ: When you tell someone they’re being uppity don’t act surprised when they tell you to fuck off.
Ted & Hellen
Basically, I am just very bored with people who react to extreme injustices and bigotry and unsupported beliefs by becoming the mirror image extreme of what they hate.
As a gay survivor of a childhood/teenhood full of weekly church/sunday school and eight years of parochial school in the Lutheran church Missouri Synod, arguably the most conservative/reactionary mainstream Christian denomination outside the Catholic church, I know whereof I speak.
There are lots of options between reactionary/fundamentalist Christianity and reactionary/fundamentalist atheism.
Who knew? Working the oppression/anger is so much more fulfilling than acknowledging that.
pat
does anyone else think that Ted sounds a bit…angry?
Full Metal Wingnut
Ted and Hellen go suck your mothers cock
Also-I’m catholic! Boom!
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Ted & Hellen: No, actually I assumed that you were attempting to be intellectually honest and have a debate over the things that a lot of atheists, such as myself, complain about Christians do in general, and specifically related to Christmas. My bad.
Valdivia
@Yutsano:
late to reply but thank you, thank you. glad you did! :D
MikeJ
@Del: I just don’t give a shit what your charmander is going to evolve into. I don’t care about anybody’s religion, including yours.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Ted & Hellen: You’d have been fun in the 1940s: “I’m bored with people reacting to someone invading another country by wanting to use violence to get them out of that country.”
Sorry, but:
1. You’re arguing with people typing at a keyboard. At least most of us have enough self-awareness to know were not changing anything sitting here.
2. Sometimes the only way to oppose those as fanatic as a number of “Christian” groups are is to force them to stop, like groups such as the ACLU do. It’s kind of sad to think that the only way we’ll get certain religious people to see what they are doing is for them to end up as a minority religion.
Ted & Hellen
@Full Metal Wingnut:
Well, that is its own punishment, my idiot friend.
And not a good sign of your level of intelligence.
Johnny Coelacanth
@Ted & Hellen: “your well-nourished anger?” Awesome. I especially liked the part where you called the kettle black.
Del
@MikeJ: if you truly don’t care you won’t have issue with atheists. If, however, by “don’t care” you mean you’re happy as long as Christians are given first seat at the table and their religious beliefs are treated with veneration and passes a law you will. It’s really that simple, and telling people to pipe down when they’re being treated like second class citizens tends to get bad reactions.
Ted & Hellen
@Johnny Coelacanth:
Can you help me out and point out where I expressed anger in this thread?
Thanks.
Villago Delenda Est
@Ted & Hellen:
You need to share a tumbrel with Hirschfield.
Cripes you are such a sack of pure fucking pigshit.
AnotherBruce
I would gird my loins to do unholy battle against all who would celebrate Christmas, but I’m not really sure what it means to gird my loins. It sounds painful, please give advice in loin-girding.
Sly
Pffft. Atheism’s first album was way better than its first album.
/ironichipsterdouchbag
Ted & Hellen
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
I totally support almost everything the ACLU does.
Not sure why you’re aiming that comment at me. If you aren’t then my apologies.
Calouste
@Amir Khalid:
Christianists in America do a good job of the war on Easter all by themselves. For example by calling Christmas the most important Christian holiday of the year.
Johnny Coelacanth
@Ted & Hellen: “in this thread?” Nice qualifier you got there.
Ted & Hellen
@Johnny Coelacanth:
Oh, I’m sorry…isn’t this the thread we’re in?
Chyron HR
@Johnny Coelacanth:
I think Tim’s still in the “ME AM TOTALLY DIFFERENT PERSON NOW LOLZ” phase of his new pseudonym, so nobody is allowed to judge him based on the things he said last week.
Ted & Hellen
@Chyron HR:
Unless of course you considered the fact that I announced from the first and made no secret of having changed my nym.
Acchhh…the stupidity.
Publius39
@Ted & Hellen: You’re whole post is a false equivalence, and you have proven so in your comments. First, you say that atheists that express their non-beliefs are angry, and then you try to claim that another poster has proved your point, after s/he told you the reasons (and all of them are legitimate complaints), of why they’re angry. So please, take your pearl-clutching, concern trolling somewhere else.
Ted & Hellen
@Publius39:
Such a simple but obvious attempt to put words in my mouth. Talking about the behavior of some atheists, and specifically referring to some at BJ is hardly referring to ALL atheists as you’re implying. But you knew that.
Or maybe the poster proved my point with the foul language and name calling directed at me in response to a comment in which I used none. But you knew that too.
Keep trying.
Publius39
@Ted & Hellen: Nonsense. You came in, shit on the floor, and are now playing the victim after everyone here told you to clean it up.
Batocchio
Hirschfield occasionally makes a decent point, but his default mode is sanctimonious blowhard.
r€nato
@Ted & Hellen: nonsense. I am feeling very cheerful when I tell you to go fuck yourselves.
Mike G
@Amir Khalid:
It’s curious to me that Easter isn’t a bigger deal in the US. I grew up in Australia which is comparatively agnostic, yet Easter is the second-biggest holiday of the year in terms of how many businesses close down, a four-day weekend for most people.
Ted & Hellen
@Publius39:
Wow. You realize this is a blog comment section, right, and not the real world?
Oh.
Trakker
@Ted & Hellen:
“They are angry athiests who are crusaders in their own right,…”
Okay, this is how you started, and it resulted in some angry responses. Can you explain what bothers you about angry atheists? Are you singling out atheists or should everyone who has their rights ignored be cool about it and not make waves? If it is the latter, fine, we just disagree, but if you believe only atheists should shrug it off then please explain why.
[edit: stupid blockquotes!]
Pinkamena Panic
STOP.
FEEDING.
THE TROLL.
“Ted” is just Speshul Timmeh’s latest name. He is a shitstain that needs to be laundered out of this site.
Oh, and Timmeh? When Cole bans your childish ass again, take the hint.
Ted & Hellen
@Trakker:
Anger is ALWAYS, ultimately, wasted energy. I’m not blamess either of course.
Don’t get mad, get even.
I am bored with angry/crusading/closed minded atheists whose beliefs are as rigid and full of orthodoxy to their cause as you see in the Catholic hierarchy and in many right wing fundamentalist sects.
As I said above, there is a world of possibilities between closed minded fundamentalist religion and close minded fundeamentalist atheism. Each assumes the absolute truth of its position and mocks the other unceasingly.
I don’t believe the bible story of Christ as literal and presented in the bible, but I’m open to the idea that it is based on many concepts/beliefs/occurences/whatever that are very useful to me today. I try to use the useful and throw out the stupid.
Any thread on religion at BJ is full of ugly, insulting anti-religious comments which take the worst of the religious zealot behavior and assumes it true of all people who believe there is much more to the universe than what the eye, or even science, can ever see.
To me, those commenters are just as insecure, bigoted and stupid as was Jerry Falwell, just in the opposite way.
Religion and spirituality, like most everything, is full of good and bad, useful and bullshit. Looking for the differences and appreciating them is very healthy. A lot of atheists are, just like a lot of Christians, intellectually/spiritually, black/white thinkers.
And that’s roughly what I’m talking about.
Ted & Hellen
Also too furthermore and yea, verily: It would be really impressive if a lot more atheists would find the courage of their convictions and refuse to take part in religious-based holidays.
In the U.S. at least, the celebration of Christmas is clearly based on the Christian nativity story. All the other traditions, from whatever their original sources and origins, as now celebrated here in the U.S. sprang up from and/or in relation to the Christ story. Anyone who denies that is blowing smoke.
So honor your atheist convictions and don’t take part. Come up with some other, new holiday. Show some originality.
Same with Easter.
Just seems bogus to say “oh this doesn’t mean anything and is all bullshit but let’s make a big to do over it and honor all these traditions I disbelieve.” WTF?
FlipYrWhig
@Ted & Hellen: Which part owes more to the Nativity story, the fat man in the red fur suit giving out presents, or the pine tree decorated with lights?
Ted & Hellen
@Pinkamena Panic:
Hey PinkStain: COLE has NEVER banned me, you dumb, miasmic smegma schmear.
As I have made plain, to those who can read and comprehend, one or two of the third and fourth tier front pagers do the banning without regard to a very clear banning policy, and then COLE always reinstates me, you obnoxious twit.
COLE is almost the only front pager here without a fainting couch and a reasonable amount of integrity. I don’t violate the banning policy so he doesn’t ban me.
Does that threaten your perspective on life and the meaning of the universe?
So kindly fuck yourself with the nearest crusading atheist.
WTF does it matter to you?
NobodySpecial
@fleeting expletive: Part of me wants to watch it to see Daniel Day-Lewis, who’s a wonderful actor, do justice to Lincoln.
The Civil War buff in me, though, caught enough errors in the frigging extended trailer that I simply can’t bear to go see it.
Ted & Hellen
@FlipYrWhig:
and here we go…
Are you really going to argue that Santa Claus through his many iterations over the centuries, did not a very long time ago come to prominence in the West in general and in the U.S. in particular n direct relation to the celebration of CHRISTMAS?
Despite its pagan origins, the christmas tree was long ago adapted as a Christmas symbol in Europe/Germany and then made its way to the U.S as a CHRISTMAS decoration. But you know that.
Willful ignorance, how does it work?
The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge
People, people: If this idiot’s grotesque caricature of a purer-than-thou left-winger didn’t out him as a paid RWNM troll, this latest tangent surely would. A bible-thumping firebagger? Please!
Ted & Hellen
BTW…great and seemingly detailed summary of the origins of Santa Claus on Wikipedia.
Ted & Hellen
@The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge:
You must be referring to my comment above where I specifically stated I don’t believe a lot of what’s in the bible. And I accept none of it as literally true just because it’s in there. But don’t let that stop you.
Thanks for demonstrating my overall point about atheistic idiots, if that’s what you are, or idiots in general if the atheist part doesn’t fit.
FlipYrWhig
@Ted & Hellen: In the US what we celebrate as Christmas is obviously a composite of many different things, not all of which stem from the birth of Christ. That strikes me as a rather unexceptionable statement. Now, would “we” (for some definitions of we) be putting up trees and awaiting toys from Santa if not for how it all got blended together with Jesus? Probably not.
I know you enjoy arguing, but, holy cow, slow your roll.
FlipYrWhig
BTW, my favorite theory about how Santa fits into Christmas-as-Christian is that it helps teach children to believe in inexplicable mysteries. Something like that is also the reason why my hippie-secular parents had a tree and surprise presents, but no Santa and definitely no Jesus.
Schlemizel
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
There is your mistake, assuming an honest anything from Ted & Helen.
Ted & Hellen
@FlipYrWhig:
Now was that really so hard?
Ted & Hellen
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
If so, why did you imply I had said anything about commenters here being “evil?”
Ted & Hellen
@Schlemizel:
Along those lines, can you provide a link to somewhere I knowingly LIED about something in a comment?
If not, I think you’e imagining that “disagreeing with Schlemizel = dishonesty. It doesn’t really work that way.
Mr Stagger Lee
@NobodySpecial: See it, just came from seeing this, Day-Lewis is great, but Tommy Lee Jones steals the movie.
redshirt
I’ve got to chuckle. As of 2012, it seems homosexuality is more accepted than atheism. You can run for national political office as openly gay, and win, all over the country (not everywhere though). How often can does an “out” atheist do so? I think there’s one House member in this new class. Any other examples? Atheist enough not to “swear” in on a bible, for instance?
Publius39
@redshirt: Saw a poll the other day that was conducted by Pew or Gallup IIRC, and it said that Muslims and gays are more popular than atheists. I was really shocked when I read that our popularity was lower than “teh mooslems.”
LeeRoy Jenkins
my brother left this website up and I just read about 10 comments. I have a small bit of advice for all of you… find something productive to do you sorry LOSERS! You are all pathetic.
redshirt
@LeeRoy Jenkins: You bad, LeeRoy! Your Santa won’t save you.
Publius39
@LeeRoy Jenkins: We are all pathetic for posting on this site, and you had to let us know how pathetic we are by posting on this site. Ironic troll is ironic.
LeeRoy Jenkins
by the way…. I am an atheist too. I just have more useful things to do
Ted & Hellen
@LeeRoy Jenkins:
except for the time you’ve taken to post on this thread.
Ted & Hellen
@Publius39:
Does that make you feel a very special sort of tribal sense of persecution, perhaps…that is somewhat, shall we say…enjoyable to you?
redshirt
@LeeRoy Jenkins: Shouldn’t you be working on world peace or something?
Publius39
@Ted & Hellen: Umm, no. It means that I’m surprised that Americans dislike Atheists more than Muslims despite the on-going movement against Muslims that has gone on in this country since 9/11. We know you like to argue, but damn, take the time to actually form a cogent argument.
redshirt
@Publius39: At least it’s an ethos!
Forum Transmitted Disease
Field poll in California had some real interesting numbers up before the election on the proposition to repeal the death penalty. Every religious denomination save Protestants were for it. The group overwhelmingly for it? Atheists.
slag
@Rathskeller:
Yes. I’m one of those. Get your tacky shit off my lawn!
Truth be told, I always just assume that people who put all that ostentatious Christmas crap out for the whole neighborhood to shudder at are actually double agents in the War on Xmas.
Joel
Christ, haven’t they stopped beating this dead horse already?
Lojasmo
@Ted & Hellen:
Wow. So you are a nitwit, AND a god-botherer too? Classy.
Lojasmo
@Ted & Hellen:
Something you didn’t say?
There is nothing you didn’t say. On these very pages you have shown yourself to be;
An anti-atheist godbotherer, and a child-rape appologist, while claiming to be gay, and one of the only liberals here.
The math, it doesn’t add up.
Lojasmo
@Ted & Hellen:
Because somebody called you a foul sack of pig shit does not mean they are angry. It simply shows that they are not divorced from reality.
Lojasmo
@Ted & Hellen:
I honor the traditions of those who were around before Christ. I celebrate the changing of the seasons, harvest, and the pagan traditions.
Just because Christians coopted those holy celebrations does not mean I cannot celebrate them, and I take issue with you when you try to take them from me as the Christians took them from the pagans.
PaulB
This. That was a classic troll post, one designed to start a flame war, after which the poster could smugly sit back and rejoice in his superiority, which is precisely what happened on this thread. It’s an old, old tactic and, frankly, it’s kinda pathetic: that it was employed here and that so many fell for it.
g
Popular? Popularity? We’re concerned about the popularity of our beliefs?
Why, are we concerned about not being invited to the prom, or not getting as many valentines? Or being dateless on a Sunday morning?
Why is “popularity” even an issue? Is belief dependent on whether other people find it attractive?