One of Mamamia’s favourite commenters is Wollywally who will be known to you for her haiku-like words of simple, loving and occasionally perplexing wisdom. We all have an image in our mind of who Wollywally is and what she looks like. I’m thinking a kind of benevolent and motherly kind of Yoda.
She is a bit like the mascot of Mamamia and she sprinkles her love around like fairy dust.
Anyway. She sent me an email recently with the transcript of an editorial given by a well-known US media commenter called Ben Stein who delivers a commentary on the CBS Sunday Morning program. Here’s an excerpt from a recent one which has sparked much conversation in the US and is certainly way thought- provoking…..
I am a Jew, and every single one of my ancestors was Jewish. And it does not bother me even a little bit when people call those beautiful lit up, bejeweled trees, Christmas trees. I don’t feel threatened. I don’t feel discriminated against. That’s what they are, Christmas trees.
It doesn’t bother me a bit when people say, ‘Merry Christmas’ to me. I don’t think they are slighting me or getting ready to put me in a ghetto. In fact, I kind of like it. It shows that we are all brothers and sisters celebrating this happy time of year. It doesn’t bother me at all that there is a manger scene on display at a key intersection near my beach house in Malibu . If people want a creche, it’s just as fine with me as is the Menorah a few hundred yards away.
I don’t like getting pushed around for being a Jew, and I don’t think Christians like getting pushed around for being Christians. I think people who believe in God are sick and tired of getting pushed around, period. I have no idea where the concept came from, that America is an explicitly atheist country. I can’t find it in the Constitution and I don’t like it being shoved down my throat.
Or maybe I can put it another way: where did the idea come from that we should worship celebrities and we aren’t allowed to worship God as we under stan d Him? I guess that’s a sign that I’m getting old, too. But there are a lot of us who are wondering where these celebrities came from and where the America we knew went to.
In light of the many jokes we send to one another for a laugh, this is a little different: This is not intended to be a joke; it’s not funny, it’s intended to get you thinking.
Billy Graham’s daughter was interviewed on the Early Show and Jane Clayson asked her ‘How could God let something like this happen?’ (regarding Hurricane Katrina).. Anne Graham gave an extremely profound and insightful response. She said, ‘I believe God is deeply saddened by this, just as we are, but for years we’ve been telling God to get out of our schools, to get out of our government and to get out of our lives. And being the gentleman He is, I believe He has calmly backed out. How can we expect God to give us His blessing and His protection if we demand He leave us alone?’
In light of recent events… terrorists attack, school shootings, etc. I think it started when Madeleine Murray O’Hare (she was murdered, her body found a few years ago) complained she didn’t want prayer in our schools, and we said OK. Then someone said you better not read the Bible in school. The Bible says thou shalt not kill; thou shalt not steal, and love your neighbor as yourself. And we said OK.
Now we’re asking ourselves why our children have no conscience, why they don’t know right from wrong, and why it doesn’t bother them to kill strangers, their classmates, and themselves.
Probably, if we think about it long and hard enough, we can figure it out. I think it has a great deal to do with ‘WE REAP WHAT WE SOW.’
Funny how simple it is for people to trash God and then wonder why the world’s going to hell. Funny how we believe what the newspapers say, but question what the Bible says. Funny how you can send ‘jokes’ through e-mail and they spread like wildfire, but when you start sending messages regarding the Lord, people think twice about sharing. Funny how lewd, crude, vulgar and obscene articles pass freely through cyberspace, but public discussion of God is suppressed in the school and workplace.
Are you laughing yet?
Funny how when you forward this message, you will not send it to many on your address list because you’re not sure what they believe, or what they will think of you for sending it.
Funny how we can be more worried about what other people think of us than what God thinks of us.
What you believe is a highly personal and individual thing. For me, Christmas is not a religious holiday but, like Ben, I am not in the least bit offended or affronted by anyone who DOES celebrate it in a religious context.
I’ve always been baffled by those who are threatened by other people’s religions. How can what YOU believe affect what I believe? Why can’t we just respect one another’s beliefs if we are secure and confident enough in our own?
What do you think? Is Christmas a religious occasion for you? What is? Does religion have any place in your life?
Would you describe yourself as happy in a more formal or traditional religion or have you defined your own beliefs?
Top Comments
I'm an atheist and I love to celebrate Christmas as a secular holiday. I would hope no-one would be offended by me wishing them a 'Merry Christmas' just as I would return the greeting if someone cried 'Happy Channukkah' though I know very little of Jewish traditions!
I am happy for my children to learn about Christianity at school in RE, it doesn't mean I want them to convert. I am just as fine with them learning about Hinduism or other religions. I would hope they would learn respect for such beliefs, even while I continue to instill my own values within our home. It is possible to be kind, loving and generous without religion!
I have a very 'live and let live' attitude to religions. I do loath, as the previous commenter suggested similarly when people start suggesting 'God's will' might be responsible for something. That is, I remember a preacher in the USA saying God had saved him from a hurricane when he knew full well that at least one innocent babe had died from the same weather event.
As an agnostic antitheist (atheist if you will), my only objections to celebrating religious holidays are when the government (at whatever level) spend PUBLIC MONEY, or utilize public facilities, for things which are effectively promoting one religion, and even religion in general.
The First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States fairly clearly sets out that the Government is not to have anything to do with religion (Congress shall make NO law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof). So celebrate all you like, but please don't use the government to promote your religion, and don't expect my tax dollars to fund your religious holiday in any way whatsoever.
Anne Graham's comments and the following part of the article are quite disturbing to me. The blatant attempt to blame atrocities and disasters (some of which are religiously motivated) on the 'secularizing' of things which are meant to be secular, is so childish that I fail to see how anyone could believe it for a second. But then I guess the things they already believe..........