Okay, so how do we get the "Holy" out of "Holiday"? Help me out here.

[elehhhhna]

lol

[hlthe2b]

1. ummm...... XMAS seems to do the trick...

lol


(I harbor childhood guilt even typing that. I was always shamed if I did not write out Christmas, but it seems to me that we left out Christ a long time ago)

[hfojvt]

3. the X is just from the Greek for Christ

so you can't X him out that way. :P

[hlthe2b]

5. Is that true?

I'd never heard that... Gee all that guilt for nothing...;-)

[TlalocW]

12. Greek for Christ

Χριστος.

If you look at various crucifixes, you'll see XP or Xt (both common abbreviations) carved beneath Jesus' feet. The X (Chi in the Greek alphabet) has long been an abbreviation for Christ, and Christ and Christmas have regularly been abbreviated with the use of X (Chi) for over 1000 years. Anyone blathering on about taking Christ out of Christmas just doesn't know his or her history.

TlalocW

[damntexdem]

15. Hey, wait a minute! What are doctors really doing with those ...

X-rays?

[hfojvt]

17. that was a different X

Scientists had found an unknown type of radiation which they called X rays, X being the symbol in algebra for an unknown variable.

Unless X was chosen as the symbol for the unknown variable for the great unknown which is the mystery of Christ :tinfoilhat:

[Dr. Strange]

19. So the X-Files was a Christian show, then?

I didn't know that!

I wonder what religion the aliens were?

[gatorboy]

27. And your average porn is now triple the Christ!

[Dr. Strange]

33. Ah, I see.

I always wondered why they kept saying, "Oh God! Oh God!"

[elehhhhna]

44. A+++ best post ever!

[Leopolds Ghost]

42. X-rays: Scientific abbreviation for "Jesus Rays". Second only to Gamma ("God") rays

in their intensity.

(Gamma is the Greek abbreviation for "God-rays") :p

[blondeatlast]

18. 'Tis true. Early Xtian art was rife with it.

From Wikipedia--for once pretty authoritative:

In ancient Christian art χ and χρ are abbreviations for Christ's name.<3> In many manuscripts of the New Testament and icons, X is an abbreviation for Christos, as is XC (the first and last letters in Greek, using the lunate sigma); compare IC for Jesus in Greek. The Oxford English Dictionary documents the use of this abbreviation back to 1551, 50 years before the first English colonists arrived in North America and 60 years before the King James Version of the Bible was completed. At the same time, Xian and Xianity were in frequent use as abbreviations of "Christian" and "Christianity"; and nowadays still are sometimes so used, but much less than "Xmas".

As an art student and then retail clerk, I laughed hysterically (after she left) customer who ranted on and on at me because someone had shoe polished Merry Xmas on their car window.

[DesertFlower]

6. that's not what they taught

me in catholic school. of course, i always use xmas.

[youthere]

41. I always thought it was Roman for "Ten-Mas".

[elehhhhna]

45. lol

[begin_within]

50. Save the X

[Gormy Cuss]

20. Roman Catholic?

I noticed that all of my RC friends and relatives had that guilt. My Episcopal priest explained the "X" shorthand for Christ (as others have detailed above.)

[hlthe2b]

21. Not as a child, no...

Just raised on "healthy" guilt, I guess.

[dmallind]

2. Nah - we just remind the fundies and their enablers

that their "holy days" were holy to earlier religions before Christianity absorbed them in its syncretic rise to power. Much more fun - because then you can also remind them that the same can be said for most of their belief system itself.

[damntexdem]

16. Well, I call the Fourth of July "Firecracker Day."

What, you don't think the Fourth is a religious holiday?

[Ytzak]

4. etymologically, you can't.

holiday
O.E. haligdæg, from halig "holy" + dæg "day;" in 14c. meaning both "religious festival" and "day of recreation," but pronunciation and sense diverged 16c.

But, we pretty much live by the modern defintion...

holiday
n 1: leisure time away from work; devoted to rest or pleasure

2: a day on which work is suspended by law or custom
v : spend or take a vacation

Culturally, it doesn't seem to be an issue.

[Lex]

7. Holi was a spring sun goddess and that's how we got "Holy"

as a word.

I'm just saying.

HOLI: The Great Hindu spring festival .. . held in honour of Krishna, as the spring sun-god . . . a personified woman called Holi . . . Holi had tried to poison the babe Krishna ...." Further revealing evidence was yet to come. In Strong's Concordance, in the Greek Lexicon No. 1506, we found the following: "heile (the sun's ray)"—this is pronounced: heilei. This form is almost identical to the German and Dutch equivalent of the English "holy." The meaning of "halo", the ring on top of a saint's head, now became clear to us.

http://www.iahushua.com/ST-RP/holy.htm

[nealmhughes]

32. Holi may or may not have anything to do with our word "holy."

The PIE root for "holy" was *ag per
Greek and Indo-European Etymology in Action Proto-Indo-European by Raimo Antilo. Hence from the Proto IE we get "agios" for holy in Greek then the Heileg and other Germanic forms, according well understood rules of how sounds change from Greek to Germanic. The harsh hard "g" termination in Western Germanic wants to change to "y" in English, hence "Tag" in German today, and "day" in English. Egg barely managed to hang on, and once Chaucer asked for "eggs" from a farmer only to be told she "spoke no French." It was eyyen for "eggs" for her!


The modern Hindi words for holy are:

nirdoSha,pavitra,pAka,bhakta,dharmAtmA,sAdhu

The cited website is one of the weirdest Hebrew-Xian sites I have ever seen, and I collect weird sites.

[LittleClarkie]

8. Don't celebrate any of them

That's how. Pretend there isn't a holiday. Come up with your own celebrations and place them on different days.

Festivus for the rest of us comes to mind.

Sorry, but many holidays have religious origins. Whatcha gonna do.

[Kadie]

9. Just say 'Happy Days'.

:shrug:


LOL


:hi:

[CT_Progressive]

10. Holla-day!

Holla' !!!!

[Lex]

11. .

[Skidmore]

13. Shhhhh....that's Project Z.

Meeting later behind the matrix for all commandos.

[SyntaxError]

36. Oh yeah, about that,,,, I can't make the meeting tonight...

I have some babies to abort and have to spread the gay agenda to some pre-schools...

[damntexdem]

14. But beware: if you do that, then you end up with ...

Ida!

Is that what you want?

[SyntaxError]

37. better than ADA.

[McCamy Taylor]

22. Spell it Holly Day and say you are a Druid celebrating the solstice.

[frogmarch]

23. Speaking of celebrating

the solstice, here's an interesting website pertaining to it:

http://www.knowth.com/index.htm


Newgrange (Ireland)


"The passage and chamber of Newgrange are illuminated by the winter solstice sunrise. A shaft of sunlight shines through the roof box over the entrance and penetrates the passage to light up the chamber. The dramatic event lasts for 17 minutes at dawn from the 19th to the 23rd of December."

[McCamy Taylor]

26. Are they celebrating the world's largest sponge cake?

:bounce:

[frogmarch]

30. haha!

In the picture, it does look like a sponge cake, doesn't it? :)

[jazzjunkysue]

24. So, Saint Bill actually holds the rights to "Windows XP?"

It's not like we don't all yell, God Damn IT every time it locks up!!!

[elehhhhna]

46. OMG WINDOWS XP really means WIndows the CHRIST??11!!1!1

[jazzjunkysue]

49. Maybe Anti-Christ! n/t.

[Hardrada]

25. God lets us celebrate holy festivals in different ways.

Some of you will celebrate in your own way and we who constitute the majority will celebrate in His.

[onager]

28. Religious people are a majority?

Wow! I learn something new every day!

I'm currently living in a country that's 95% Muslim. Even they are starting to celebrate some parts of Xmas, and store displays this time of year often feature Santas, trees, etc. Naturally, this irks the many local Muslim Fundamentalists, who see it as a sign of decadence and general moral collapse.

Generally, though, over here they celebrate the best parts of Xmas, like gift-giving, and ignore the worst parts, like the alleged divinity of ol' X-Man.

[MiniMe]

29. Is there anything holy about New Years? Other than worshipping the porcelain god of course

:rofl:

[Hardrada]

35. Oh my God, I am so bombed.! Followed some hours later by:

O My God, I am so hung over!

[Leopolds Ghost]

43. And the words of the prophet were "Sanitized before using"

The Sacred Point (used to seal the shrine)



Throne of the Third Heaven of the Nations Millenium
(New Years' ceremonial cathedra, used by early priests ca. 2000)

[Name removed]

47. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[McCamy Taylor]

48. New Years is from Rome's Saturnalia. Big party time. Week long in winter.

All normal agrarian cultures celebrate the "New Year" when we do Easter-- at the Spring equinox.

[TahitiNut]

31. It should be easy. After all, we took the penitence out of the penitentiaries.

:dunce:

[Nye Bevan]

34. Helliday? (nt)

[Rockholm]

38. Holly Day. I like plants.

[SyntaxError]

39. with lots of lions...

[BuyingThyme]

40. Ida?