Born-Again LTTE in today's Columbus Dispatch

[mwb970]

Dislike Christmas? Work on the holiday!
Sunday, December 16, 2007

In the spirit of the season, I offer a suggestion that might help to ease the pain of all of those in America who are offended by the name of Jesus Christ, the word Christmas, Christian symbols, etc. The initial step would be to notify their employers immediately that they are petitioning for the right to work on Dec. 25 when it falls on a normal workday because they are offended by having to take the day off to celebrate the birthday of someone in whom they don't believe.

Those who are employed by any agency of government at any level should likewise petition in a similar manner because of the often misinterpreted and misconstrued rule of separation of church and state. They should not feel obligated any longer to have to exchange gifts with anyone, to have to feast sumptuously or to have to engage in any festive celebrations, etc., on that day.

I hope these simple actions would increase the country's production and take the enormous pressure off of retailers and other businesses who are similarly loathe to have to say Merry Christmas to anyone or show any decorations or displays that mention that word. They would no longer have to open early, close late, hire as many seasonal workers or carry such large inventories, etc.

Then, perhaps without the constant whimpering, those of us who are born again could celebrate the occasion of the birth of Jesus Christ, the king of kings and lord of lords and the savior of all mankind, in peace and quiet contemplation as we await his return in the Rapture, when the church and the Holy Spirit will be taken out of the world, and everyone else will be perfectly free to enjoy the events that ensue without being offended ever again by anyone wishing them a Merry Christmas.

DIX BURKE
Columbus

What do you make of this screed? It sounds awfully petulant to me, and seems to highlight the propensity of born-agains to become defensive and to play the role of the aggrieved, crucified victim (how Christ-like). Can it really be the phrase "Happy Holidays" that sent Dix into such a snit?

There were two other "poor poor us" born-again letters on the same page (read them here and here). I wonder if there will be any responses during the coming week.

[derby378]

1. I'm born again. The Rapture ain't gonna happen. Global warming will kill us first.

Just because John Nelson Darby spent an exhaustive amount of time and energy fleshing out his theory on dispensationalism and "the End Times" doesn't mean that the world is going to end the way he thought it would.

[gratuitous]

2. Everybody wants to be a victim

But nobody wants to be victimized. So much easier to gin up a "controversy" and then claim your victim status. I suppose in some circles, the writer of this letter seems "brave" or "courageous." In my mind, Dix sounds just as you said: Petulant, with scattered whine.

[saltpoint]

3. Maybe it could be recommended to the aggrieved parties that their

persecution be carried through to its utmost expression.

We'll need nails, boards, and a thoughtless mob.

[knitter4democracy]

4. I'm so sick and tired of whiny Christians.

We actually have it good here. If they really want to be discriminated against, if they really want to go back to the "good old days" of crucifixions, beheadings, torture, and rape, they should move somewhere else. It's not like someone wishing me "Happy Holidays" would entitle me to martyrdom, for crying out loud.

Christmas is important, but all those gifts are cultural, not Biblical. All that shopping and decorating and feasting and days off is all cultural. For most of our history, Christians haven't done that kind of consumerism.

[MindPilot]

5. another whiny-assed Christer who thinks it's all about them

First of all let's remember the people who DO work on the 25th...the doctors, nurses, cops, firefighters, pilots, hotel desk clerks, etc, etc, and the on-calls for virtually every profession from plumbers to network admins.

And then let's remember that LOOOONG before your Christ myth, this time of year has been a celebration of the world not ending because sometime around the 25th the days stop getting shorter.


I tire of Christians demanding that the whole world be just like them.

[rockymountaindem]

6. Sounds fine to me

I'd trade working on Christmas for no-hassle time off on Yom Kippur. I've never worked a job where it's been a problem, but back in school plenty of teachers had never heard of Yom Kippur, and I wouldn't be surprised if some time in the future some boss might inform me that since he's never heard of it, I can't take the day off. Personally, I'd have no problem working on Christmas in exchange for another day off some other time.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

17. Kids taking off for High Holy Days in school was how I learned about them

My teachers were cool--they explained why so many students were absent on those days-took the opportunity to allow a little cultural awareness. And I thank them for it.

[rockymountaindem]

21. One of my teachers told me I had to take a test early in order to be absent

I asked him why I should lose out on study time because of a religious obligation. He said he'd never heard of it...

One of the kids on my tennis team asked me why I couldn't be at practice on that day, and I told him because I would be fasting and it wouldn't be good to play tennis on a day I can't have a drink of water. He said "why can't you have any water?" I said because it was atonement for my sins. He replied "that's the fucking stupidest thing I've ever heard" and walked away.

Cultural awareness would be nice, though.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

25. It would indeed

I'm blessed that I grew up in a college town living near campus. I got to meet folks from all over the world and to learn a bit about different cultures. There was a strong and rather large Jewish community in town, and about a fourth of my graduating class was Jewish. I find it fascinating to find out about different cultures, but I fear that many in this country are frightened by the very idea.

[Toots]

7. It just kills them that they can't shove Christ down everyone's throat..

It offends them that a Store or Company would want to not offend people by taking sides in a Religious confrontation..It should not be offensive for a company to wish folks a Happy New Year and Happy Holiday. It may very well offend some folks to wish them a Merry Christmas when those people might believe Religion is evil or folks that are Jewish or Muslim or Hindu or ????? America may be majority "so-called" Christian but there are still a large number that live here that are not. This is a right winger attitude of "My way or the Highway" no middle ground with these folks, they are superior...I can't imagine a "real" Christian being so beligerent. Christ was not about such petty things...

[Lurking Dem]

8. Many Jews DO work on Christmas day

so the other employees can take off.

One place in LA actually has a Jewish group of carolers performing on Christmas ti relieve the regular group!

[sniffa]

9. but it's not his birthday

his birthday is closer to easter.

[patrice]

12. Bingo!!

Re-born to be re-crucified, by the likes of Dix, to be reborn, to be re-crucified, to be re-born . . . forever.

[Toots]

13. And you are sure about that?

You are positive Jesus Christ was indeed a person and did the deeds recorded of him? How?

[patrice]

18. You can't have this cake and eat it too.

If you don't take The Bible literally, you can't use literal arguments against it.

[theredpen]

19. Occam's razor

Jesus was an itinerant Rabbi who owned nothing and had no political office. There really shouldn't be any record of Him at all. Although the records of Jesus are entirely kept by His followers, the likelihood that such these records could have appeared over such a large geographic area with so little variation at that time in history strongly supports the theory that Jesus was a real person and that much of what is recorded about His life is essentially accurate.

It's called "archeology" and it's a neat science that even you can use to learn about the ancient world!

Of course, maybe God just wished all the Gospels into existence and they magically appeared throughout the Levant. We could teach that theory too, if you insist.

[Toots]

22. So you are saying the great majority of Archeologist agree Christ raised a person from the dead?

That he walked on water and fed forty thousand people with five loaves of bread and a few fish? Is that the science you say is absolute?

[patrice]

23. Do you take the meaning of The Bible literally?

If the answer to that question is "No". You cannot criticize The Bible on literal grounds.

[theredpen]

24. No

A great majority of archaeologists agree that Jesus of Nazareth was an actual Rabbi who preached in the Galilee, probably in the Second Temple period.

Do you think you're clever?

P.S. and as far as the miraculous stuff in the Gospels, patrice has it right: there's no reason to believe that stuff is literally true. The major inconsistencies in the New Testament accounts of Jesus' life involve the supernatural events. The mundane events, the sayings and the philosophies are reported with remarkable invariance considering the time period. The supernatural/miraculous events are "mysteries" that illustrate the spiritual ideas that Jesus was preaching. How you interpret them is part of your individual faith and not part of science. As far as science is concerned, Jesus was probably a real person, and probably only one real person.

[Toots]

30. Do I think I am clever?

these are your words "Jesus was a real person and that much of what is recorded about His life is essentially accurate." Everything about the life of Jesus had to do with his miracles or why would people even know who he was... You say science agrees he was real...I find that hard to believe. Is my disbelief clever, I hardly think so but neither is your snarky attitude..

[theredpen]

31. No again.

Everything about the life of Jesus had to do with his miracles or why would people even know who he was...

What? Are you just making this up? Have you heard of "the sermon on the mount"? What, exactly, was miraculous about that? "Judge others as you would be judged" is miraculous how? There really aren't that many miracles in Gospels. It might seem like there are, but you have to note that the stories are repeated across the Synoptics.

You say science agrees he was real...I find that hard to believe.

...because of your extensive knowledge of Second Temple period archeology, or what? Another thing you might find interesting to learn about science is that it's not a popularity contest. Your personal opinion doesn't really count for anything unless you have data to back it up.

[patrice]

26. Hypothesis: Could there have been a natural healer during that time

who did something to revive someone everyone else thought was dead?

Whether it was "Jesus" or not, is beside the point. Is this scenario possible?

Don't mistake words for the things that they only refer (more or less imperfectly) to.

[theredpen]

29. Accounts of resurrection were common in that era

We also shouldn't forget that it was only recently that we've had any certainty about death. Up until the 1800's people were buried with bells tied to them so you could hear them in case they woke up in their casket. That wasn't a superstition, it actually happened. That's why Edgar Allen Poe's wrote "Buried Alive" — it was a founded fear at the time. Google around, it still happens.

Personally, I think that the resurrection was added to keep Jesus the messiah. A dead messiah is a failed messiah, but — aha! — Jesus wasn't dead!

[patrice]

32. I thought Toots was referring to Lazarus.

As far as the resurrection of Jeshua is concerned: no one actually saw him get up and walk out of the tomb; the tomb was empty; that's indeterminent, i.e. 50:50, which is where I personally think one must be in order to receive the actual truth, whatever that turns out to be (as opposed to truths that are the result of strong, but subtle, biases from all directions). This represents also what I think is the essential message of the life of Jeshua: no quid pro quo, follow your own "heart" to freedom, no matter the consequences, because love is not possible without freedom.

This is why we are such an un-loving nation; we are slaves. "Christianity" is a colossal Failure.

[theredpen]

34. Christianity has certainly been a disappointment

I like your post. Christianity in America, I think, suffers from the "New World" history of being reinvented. Especially during the 19th century, people were constantly moving west and creating settlements that would finally be "perfect," much like the Pilgrims who began the New England colonies. It was this idea that you could seize on some epiphany and create a "new covenant" that spawned the Mormans and the Christian Scientists and many, many, others. The degree and scope of these "reformations" was a uniquely American phenomenon. America became a petri dish for experiments in ideology.

Christianity was pretty good right out of the box and the people who founded it wouldn't recognize most of what is called "Christianity" in America today. They'd probably feel at home in an Armenian Orthodox church, but "New Life (mega)Church" in Colorado Springs? It would seem like the coliseum.

[patrice]

35. Thanks. I like your signature line and have saved it to my picture file.

I'm a semiotic dilettante . . . or a dilettante of semiotics . . . ?

I'll have to think about that one for a while.

[The Straight Story]

42. A kick for your well thought out and intelligent posts (And I say this as a Christian myself)

Well done in your replies.

[patrice]

10. The Rapture already happened and Dix missed it.

Every Innocent who dies anytime, anywhere at the hands of the Church/State IS Jesus. Since all of those innocents have been "taken out of the world", we're what's "left behind". Funny!!! Isn't it? They were "right" all along, just not in the way these self-worshipping Blasphemers think they are right.

[redwitch]

36. great post patrice!

:hi:

[JHB]

11. I know who's having a Christmas ham to go with his cheezy whine...

Note the switch so that he (she?) can play the aggrieved party: I don't recall too many people "being offended ... by anyone wishing them a Merry Christmas". Rather it's the "War on Christmas" Crusaders going around taking offense at "Happy Holidays" and "Seasons Greetings".

And if Dix is "born again", then he's from a denomination that likely didn't celebrate Christmas a century ago, and may even have actively condemned it as "papist idolatry".

But then, these Christmas Crusaders always seem to be lacking in humility, the irony of which is simply appalling. Not unexpected, but appalling nonetheless.

[Sparkly]

14. I thought Dec. 25th wasn't actually the birthdate of Jesus.

:shrug:

If that's what they're celebrating, why don't THEY go to work on the 25th and take off the actual birth date?

[theredpen]

15. Wishing people a "Merry Christmas" is NOT "celebrating Jesus" dammit!

Ugh. I don't know how my parents stand living in Columbus.

Another "Born Yesterday Christian" who knows what's good for everybody.

Then, perhaps without the constant whimpering, those of us who are born again could celebrate the occasion of the birth of Jesus Christ, ... in peace and quiet contemplation...

Double ugh. The whole problem is that these people aren't celebrating Jesus in "peace and quiet contemplation." If they were, no one would have a problem with them. Instead, we have to celebrate "the reason for the season" in shopping malls. These people don't even celebrate the age-old midnight mass or other religious rituals of Christmas (how many of them know what Advent is? Epiphany?). No, when they talk about celebrating Christmas, they mean being told "Merry Christmas" while they're buying cheap crap at Brookstone and putting up nativity scenes in front of city hall.

Real Christians celebrate Christmas — they don't harangue people for not saying "Merry Christmas" in shopping malls. :mad:

Oh swell, now I'm going to church mad. Fabulous! :mad:

[NMMNG]

44. Did you feel the earth just move?

We agree on something!

[theredpen]

47. Well, baloney is baloney no matter how you slice it... n/t

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

16. I know of many non-Christians who volunteer to work that day

so that Christians can stay home with their families. When I was a kid, there was a TV program about Jews in some city doing this--I was impressed with their thoughtfulness. My husband, when he worked for a city water department, always volunteered to work the Christmas shift so that a co-worker who celebrated would be able to stay home with his family. No big deal was made of it. It just happened. I think that is the way it usually works out--this letter writer just doesn't have a clue that it is being done.

[proud2BlibKansan]

20. Those poor persecuted Christians

[mwb970]

27. The funny thing is, I feel Dix's pain.

I must admit, I've written posts right here on DU with that same petulant tone when I felt it was my ox being gored. Dix obviously takes his/her (I'll assume "his") faith seriously and is dismayed to see it being minimized or suppressed in the public sphere. What he is missing is that this "suppression" is actually a pushback against attempts to force religion into the sphere of government and public affairs, where it does not belong. In other words, "They started it!"

I have no problem with religious people, Christian or otherwise, living their lives however they want. It's when they begin to act in the public sphere, putting their religious beliefs ahead of American law and the Constitution, that I holler "Enough!" Especially since activist Christians, at least, so often adopt the politics of the hard right, with its authoritarian, anti-science inclinations and its decidedly un-Christ-like attitudes towards immigrants, gays, etc.

I suspect Dix gets most or all of his information from Fox News. This could account for his obvious misreading of the current American mood. If I believed everything he believes, I'd be mad too. But I'd be wrong.

[patrice]

33. IMO, What you object to is called "Blasphemy". nt

[LeftCoast]

28. Well I'm not a Christian and I'm working Christmas

And it ain't no big thing to me. This guy acts as if this is some hardship or something.

As far as him wishing me a Merry Christmas...I'm totally cool with him saying that to me as long as he has no problem with me wishing him a Blessed Samhain (on 10/31). Somehow I doubt he'd be as respectful, but who knows?

[superduperfarleft]

37. I think it's a brilliant piece of reverse psychology.

If we're at work all the time, how will we have time to plan next year's War on Christmas?

I think ol' Dix is actually some sort of evil genius.

[Lady President]

38. Pix of Dix

If I had a choice, I would rather work on Dec. 24 and 25. Then have a couple days in the summer off instead. Somehow I don't think my company would go for it.

Under membership class http://cbtemple.com/staff.html

[HCE SuiGeneris]

39. No moral compass for this a-hole who gleefully envisions

much suffering for the rest of the world after his kind are freed in the rapture. Just another stupid mean fundie fuck.

[mitchum]

40. Dix Burke "wrote" a LTTE that has been floating around the internet for a few years now

proving once again, that they can never think for themselves

[Initech]

41. Oh. My. Fucking. God.

:wow:

[NMMNG]

43. Who is whining?

I hope these simple actions would increase the country's production and take the enormous pressure off of retailers and other businesses who are similarly loathe to have to say Merry Christmas to anyone or show any decorations or displays that mention that word.

The fact that businesses say Happy Holidays out of respect for the fact that other holidays than Christmas are celebrated (and one often can't tell what holiday the person to whom one is speaking might celebrate) doesn't mean they are "loathe to say Merry Christmas. But of course the egocentric fundies have to see it that way.

Then, perhaps without the constant whimpering, those of us who are born again could celebrate the occasion of the birth of Jesus Christ

The majority of the LTTEs in the newspapers come from fundies whimpering about the alleged "War on Christmas", and the notion that nobody will kowtow to their god-given right to hear "Merry Christmas" instead of that nasty "Happy Holidays" (which means "Happy Holy-Day"). Maybe if they'd just stop whining they could actually do some celebrating.

[MrScorpio]

45. Dear Lord...

Please save us all from the ceaseless petty whining of your so-call followers.

We pray in Jesus' name, Amen.

[FVZA_Colonel]

46. It really sucks that there is no way to leave comments on the site (as far as I could see).

"the often misinterpreted and misconstrued rule of separation of church and state," "constant whimpering..." what the fuck is wrong with these people?