Merry Christmas to all fellow using Lazarus / FreePascal.

[circular]

You misunderstood me. I said that if it was to be universal, then there was things to take into account, because the world is what it is. I do not think that it must be universal, even if I like the idea of gathering around the solstices. Christian people can still celebrate Jesus at the same date. It is not contradictory.

By the way, what you criticize here is your own approach : "The modern celebration is the birthday of Jesus", which is not related to reality. Many people in historically christian countries celebrate around an evergreen coniferous tree, but do not celebrate Jesus. And there are many people, which are not christian at all, in what we call "christian countries" and in other countries, which are muslim or jew for example, that do not celebrate Christmas at all, neither do the celebrate the Sol Invictu.

The principle of universality is put forward by catholicism. The word "catholic" means "universal" in greek. So if you are against the principle of universality, I deduce that you are against the catholic church. I won't blame you for this.

As an atheist, I believe that if there is something to be called "universal", then it can be found be science, science of the matter and science of the mind. It is possible that we do not find anything universal except that we are all human beings, and that culture is only a matter of choice.

[felipemdc]

I do not think that it must be universal, even if I like the idea of gathering around the solstices. Christian people can still celebrate Jesus at the same date. It is not contradictory.

Yes, sure, no problem, but they way you put it came as a missinformation in assuming that we were talking about a solstice commemoration, while it is not. It also came as history rewrite, since it is obvious for anyone what "Christmas" ment for people that decided it would be a day off. And to work further on the topic: I live in Poland and I will tell you how it is "Merry Christmas" in polish. It is: Wszystkiego Najlepszego z okazij Bożego Narodzenia". It means literally this: "Everything the best in this ocasion of the birth of God", meaning obviously Jesus. In portuguese it is "Feliz Natal", which also comes from birth.

For me it is no problem whatever what other people want to celebrate in whatever data (can also coincide dates). The problem is missinforming to say that christian celebrations mean something else then they do. And "Christmas" means exactly one thing. That people in various countries celebrate something similar by cultural influence merely does no change this, and much less are most of those people celebrating solstices. You also ignore the very large christian populations in various non-historically christian countries like Korea. So summing up, if you want to celebrate something else, no problem, but please start a "Merry Solstice" thread instead of hijacking this one.

[circular]

You give to much importance to my point of view. Everyone knows the religious meaning of Christmas. This information is already available.

The term "Christmas" does not mean something about Jesus anymore in the common language, whether you like it or not. It only means "the celebration at the end of the year when it's cold and dark (which is the solstice)" for people that live in the northern hemisphere. It is used to speak about that portion of the year by everyone, just like everyone use the solar calendar. At least, it is so in France. Remember that if we celebrate something "once a year", it means that it is defined by the cycles between the earth and the sun. You can deny it but these are facts. By the way, the notion of birth is compatible with the Sol Invictu, which also states that the sun dies and then is born again. The notion of birth is just a way to speak metaphorically about something that begins.

I don't want to fight with you, but if you insist, I can send you back the term "hijacking". It's christianity that hijacked the meaning of this "pagan" celebration. These are historical facts. It is you that is misinformed not knowing the history of your religion about how it started, and I assume about how it was spreaded around the world, for example with the power of Constantin.

About christian people around the world, I was thinking about them as I wrote, but I did not want to write too much. But you are right to mention that there are christian minorities in some countries, and I just learnt that in South Korea there is a quarter of the population that is christian. Of course I do not know everything about christianity, just like I do not know everything about the Coran.

[marcov]

I am not religious, but these holidays mean family reunion and happiness for everybody. In that spirit, Merry Christmas!

In fact, the 25th of december is the Sol Invictu, an ancient tradition to celebrate that the sun comes back. As the days get shorter and shorter in december, it was feared that it would disappear, and after the winter solstice, the days start to get longer. This is what is celebrated on the 25th. Then other religions used this date too, christianity and maybe mithraic mysteries too, as it was a party in the whole roman empire.

I was always taught it derived from the Germanic mid-winter feasts. The Christmas tree derives from that, evergreens were worshipped by them because they keep their leaves in winter (and thus were thought to hold the seeds for spring).  (Santa as a bishop is thoroughly Christian afaik, though originally patron saint of children (Saint Nicolas of Myra) rather than Chistmas)

The eggs and bunny with Easter is the same, but from Spring festivals, eggs and bunnies both being fertility symbols symbolizing spring.

The symbols of the more popular pagan celebrations were absorbed into Christianity to facilitate  the process of christening. (and in the competition of  various Christian sects/denominations against each other). One should remember that this was a process that took the better part of a millennium (

[circular]

Eggs and bunnies to symbolize fertility, yes that makes sense.

[jwdietrich]

The term "Christmas" does not mean something about Jesus anymore in the common language, whether you like it or not. It only means "the celebration at the end of the year when it's cold and dark (which is the solstice)" for people that live in the northern hemisphere.

There are Pascal, C, Java, Erlang, Lisp, Basic, Fortran, Perl and many other programming languages, why should there be "common language" that defines that Christmas does not mean something about Jesus?

[circular]

I don't say that. If we use this analogy of programming language, then christianity is a language itself, where the word Christmas and Jesus have a specific meaning. But the word Christmas is used outside of the "christian language" to specify a period of time, which in scientific terms, can be defined as a solstice. And in "pagan language" (if there is something as pagan, because it is used just to mean non-christian), the period is defined by the length of days. So if we want to define this period of the year in the most universal meaning possible, it would be by refering to the sun, in scientific terms to the solstice.

If christian believe there is something more than just a sun event here, they can. As other traditions, christian believe that there is somthing spiritual about this date.

Personally, I believe that it is related to the fact that when there is less sun, the inner spiritual world is less constraint by the vision of material objects, and so it is a period were there is more space for mental representations. In these representations there is of course the dead, that are still in our hearts. So was it believed and it is still believed by some people that this period is like a connection to another world, a spiritual world. This is clearly the case for Samhain - All Saints' Day - Halloween.

[lainz]

I think it's good that we all look different on a celebration.

I have a gaming forum and I just think a post with 'Merry Christmas', the first comment was

XDDDDDDDD I will not have merry christmas: (

And the next day the user opened a topic

Code: [Select]

Christmas Gifts

I bring this post for you to put the gifts you had!

I start: I did not have any gifts yet: (

another said

Code: [Select]

The bad thing is that my family does not give me gifts for 25 Mexican tradition that is not
Another

Code: [Select]

Well you know that the real gift is spending time with people we care
others made ​​jokes =)

[circular]

lol personaly I received a sweater and a DVD of "Scènes de ménages". And you ?

[lainz]

A JoyPad and a PenDrive, just to clean up my pc, format, install windows, and play some games ocasionally.

[circular]

lol apparently some people know you are a fan of computer and of computer games. 

[felipemdc]

I don't say that. If we use this analogy of programming language, then christianity is a language itself, where the word Christmas and Jesus have a specific meaning. But the word Christmas is used outside of the "christian language" to specify a period of time, which in scientific terms, can be defined as a solstice.

You are wrong. You should read wikipedia to learn what things mean: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas

"Christmas or Christmas Day (Old English: Crīstesmæsse, literally "Christ's mass") is an annual commemoration of the birth of Jesus Christ"

There is no sun event which isn't even on the same date.

If I lived in Saudi Arabia and suddenly started celebrating Hamadan out of cultural immitation it wouldn't suddenly become something else from what it is, just because I celebrate (hipotetically) it without thinking. You cannot change something by doing it without belief, that's why your idea is your own invention and completely unsourced. I don't understand how you can think that people that celebrate christmas without belief are celebrating the solstice. They are not. That's why, again, I recommend you to start your "Merry Solstice" thread to discuss this off-topic.

If christian believe there is something more than just a sun event here, they can. As other traditions, christian believe that there is somthing spiritual about this date.

There is no sun event, you are completely wrong. Again, read wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solstice

The solstice this year was on the 22th not 25h. If it was a solstice celebration it would have been on .... err .. on the solstice.

[circular]

I understand that you are defensive. But you exagerate the imprecision in what I say. You obviously do not want to understand what I am saying.

By the way, if the author of this topic wanted to wish a merry christmas in the narrow meaning of christianity, he or she would have used another title, something like "merry christmas to all christians using Lazarus / FreePascal".

It is not possible to include and to exclude at the same time.

[marcov]

The solstice this year was on the 22th not 25h. If it was a solstice celebration it would have been on .... err .. on the solstice.

Look up what a "julian" calender is.