This is a beautiful post.

And this is what I feel. If you want to celebrate Christmas as a holy day, celebrate as a holy day.

But denying one pagan/non-religious symbol but keeping all the others seems a little hypocritical to me.

Anyway, back to the original question.

No, I don't believe Santa is bad for kids. I believed in Santa when I was small. I don't think anyone told me he didn't exist, I think I just grew out of him. Little clues here and there made me realize at a young age that he wasn't real. It wasn't so much believing in him as it was the idea of him. It makes kids happy...so if you celebrate it the non-religious way as I do (since I don't believe in organized religion), then who cares, it doesn't harm the child.

Now, if you have a teenager still believing in him then you might have problems, but there's proably much more going on that him or her still believing in Santa.

Thanks for your comment on my post.

Question for you...I know you said you don't believe in organized religion, but do you believe that Jesus is the Son of God who came to earth and died for our sins? If not, I wonder why you celebrate Christmas in the non-religious way as you said. If people want to celebrate the Winter Solstice or have a Yule log or what every pagen ritual (including decorating a tree, which is discussed in the Bible, BTW) I don't try to tell them they can't, but I personnally find it hypocrytical to say you are "celebrating" Christmas, but want to take the religious/Christian aspects out of it.

BTW, I can't take credit for most of the post, I "stole" it from a sermon my Pastor preached 2 Sundays ago! :D

You have a good point there.

I don't really believe that Jesus is our saviour. I also don't celebrate christmas in the religious sense, and I don't celebrate the pagan winter solstice either. I suppose I celebrate the halmark holiday that it has become because I always have. It's really only out of tradition that I do this. In fact, I would be more than thrilled if my family wanted to stop altogether. Unfortunately they don't want to and I am obliged to spend this time of the year with them.

I don't go to church. I don't sing carols...nor do I sing Christmas related songs (perhaps I should put quotations marks around Christmas?) I put a tree up because the family wants it. Honestly I "celebrate" it out of tradition. It's nothing more than another holiday to me.

But I see your point.

Ditto. As a Humanist I celebrate the season as a time of good joy, since it seems to bring that to so many people. Nothing more, nothing less.

Also, btw, my reference to Happy Solstice in an earlier post had nothing to do with paganism but rather the definition of winter solstice when the sun in at a point to define the onset of winter--usually around Dec. 22. Some people celebrate it as the birth of a new season of cleansing. So I hope no offense was taken by anyone.

*ahhhh, intelligent, diversity of thought, discussions--the beauty of internet message boards such as this one*

No offense was taken by me ladygreek. Can you tell me what you me by a "Humanist"? What beliefs/practices actually go with this designation?

In a nutshell, Humanist believe in the intrinsic good of the human race and that one should live right and treat everyone with love for the sake of the race versus the promise of reward (Heaven) or threat of punishment (Hell.) Most Humanists are agnostic but others believe in a Deity. I fall into the latter and prefer to call Him God. But we do not believe in the Trinity.

There is a book: African-American Humanism: an anthology written by Norm R. Allen Jr. that you might find of interest.

Thanks ladygreek. Just to make sure I understand. You believe in a higher being, but after this life that's kinda it? There is no afterlife, per se. Is that right? What role does the deity play in humanity from a humanist standpoint?

Mind you most Humanist do not believe in a deity. Those of us who do believe Him to be the Creator. As for the afterlife, yeah this is your heaven or hell right here.

OK, back to Santa.
 

A few years ago my children were questioning the Santa thing and I was reluctant to tell them the truth. Now that they know the truth what a load off my pocketbook! Cause now they know that there is a limit to what they will ask for -- it's Momma's money not free gifts from a fat bearded man in a red suit!

I am even so now tempted to do away with all gift-giving at Christmas from here on because it's so WRONG!! I felt this way on Thanksgiving because I overate and then watched one commercial after another after another after another about getting out to shop at 6 a.m. on Black Friday. Some stores even offered a wake up call. I am so turned off from what we do from Nov to Dec every year. We eat way too much on Thanksgiving and there are people starving next door. And then we get up at the crack of dawn the next day to buy gifts for people we know who already have everything. This doesn't make much sense to me if we call ourselves celebrating the birth of Christ and do nothing to help a world full of hurting people.

Frederica Mathewes-Green gives her point of view here:

belief.net/story/57/story_5781_1.html


If that link doesn't work, try going to the blog I linked from:

www.southern-orthodoxy.blogspot.com/

MSKKG,
Do you have another link? Neither of these work. Thanks :)

Re: OK, back to Santa.
 

I agree with you BlueReign. What was up with those wake-up calls? I think I went to one store (after I rolled out of bed, there was going to be none of that crack of dawn action :) ) and that was because it was a new store that I wanted to see the inside of. Sometimes it is a bit too commercial.

NinjaPoodle, These are the only ones I have. I typed in the 2nd one when I was at Internet Explorer to see if I could access the blog, and it worked. Maybe you'll have to try it that way and then link to Frederica's article from there.

I am so computer illiterate that I can't offer any other help than that! Hope it works.