This year, to save me from tears
Hello, everyone! It's Christmas time, and I thought I would address something that's been slightly bothering me about this time of year. Ever since I moved out of my home to go to college, I haven't been the biggest fan of Christmas, mostly because it's lonely not having my family around during the time of year when family time is most celebrated. Through that, I've also found that it irks me that Christmas seems to be about how many presents you get or how magical you can make that one day of the year by giving to people, while during the rest of the year, you couldn't give two shits about the homeless or starving.
Those are just small fish compared to the big one currently frying in the same pan. If you're on my facebook, you'll notice that I recently found an article about "concerned parents" insisting on a school taking down an educational display about the pagan holiday Yule. In the article, someone mentioned that paganism is related to devil worship, which is why they didn't want information on paganism in the school. First of all, that whole idea is bullshit. If you know one thing about pagans, it's that they don't worship the devil because they don't believe in one single god...and if that one god doesn't exist, how can the devil exist? Instead, they believe in worshiping several gods with varying degrees of good and evil in them--it's the contrast within their personalities that makes them more believable, I think.
I'm digressing, though. What's bothering me is the fact that Christmas seems to be a war, anymore. Whose holiday is it? Who gets to celebration in earnest on this holiday? And, if it's not me, why does the other religion get to win? It's just one big competition about who is allowed to celebrate the most openly, which is ridiculous. This is the time of year when everyone's supposed to be putting their differences aside and making merry with each other (even though it would be cool if we decided to do that year round!), not making each other miserable because we're fighting and feeling some form of oppression from one judgmental person or another.
There's a reason why we're all so different from one another: it's so we can learn and grow, finding strength through our differences. We're not meant to all be alike, so why do we expect each other to believe the same set of beliefs? Why can't we be glad when we meet someone who's different than us, rather than feel defensive? If everyone was exactly alike, I think we'd be crawling all over the first different person we found because we would want to learn from them. What makes that person so different? Do I want to be like them or am I just happy to understand something new in the world? We wouldn't want to overpower (well, hopefully not, anyway) that new person because we would have the wisdom to understand that this person inspires an interest to change--creativity in progress. So, why do we feel so threatened, scared, and angry when someone comes along with different beliefs, anymore? It's part of our culture. It's part of our history. It's part of who we are as a people, and we seem to have forgotten that.
If you entered the holiday season the way an atheist, such as myself, sees it, you would realize how silly it all looks: comparing whose imaginary god is the most powerful and prominent in order to decide who deserves a better holiday season. In reality, we all choose the religion and belief system that makes us the most at peace; so why can't we celebrate with each other the fact that we've taken care of ourselves enough to find that peace, even if it was found on another branch of that vast religion tree than that of your friend?
Life's about being happy, but sometimes we do a damn good job at dwelling on the opposite emotion. Keep this in mind; I hope it helps. Happy holidays, everyone!
Those are just small fish compared to the big one currently frying in the same pan. If you're on my facebook, you'll notice that I recently found an article about "concerned parents" insisting on a school taking down an educational display about the pagan holiday Yule. In the article, someone mentioned that paganism is related to devil worship, which is why they didn't want information on paganism in the school. First of all, that whole idea is bullshit. If you know one thing about pagans, it's that they don't worship the devil because they don't believe in one single god...and if that one god doesn't exist, how can the devil exist? Instead, they believe in worshiping several gods with varying degrees of good and evil in them--it's the contrast within their personalities that makes them more believable, I think.
I'm digressing, though. What's bothering me is the fact that Christmas seems to be a war, anymore. Whose holiday is it? Who gets to celebration in earnest on this holiday? And, if it's not me, why does the other religion get to win? It's just one big competition about who is allowed to celebrate the most openly, which is ridiculous. This is the time of year when everyone's supposed to be putting their differences aside and making merry with each other (even though it would be cool if we decided to do that year round!), not making each other miserable because we're fighting and feeling some form of oppression from one judgmental person or another.
There's a reason why we're all so different from one another: it's so we can learn and grow, finding strength through our differences. We're not meant to all be alike, so why do we expect each other to believe the same set of beliefs? Why can't we be glad when we meet someone who's different than us, rather than feel defensive? If everyone was exactly alike, I think we'd be crawling all over the first different person we found because we would want to learn from them. What makes that person so different? Do I want to be like them or am I just happy to understand something new in the world? We wouldn't want to overpower (well, hopefully not, anyway) that new person because we would have the wisdom to understand that this person inspires an interest to change--creativity in progress. So, why do we feel so threatened, scared, and angry when someone comes along with different beliefs, anymore? It's part of our culture. It's part of our history. It's part of who we are as a people, and we seem to have forgotten that.
If you entered the holiday season the way an atheist, such as myself, sees it, you would realize how silly it all looks: comparing whose imaginary god is the most powerful and prominent in order to decide who deserves a better holiday season. In reality, we all choose the religion and belief system that makes us the most at peace; so why can't we celebrate with each other the fact that we've taken care of ourselves enough to find that peace, even if it was found on another branch of that vast religion tree than that of your friend?
Life's about being happy, but sometimes we do a damn good job at dwelling on the opposite emotion. Keep this in mind; I hope it helps. Happy holidays, everyone!
Comments
Post a Comment