Christmas Mass

[Qwerty Dvorak]

Just a question for all you atheists and agnostics out there; did you go to Christmas Mass?

I went last night. I used to go out of family obligation, but now I go because it is a nice way to chill out and get in the Christmas spirit, and because even as a secularist agnostic it is inspiring and comforting to see the church full for Christmas. Christmas is a great holiday and its underlying basis is faith. Even though that basis may not always be apparent, I do believe that if the faith was to disappear Christmas wouldn't be the same and neither would society.

What do you guys think?

[Chapter 24]

I actually did go to mass last night at four with my dad's side of the family (my mom didn't come, as she's Jewish). It was just like every other Christmas mass, the usual hymns and story. It's actually the one Catholic mass I can actually stand going to as 1) the rest of my family go there and 2) everyone seems to be really into it and excited, which is great because otherwise it'd be the usual. "Hallelujaaaaaaaah. Hallelujaaa-aaaaaah. Ha-aah-lee-ee-luuuu-jaaaaah...... Aaaaaaaaaaaaameeeeeeeeeen."
Sorry if that seems like spamming, but that really is what Catholic mass is all about: making words unnecessarily much longer than they're pronounced in order to intentionally make it longer. Bad enough I have to kneel for ten minutes while the priest is "preparing the gifts".

[Killfacer]

Nah i never go to christmas mass. I'm not one of those anti christmas atheists but why would i got to christmas mass when i could be watching TV and eating silly amounts of chocolate.

Having said that i do really enjoy christmas. Favourite time of the year.

[Demogorgon]

I sometimes go, not this year though. I did not have any inclination to do so and besides, I was far too drunk. No doubt I will go again though sometime, it is always interesting.

[Forward Union]

I've never been. It looks really really really boring and pointless.

[OneNamedNameLess]

I no longer go to mass to appease my mother. I get what you mean about the Christmas spirit at mass. I particularly enjoy the cheery hugs and handshakes at the end of the service.

I do not object to people attending mass. In the future, socialist governments should learn from previous anti-religious actions as it never helped their cause. The fear of communism after the Russian Revolution was triggered by many factors but the Bolsheviks treatment of religious establishments contributed to a large extent.

[Bud Struggle]

I've never been. It looks really really really boring and pointless.

Just as a suggestion for something interesting and lovely to do (not to convert you) I suggest you take in a Sunday high Mass at the Brompton Oratory on Brompton Road in South Kensington next to the Victoria and Albert Museum.

It is a really beautiful musical and aesthetic experience.

[Jazzratt]

Religious ceremonies (the few I've attended) bore me rigid. When the priest or imam or whatever bothers to start speaking I feel like interjecting conversationally with a few few of those filler phrases like "oh, that's interesting", "really?" or "Fuck me ragged!", at a normal volume. Just to see what would happen.

[Dr Mindbender]

i dont think an apparent lack of faith would affect christmas culture one iota. When I think of Christmas i think of overpriced presents, filling myself with food until i have to digest like a python, those silly paper hats and shit telly. I dont think of our 'saviour' the baby lying in donkey poo.

[Pirate turtle the 11th]

in South Kensington

:laugh:

[FuckYoCouch]

Beleive it Or Not, there are Christians that Think CHristmas is a Load of Pagan Bullshit Fed to the Catholic churh :cool:

[Jazzratt]

Beleive it Or Not, there are Christians that Think CHristmas is a Load of Pagan Bullshit Fed to the Catholic churh :cool:

There are rally, really boring christians?! Well I fucking never!

[FuckYoCouch]

There are rally, really boring christians?! Well I fucking never!


Not Boring. Just Not into the Fact that Christmas is a Holiday Celebrated By Pagans, For Pagans, Has Nothing to do with Christ, turned charity (gift giving) into a Greed Fest.

Fuuuuuck Yer corporate Holiday.

[Jazzratt]

Not Boring. Just Not into the Fact that Christmas is a Holiday Celebrated By Pagans, For Pagans, Has Nothing to do with Christ, turned charity (gift giving) into a Greed Fest.

Fuuuuuck Yer corporate Holiday.

Firstly, capital letters occur at the beginning of sentences and proper nouns (names and so on) not throughout the majority of the sentence. My 8 year old cousin has grasped this concept, it's not the most complex rule of grammar or anything.

Secondly the gift giving was part of the pagan tradition that christians pinched. Also the "greed" aspect you rail against was introduced long after christmas became a widespread tradition. Pagan winter celebrations generally included a bit of gluttony and a lot of sacrifices to and worship of gods other than YHWH. Of course talking about "pagan" celebrations isn't really helpful because "pagan" was the racist term employed by early christians when they were killing and persecuting those of a non-christian bent.

Thirdly I enjoy the corporate holiday and I do not see why I should feel guilty about finding a decent excuse to go out drinking with my mates, to see my family (a rarity, but often an enjoyable one) and gorge myself stupid on delicious roast things. Communists should never decend into guilt-ridden asceticism, misery helps no one.

[EseSocialistaSurge]

Well the only reason I went was to respect my fathers opinions because I live under my parents house and not my own. I didnt pray, sing, or do that whole blessing thing though. Just sat there, stood when needed, and was overall respectful. I believe that although Its not what I find to be true, many others do and to be disrespectful would create unnecessary conflict.

[thejambo1]

never been, never will.:cool:

[Dyslexia! Well I Never!]

Christmas mass (much like the midnight mass) is a fucking awful thing designed almost specifically to foil any attempt to drunkenly bed the sons and/or daughters of a Catholic family during the holiday season.

As such (and having never been catholic) I have never been to this abominable service and pity those who do as slaves to nonsensical tradition.

[Pogue]

Religious ceremonies (the few I've attended) bore me rigid. When the priest or imam or whatever bothers to start speaking I feel like interjecting conversationally with a few few of those filler phrases like "oh, that's interesting", "really?" or "Fuck me ragged!", at a normal volume. Just to see what would happen.

I now love you.

[Pogue]

I went to mass once with my mates family cos I was spending the day with them. I have never, ever been more bored in my life. They did some bit when you kiss the feet of a statue of Christ. What the fuck is that about? I joined in out of respect, but I left thinking, what a joke.

[Dyslexia! Well I Never!]

H-L-V-S - Don't give in to the duped and their fucking batshit crazy rituals. When grown men and women are expected to kiss an inanimate object in reverance to a magic ghost in the sky by express agency of his son the carpenter's adopted kid who abandoned his adoptive family to go get himself killed. Here is what you do.

1) Take about three steps back (more or less depending on the space you happen to be in)

2) Clear your throat.

3) Point out in a clear voice exactly how fucking idiotic this is.

3.5) (Advised) inquire as to the cleanliness of the statue pointing out this tradition most probably predates the modern understanding of harmful pathogens.

4) Refuse loudly to touch the statue at all and try to ensure nobdy else does either.

4.5) (Optional) Befoul the statue in some irredeemable fashion. (Flammable chemicals, anthrax, urine, semen and faeces will all work. Especially when mixed together.)

5) Report the church in question to the local health and safety authority. Just to fuck it up for the deluded next year.

This will do two things depending on charisma and the audience it will seriously derail the religious experience of the worshippers and may cause a few to think about the stupid things they do to stay in the supposed guy upstairs's good books.

Religion is not a joke. It is a willful ignorance controlled by a council of madfuck rightist thinkers, a geriatric and two millennia of dogma. All fortified in the supposedly unassailable bastion of antiquity wrapped in self-protecting laws.

It is a cancer that needs to be cut out of the Human race so we can advance unhindered by the backward mysticism of those who have devoted themselves to the primitive myths of earlier times.

[Pogue]

H-L-V-S - Don't give in to the duped and their fucking batshit crazy rituals. When grown men and women are expected to kiss an inanimate object in reverance to a magic ghost in the sky by express agency of his son the carpenter's adopted kid who abandoned his adoptive family to go get himself killed. Here is what you do.

1) Take about three steps back (more or less depending on the space you happen to be in)

2) Clear your throat.

3) Point out in a clear voice exactly how fucking idiotic this is.

3.5) (Advised) inquire as to the cleanliness of the statue pointing out this tradition most probably predates the modern understanding of harmful pathogens.

4) Refuse loudly to touch the statue at all and try to ensure nobdy else does either.

4.5) (Optional) Befoul the statue in some irredeemable fashion. (Flammable chemicals, anthrax, urine, semen and faeces will all work. Especially when mixed together.)

5) Report the church in question to the local health and safety authority. Just to fuck it up for the deluded next year.

This will do two things depending on charisma and the audience it will seriously derail the religious experience of the worshippers and may cause a few to think about the stupid things they do to stay in the supposed guy upstairs's good books.

I only did it once, years ago, when I was a kid, out of politeness.

[Qwerty Dvorak]

H-L-V-S - Don't give in to the duped and their fucking batshit crazy rituals. When grown men and women are expected to kiss an inanimate object in reverance to a magic ghost in the sky by express agency of his son the carpenter's adopted kid who abandoned his adoptive family to go get himself killed. Here is what you do.

1) Take about three steps back (more or less depending on the space you happen to be in)

2) Clear your throat.

3) Point out in a clear voice exactly how fucking idiotic this is.

3.5) (Advised) inquire as to the cleanliness of the statue pointing out this tradition most probably predates the modern understanding of harmful pathogens.

4) Refuse loudly to touch the statue at all and try to ensure nobdy else does either.

4.5) (Optional) Befoul the statue in some irredeemable fashion. (Flammable chemicals, anthrax, urine, semen and faeces will all work. Especially when mixed together.)

5) Report the church in question to the local health and safety authority. Just to fuck it up for the deluded next year.

This will do two things depending on charisma and the audience it will seriously derail the religious experience of the worshippers and may cause a few to think about the stupid things they do to stay in the supposed guy upstairs's good books.

Religion is not a joke. It is a willful ignorance controlled by a council of madfuck rightist thinkers, a geriatric and two millennia of dogma. All fortified in the supposedly unassailable bastion of antiquity wrapped in self-protecting laws.

It is a cancer that needs to be cut out of the Human race so we can advance unhindered by the backward mysticism of those who have devoted themselves to the primitive myths of earlier times.
You're such a well 'ard revolutionary? Do you piss on your granny in the name of progress?

Opposition to religion is all well and good, and I started this thread to get a debate going on the benefits v drawbacks of things like Christmas mass. But this goes beyond civilized discussion and is quite frankly batshit insane. I doubt any girl from a Catholic family is going to want to be anywhere near you, they'd probably get a bit weirded out when you start foaming at the mouth and pissing all over the place while screaming about cancer.

Maybe things are different where you live but over here that's not how you get a girl.

[Dyslexia! Well I Never!]

So? You didn't murder puppies/kittens/smaller children/the weak as a child I assume and the same morality applies now as then.

It is the moral responsibility of humanity to cleanse itself of religion in order to become a group that can account for it's own actions rather than refering the outdated moral codes of ancient myth.

I was urging you to stand firm in your beliefs (or mine more accurately) rather than cave in "out of politeness" to the insanity of ritual. Impoliteness can be a virtue when what is accepted is insane.

They had you kissing the feet of their idol and you joined in. What if they'd been sacrificing goats, puppies, kittens, lesbians, gays and their own younger siblings in a dark crypt intent on dedicating it to the equally laughable concept of Satan? Having joined in with the catholic's idol kissing would you have joined in with the satanist's ritual slaughter "out of politeness"?

You thought to defend your decision with me now, why didn't you argue with them then?

Rituals are not harmless they are a physical practice of the process of unthinking blind faith.

Ignorance is not an excuse it is a very real danger.

[Pogue]

So? You didn't murder puppies/kittens/smaller children/the weak as a child I assume and the same morality applies now as then.

It is the moral responsibility of humanity to cleanse itself of religion in order to become a group that can account for it's own actions rather than refering the outdated moral codes of ancient myth.

I was urging you to stand firm in your beliefs (or mine more accurately) rather than cave in "out of politeness" to the insanity of ritual. Impoliteness can be a virtue when what is accepted is insane.

They had you kissing the feet of their idol and you joined in. What if they'd been sacrificing goats, puppies, kittens, lesbians, gays and their own younger siblings in a dark crypt intent on dedicating it to the equally laughable concept of Satan? Having joined in with the catholic's idol kissing would you have joined in with the satanist's ritual slaughter "out of politeness"?

You thought to defend your decision with me now, why didn't you argue with them then?

Rituals are not harmless they are a physical practice of the process of unthinking blind faith.

Ignorance is not an excuse it is a very real danger.

What the hell was that about?

[Qwerty Dvorak]

FWIW I never kissed a statue, it's not common practice here in Ireland. And it's perfectly acceptable to do something out of politeness even if you don't believe in it. When you heard kids on the street talking about Santa did you turn around and piss on them?



They had you kissing the feet of their idol and you joined in. What if they'd been sacrificing goats, puppies, kittens, lesbians, gays and their own younger siblings in a dark crypt intent on dedicating it to the equally laughable concept of Satan? Having joined in with the catholic's idol kissing would you have joined in with the satanist's ritual slaughter "out of politeness"?
Because of course kissing te feet of a statue is the same thing as sacrificing gays. Obviously the key difference is that the latter is harming someone while the former is not. In fact, nothing about that mass harmed anyone. Most of the congregation were nice, elderly people, not exactly the boogeymen you would have us believe they are.


You thought to defend your decision with me now, why didn't you argue with them then?
Because RevLeft is a place for arguing, mass is not.

[Pogue]

FWIW I never kissed a statue, it's not common practice here in Ireland. And it's perfectly acceptable to do something out of politeness even if you don't believe in it. When you heard kids on the street talking about Santa did you turn around and piss on them?


Because of course kissing te feet of a statue is the same thing as sacrificing gays. Obviously the key difference is that the latter is harming someone while the former is not. In fact, nothing about that mass harmed anyone. Most of the congregation were nice, elderly people, not exactly the boogeymen you would have us believe they are.


Because RevLeft is a place for arguing, mass is not.

He was ranting at me, and I don't understand why. I wasn't even arguing.

[Dyslexia! Well I Never!]

I was simply saying that rituals perpetuate religion I don't approve of religion at all in any form.

I don't believe religions should be scarosanct and left inviolate. Anything as stupid as religion deserves to be put up for arguement along with everything else. As such I don't agree that politeness requires one to be forced into participating in a otherwise worthless ritual.

I was also somewhat taking the piss.

[eyedrop]

Just a question for all you atheists and agnostics out there; did you go to Christmas Mass?

Nope, that time is reserved for a family tradition. Playing hockey down at the hockeyrink. Back in the days it was a perfect to waste the day for us children before christmas eve when it's present time.

[Random Precision]

Everyone please chill the fuck out. HLVS, you can consider yourself warned for flaming.

[apathy maybe]

Everyone please chill the fuck out. HLVS, you can consider yourself warned for flaming.

Wait what? I don't understand why H-L-V-S would be warned?


------

To answer the original question:
When at home I go to the mass for Christmas and Easter (Easter is the most important Christian thingy OK?). Otherwise I don't bother.

Instead, it's a nice day to stay at home with my SO etc.

[Pogue]

Wait what? I don't understand why H-L-V-S would be warned?


------

To answer the original question:
When at home I go to the mass for Christmas and Easter (Easter is the most important Christian thingy OK?). Otherwise I don't bother.

Instead, it's a nice day to stay at home with my SO etc.

Neither do I, but I guess you don't need a reason when you're given the power to punish other people on a whim.

[Random Precision]

Sigh. HLVS flamed Dyslexia, the conversation in which it occurred having been moved to the Trashcan. Dyslexia's anti-religious diatribes, while being near the height of stupidity as far as I can see, did not contain any flames, probably because he has been warned twice for flaming in this forum by yours truly. So let no one say that I "punish people on a whim". I don't, however, tolerate any sort of flaming in my forum.

[Invincible Summer]

Reading the thing about statues made me want to post this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=znnFmTuGVyc


The screams of horror are akin to seeing someone being hit by a speeding train... amusing.



Anyways, I think it's strange for people who don't normally attend church to feel compelled to go to Christmas church functions or even Easter.

Even if it's "tradition," I don't think that's a good reason... and I don't think I need to explain why "tradition" is a poor excuse for continuing a practice.


What I've noticed is that when someone says they don't eat something/do something b/c of their religion, everyone's like "Oh okay I totally understand. Please tell me about your religion!" Yet, if you're against religion, you're seen as some sort of closed-minded bigot or something.