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I am religious and believe in free will

71 (27.7%)

I am religious and do not believe in free will

10 (3.9%)

I am not religious and believe in free will

114 (44.5%)

I am not religious and do not believe in free will

61 (23.8%)

Total Members Voted: 251

[hector13]

It’d just have a different name. Saturnalia or whatever else someone came up with in the ensuing millennia.

[McTraveller]

It wouldn’t merely have a different name, it would be a different thing.

[hector13]

It wouldn’t be a different thing, but I’ll concede it means different things to different people.

[Grim Portent]

I can't think of anything important that would change. Feasts, charity, presents, families getting together, and so on are all part of most religions holy periods, and featured in most European pagan winter festivals. Saturnalia, the Hellenic winter festival, was all about charity, generosity and festivities with family and servants.

[Maximum Spin]

Saturnalia isn't even the same week.

The whole "Christmas is just a rebranded pagan holiday" idea - indeed, the same idea for many modern holidays - is largely a myth. The feast of Sol Invicti, which was on the 25 of December, is also often cited, but that actually seems to be later than the Christian tradition, dating to AD 274, and may have been trying to usurp it rather than the other way around. Contrary to the common wisdom, though, the approximate date of Christmas is indirectly given in the book of Luke, according to the Jewish tradition that miraculous conceptions happen on the instant that God announces them: John the Baptist's conception is announced to his father, a priest, while the latter is in the Holy of Holies, which can only be entered on Yom Kippur; and the Annunciation to Mary is stated to take place six months into that pregnancy, placing the Nativity nine months after that, or fifteen months after Yom Kippur overall - solidly in about the last week of December, since Yom Kippur falls near the end of September or beginning of October. Similarly, the Annunciation is traditionally celebrated on March 25, which is consistent with that timeline.

Saturnalia, the Hellenic winter festival, was all about charity, generosity and festivities with family and servants.

Not exactly.

[McTraveller]

Right I mean they are "exactly the same" if you don't include the entire God becoming incarnate as Jesus aspect?

We wouldn't have "Christmas" without that. We'd just have... some other festivals.  Sure modern society would have an overly-commercialized version of whatever they are, but it would not be Christmas.

[Maximum Spin]

Right I mean they are "exactly the same" if you don't include the entire God becoming incarnate as Jesus aspect?

They're not even close to being the same even apart from that.

[Strongpoint]

Saturnalia isn't even the same week.

and it is relevant because? Christians decided that the birthday of Jesus needs to be celebrated... The question is how? Taking from Judaism is impossible, no Jesus here. There are zero instructions on how to do it in the Bible (or any indication of how it should be celebrated at all).

They took existing traditions and adapted them, including moving the date to what they assumed is correct. There were no other sources to take from.

[Maximum Spin]

Saturnalia isn't even the same week.

and it is relevant because? Christians decided that the birthday of Jesus needs to be celebrated... The question is how? Taking from Judaism is impossible, no Jesus here. There are zero instructions on how to do it in the Bible (or any indication of how it should be celebrated at all).

They took existing traditions and adapted them, including moving the date to what they assumed is correct. There were no other sources to take from.

People do make up new things, you know. And even when old things are borrowed, they don't have to be taken identically in identical form from the nearest thing in time.

Of course taking from Judaism is possible, just as there wasn't any Jesus in Roman religion where you think they did take from.

There's really no functional similarity between Saturnalia and Christmas except "well, they were both celebratory feasts". They both look like every other remotely similar holiday, including modern Hanukkah, but they have none of their unique features in common - we don't celebrate the receipt of our social norms at the beginning of civilization on Christmas by symbolically reversing them.

[Strongpoint]

Once again had a frustrating conversation with a religious person on the topic of "my religion is against violence, only extremists are violent "

It is so illogical... If a core element of an ideology is not being violent then an extremist, by definition, would be an extremely non-violent person.

If extremists of your ideology (and every religion is an ideology) are violent that means your ideology doesn't put not being violent high on the list of priorities

[MaxTheFox]

I don't even call them extremists for that reason. "Fundamentalist" is more proper, but really "bellend" or "dickwaddle" works too and conveys the same meaning.

[Egan_BW]

Eh. I'd say that any ideology can be used to promote violence if someone's fallen deep enough into the trap of promoting said ideology at any cost. "We will show them our peaceful ways, by force!"

[Loud Whispers]

Eh. I'd say that any ideology can be used to promote violence if someone's fallen deep enough into the trap of promoting said ideology at any cost. "We will show them our peaceful ways, by force!"

"I am freeing you from your self-destructive religion! Now we can kill each other over politics instead!"

[MaxTheFox]

Eh. I'd say that any ideology can be used to promote violence if someone's fallen deep enough into the trap of promoting said ideology at any cost. "We will show them our peaceful ways, by force!"

Yeah I should have also said this. You can find an excuse in most ideologies for most kinds of bigotry. Though I rarely see this, it's conceivable that a "rational atheist" (of the obnoxious and rational-in-name-only, YOU KNOW THE TYPE) would hate gays because he wants to optimize population growth. And yet most atheists I met were chill.

Aside from inherently bigoted ideologies like fascism and paleoconservatism, I do not consider ideology to be the major determining factor if someone is a bellend or not.

[Rolan7]

Eh. I'd say that any ideology can be used to promote violence if someone's fallen deep enough into the trap of promoting said ideology at any cost. "We will show them our peaceful ways, by force!"

Yeah I should have also said this. You can find an excuse in most ideologies for most kinds of bigotry. Though I rarely see this, it's conceivable that a "rational atheist" (of the obnoxious and rational-in-name-only, YOU KNOW THE TYPE) would hate gays because he wants to optimize population growth. And yet most atheists I met were chill.

Aside from inherently bigoted ideologies like fascism and paleoconservatism, I do not consider ideology to be the major determining factor if someone is a bellend or not.

Yeaaah, I've seen quite a few atheists replace Christianity with Traditional Western Values and such.  Seems like a lot of them found their way back to the worst kinds of religion in all but name.

Personally I like to think that holding on to my vague spirituality, despite it's irrationality, helped me stay away from such things.
(though being a sexual minority helped (and yet I was "one of the good ones" and full of internalized homophobia for too many years.  There but for the whims of the fey go I...))

Anyway, just wanted to acknowledge that atheists definitely aren't automatically progressive.  A lot of really cool leftists are Christians, they've really helped me be less afraid of the religion as a whole.