Secrets of the City

I’m a Buddhist.

I like Christmas. Christ, once you separate him from the Christians, was a pretty swell guy with some great ideas. But Christmas isn’t any more about Christ than Fishman’s Kosher Deli is about fish. It’s an American secular holiday layered on top of some thin religious background.

I mean, who doesn’t like exchanging gifts and wearing Santa hats to work (I buy a new one every year) and cookies and caroling and watching the Pope give the homily (and Pope Benedict was looking rather less Palpatine than when he was Cardinal, I must say). And Eggnog — can’t forget the eggnog. Or the Heat Miser. Or the Xmas day buffet at Holy Land on Central.

Christmas in essense is the Maroon 5 of holidays. Fun, but with little substance.

So I say Merry Christmas to my Xian friends and Happy Cchhaannuukkaahh (just pick some letters, they’ll fit someone’s spelling of it) to my Jewish friends and Happy Eid to my Muslim friends after Ramadan and I go to the temple and sit for Rohatsu. In the end, it’s all just saying, “Yo — peace and love, Bro” to everyone in whatever flavor they like best.

I work almost every Christmas day so the Christian guys can have the day off with their families or go to midnight mass or whatever. Then I go eat rosewater-roasted goat at Holy Land and call my parents.

In the best sign of international peace this year, Holy Land is selling the big blue tins of Danish butter cookies. Maybe there’s hope after all.

Merry Christmas, y’all.

Where did you get the Chinese food?
I’m starving in Uptown.

I was in the airport on the 24th. Most of the employees seem to be from nations having lots of muslims. I’m guessing that working on this holiday is not a big deal. That, or muslims celebrate the holiday at the airport.

Kind of ironic that we’re all lock-down on terror, and there are all these muslims at the airport.

That’s the 1st time Fishman’s & Holy Land have been mentioned in the same paragraph…one is devoutly pro-Israel, and the other would like to see it wiped off of the map.

This Jew cebrated X-mas weekend in a Rabbi’s home in St. Louis…I forgot what a pain in the ass it is to have a kosher house. That led to a 9 hour X-mas day drive back from the STL with 2 screaming kids and an exhausted wife, which I just followed with Quang’s delicious grilled chicken & sticky rice salad and chased with a bath, some Tylenol 3 and a glass of Oban.

Every time someone wished us a Merry Christmas throughout the weekend, my 5 y/o son would matter-of-factly would say “I’m Jewish…I don’t celebrate Christmas”. It seemed sweet until he did it @ a truck stop 3 miles off the highway in NE Missouri and every yokel turned to see if we had horns.

I’m an atheist, or maybe more exactly, since I really don’t care if there’s a gawd or not, I’m an agnostic. And I really like Christmas.

In between the hype and the sales and the stress, and the growing conflict between what has for centuries been a de facto Christian state and the new combined growing presence of non-Christians and a growing ability to proclaim one’s non-Christianity without fear of internal banishment and exile, it still does come through that the celebration of Christmas is, at root, a celebration of the combined first principles of forgiveness and the Golden Rule.

The historical Jesus (true or not) taught that we should govern our treatment of others by looking to how we would like to be treated in similar situations. As a moral basis, this has a stunning simplicity and an inarguable validity. Were I a pessimist, I’d now speak of how seldom this is attained in his name, but the optimist in me sees that, in a tough world, it’s admirable and hope-giving that such a message continues to be the aspiration of Christianity.

And so Christmas, to me, becomes a statement that at least we’re trying.

Merry Christmas, all.

.

Christmas has become a consumer holiday. It drives sales. Whats not to love about it. The tacky lights on your property. The gifts. The tree with more lights. A day off from work. It’s all in good fun. It helps businesses. However it would be nice if there were some stores open.

That’s the 1st time Fishman’s & Holy Land have been mentioned in the same paragraph…one is devoutly pro-Israel, and the other would like to see it wiped off of the map.

The guy who convinced me to take the Buddhist precepts (basically you promise to live by 10 rules for the rest of your life) is an orthodox jew who teaches at Yeshiva U.

Maybe the juxtaposition isn’t coincidence.

“ . . .the Buddhist precepts (basically you promise to live by 10 rules for the rest of your life) . . .“

- – -

Christians I know talk about promising to live by ten rules, too. What do you bet the two sets correspond almost one to one?

.

i’m chinese. i am an atheistic agnostic.
i celebrate christmas in a non traditional fashion. its never been a religious thing in my family, much more of a celebration of the ‘for the kids’ sort of way. and once we grew up it became more of an excuse to exchange presents and such. especially once we physically moved apart as a family – so then i started spending christmas with other people’s family’s and learning that aspect.
the last few years its been just a few days of rest and quiet relaxation for me. this year on christmas day i went out to have a huge chinese meal with two of my formerly jewish friends. (they’re now athiest) we ate at Hong Kong Noodles in Stadium village. afterwards we felt like milkshakes so we hit up Little T’s in uptown for some dessert. it was quite a fun day.

long live atheists!!! Happy New Year!

As far as Christmas, I reached my breaking point this year…I’m just not going to do it next year. My favorite holidays have always been those with NO links to religion…..Fourth of July and Thanksgiving….which means giving thanks, not necessarily thanking some god.

And thanks to no shopping on Christmas I had no breakfast today. %$#@#$%

My favorite holidays have always been those with NO links to religion…..Fourth of July and Thanksgiving….

heh. flunked history, I see. those two have everything to do with religion. maybe you should latch onto st. valentine’s day or halloween as your new favorite holiday.

I was raised in a devout Baha’i household, and am now agnostic. Something I’ve realized over the past few years is that many Christians in this country don’t really see the difference between being raised in a non-observant Christian family and being raised in an observant something other than Christian family, at least when it comes to Christmas.
There have been so many times when friends, friends who are completely aware that I am in no way Christian, have been surprised that I don’t do Christmas. Yes, it’s a largely secularized holiday in America these days, but it’s still Christmas for most of us non-Christians.

Don’t get me wrong, the spirit of the holiday is all well and good (Peace and love right back at you, bro), but I still completely sympathize with the mother in the article.

You can’t be atheist and agnostic at the same time.

Atheist = you don’t believe in any gods

Agnostic = you don’t believe the question of god or gods is knowable

Speaking as an agnostic, learn your Greek roots and know what something means before you use it to describe yourself:

a = not, without

theos = God

gnos = knowledge