Comment by aristofun 6 days ago
Even if one is a hardcore atheist and thinks that Jesus was only a weird jewish rabbi, not the god, one should celebrate the birthday of the most influential and awesome man in the history of mankind.
Merely out of respect to all his legacy and positive influence that changed the world to a better place than it was before him.
There is no argument about whether Jesus was born on Christmas. Most theologians won’t argue that he was.
Jesus was a real person, it’s a historical fact, not disputed by any worthwhile historians.
If 25 december is not an accurate birthday it’s okay, im happy with moving the celebration to other day if new findings arise.
I wasn’t saying that one particular way of celebrating is right or wrong. My point was about it’s only natural to pay respect to a man who influenced your life, no matter who you are and where you are in this world today. Apparently the degree of influence varies by many factors from almost zero to maximum possible.
The man who influenced MY life for the better are you INSANE.... I AM NATIVE AMERICAN LMAO
Tell me honestly.
Would you rather live today in a pagan war oriented society (and likely die or be enslaved in the next clan war) without all the technological achievements of the last centuries than in the society where you have all the opportunities to work at home or in a comfortable office and argue with a stranger on HN forum without risk of being scalped alive?
What about all the horror death and suffering done in his name ? Like a huge proportion of these Christmas culture things come from pagan Norse culture that was very forcibly christianized in a rather brutal way??? You seem to be overlooking a lot to make someone "awesome" or at least the horrors done in their name long after death.
All those horrors are not unique to human nature unfortunately, nor to the religion. Same or worth things were done in the name of any deity you can think of.
It’s not something that he brought to this world.
But what he brought was powerful and radical enough to slowly and eventually overcome many of the terrible animal-like human traits. Christian societies were the first that got rid of slavery, introduced human rights, democracy etc.
Yes, it took a long time to unravel and it’s not a finished process, but it’s not something that just happened. What feel natural for us today was not natural at all back then.
All critical ethical ideas that modern western civilization is based were either invented or popularized by that guy in some unique and unprecedented way.
>one should celebrate the birthday of the most influential and awesome man in the history of mankind.
Cool. So why don't you celebrate the birthday of Siddhartha Gautama? Or Confucius? Genghis Khan? Julius Caesar?
Because Jesus was not the most influential man in the history of the world. He was influential, but the world is bigger and history deeper than Christians want to believe.
Hell, the only reason anyone even still cares about Jesus is because the Roman emperor Constantine decided Christians were more valuable to him fighting in his army than being fed to lions. If not for him, Christianity would have just been another weird Levantine cult and would have probably died out. So why not celebrate Constantine's birthday instead?
Or the Apostle Paul's birthday? It was his idea to spread the faith to gentiles after all, and one could argue modern Christianity is more influenced by Paul than Jesus.
This is not an opportunity for you to proselytize me.
> Siddhartha Gautama? Or Confucius? Genghis Khan? Julius Caesar?
Valid question.
Mentioned people are not as nearly influential. Buddha is close though. But there were many enlightened men before and after him. There were many other emperors. But no more figures like jesus, even modern eastern gurus often mention him and reference him as an example.
Paul and others were important for the religion yes, but without jesus and powerful message, influence there would have been nothing to work with. There a tons of examples in history of very popular jesus-like figures with even larger initial traction that nobody even knows today.
So accidentally or not - he is the winner. Why not celebrate that. And i assume that history is bigger than christians want to believe, cant know for sure, im not one.
The comment was not about the religion at all.
> one should celebrate the birthday of the most influential and awesome man in the history of mankind.
Perhaps, but - and take this with as many grains of salt as you like, since I'm an atheist - I've heard decent arguments that he was not born anywhere near December.
Plus, everything associated with Christmas as Americans celebrate it has virtually no bearing on the actual events of his birth and/or life, except I suppose the gift-giving.