Loved it.

Lovely whimsical article. Bravo, Tanveer!

I *am* a Christian, and take it seriously, and dislike the commercial and secular swamping of the reason for which we celebrate Christmas. There's a place for those things, but not when they crowd out the basis completely. I appreciated your backhander to those politically-correct "inclusives" who want to take the Christmas out of Christmas. It wouldn't occur to me to tell a Muslim to rename Ramadan, or Eid (Idul Fitri, or Lebaran, as my close Indonesian Muslim friend also calls it).

True inclusiveness can't come from craven Westerners bending over backwards to dis-affirm their own culture.

It has to come from a preparedness of all (including Muslims who take *their* religion seriously) to share the world, rather than insist on BEING the world whether it likes it or not!

For many years, I've wondered why interfaith groups haven't organized joint "Nativity Plays" with little kids doing the relevant bits from the Christian Gospels and the Book of Mary/Miriam in the Koran, one birth in a stable, one under a palm tree. And if they /have/ been done, I'd still be wondering why I haven't seen these reported in the mainstream media.

Too many Christians are ignorant of the shared elements with Islam, and this makes intolerance more likely.

Some kids dressed up as stable animals, some kids dressed up as the fruit-bearing plant that miraculously grows to ease the dry mouth and labor pains of Mary/Miriam - it'd be cute, wouldn't it?

It's the time of year for celebrations, rebranding and remessaging are nothing new. It really is the holiday season and the idea that's it's a distinctly christian celebration has more to do with the success of one rebranding exerfcise than the history of the season.

http://www.simpletoremember.com/vitals/Christmas_TheRealStory.htm

http://www.times-georgian.com/pages/full_story/push?article-Origins+of+Christmas+traditions-+They+may+surprise+you%20&id=5303786-Origins+of+Christmas+traditions-+They+may+surprise+you&instance=home_news_top

http://www.lasttrumpetministries.org/tracts/tract3.html

http://www.thercg.org/books/ttooc.html

http://www.ccg.org/english/s/P235.html

R0bert

Christmas is about Jesus Christ. "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men."

Hate Him, or loathe Him we have no choice, the world celebrates Christmas. Whether we go to church, get drunk, partying, having a wild time, we are celebrating and enjoying ourselves.

Muslims celebrate their festivities by beating themselves senseless or killing animals by the thousands.
http://trueslant.com/michaelhastings/2009/12/28/iraq-ashura-pictures-from-baghdad-warning-it-gets-a-bit-bloody/

Not surprising that with more "free choice" there are about 100 million Chinese today, the Hui Muslim Chinese remained forzen in time and viewed to be backward.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/article5960010.ece?token=null&offset=0&page=1

Many faiths indeed , all are peaceful except for Islam which promotes violence, destruction of things non-Muslim.

Christ-mas, or the re-appearance of the Light is/was an appropriation by Christians of the Winter Solstice festival which was celebrated all over the ancient world--and still is.
Hence:
Alban Arthan by the Druids in England
Amaterasu the Shinto sun goddess in Japan
Chaomos the Kalash people in Pakistan
Chronia an ancient Greek festival
Deygan Zoroastrian from ancient Persia
Dong Zhi Buddhists in China and East Asia
Feast of St Lucia ancient Scandanavian--now St Lucy's Day
Hannukah the Festival Of Lights Judaism
Hogmanay Scottish with roots in Norse solstice celebrations
Inti Raymi Incans during southern hemisphere winter
Junkanoo parades celebrated in Bahamas & Jamaica--origin West Africa
Makara Sankranti Hindu midwinter festival in India
Satunalia festival of ancient Rome
Soyal Zuni and Hopi tribes North America
Wren Day Druids of Ireland & Wales
Yule or Yul observed since Viking times by Norse & Germanic cultures.

Plus the Christmas Tree or the Tree of Life symbol appears in:

The Book of Genesis
The Rig-Veda
The Bhagavad Gita
The Kabbalah
The Book of Mormon
The Epic of Gilgamesh
The Book of One Thousand and One Nights

It is also referred to in the mythologies of Mesopotamia, Assyria, Mesoamerica, Armnenia and the ancient texts of Hinduism, Buddhism and others too.

This reference gives a unique Understanding of the meaning and significance of Light in all of these stories and Traditions. A meaning which is noticeably absent in todays Western secularized, and even Christianized world.

http://global.adidam.org/books/danavira-3.html

Christmas or Ramadan - it is all rubbish. A celebration of nonsense based on ignorance and superstition.
There is nothing wrong with celebration and the exchange of gifts per se, but let's drop the fiction, and (hopefully) the drunken carnage on the roads and in the streets.

Four questions to the writer and one suggestion to everybody
(a)Tanveer, your wife was a Christian. Is she still a Christian?
(b)Tanveer, you have a child. Is it being raised as a Muslim?
(c)If female will it become one of the ostentatiously covered up Muslims?
(d)Will the child go to a Muslim school or a State school?

Suggestion to all - read the work of the Egyptian born woman Nonie Darwish, in particular 'Cruel and Usual Punishment; the global implications of Islamic Law'. Nelson 2008

Foolish people were surprised how awful Hitler was - even though it was all clearly stated in Mein Kampf. Read Darwish or, when the stuff hits the fan, do not wail 'but I didn't know how awful Islam/Sharia was'.

Too late then.

Hi Tanveer,
You sound like a tolerant person, so I wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, in the spirit of solidarity under one God. I am, however, very depressed and disturbed, when I hear extremists declare that they will repay love of life (apparantly a western/christian cultural norm - despite the number of abortions performed in christian cultures) with death - as in the recent declaration after the plane bomb attempt. I suspect that muslims have greater respect for the unborn than christians - generally, and so I wonder why so many appear to embrace suicide bombing.

Ho Hum,

Yes,exactly, the Christmas that most people celebrate is now more or less secular and has evolved from Roman,Germanic or other pagan Winter festivals,the Christians have lost control of Christmas after 1500 years.

Jesus was not born on 25th December so no relevancy to Christianity bar the holiday name. Apart from that it is, and should be a secular holiday. Those that cry that the Christ has been taken out of Christmas should eb reminded it was put there fraudulently to begin with.

Well said Tanveer. There is no reason in a secular society why we cannot all celebrate according to personal beliefs.

The top most livable places in the world are all secular societies.

Political correctness is pointless when it comes to the celebration of these 'Holidays' whether Christian, Muslim, Jew or otherwise.

The most ridiculous thing I ever witnessed in response to political correctness was when our Primary School banned the usual Easter Hat Parade and replaced it with a Hindu dance show.

I think the Principal was attempting to be inclusive at the height of the political correctness madness but all she did, despite the excellent dancing, was create resentment and divisiveness. I should add there were no Hindus attending the school at that time.

Got the right take Tanveer

I, like I think you, wish for a would where cricket was the higher obsession

where Christians, Muslims, Hindus, born again cricketer West Indians, could disregard the religion of old man Power Projection and keep their eye on the ball.

It would be a better world.

Even Indians and Pakistanis play cricket in peace - no nukes need apply.

Pete

Maybe ‘happy holidays ‘is the best wish that you can bestow if you feel that a wish needs to be bestowed. Not everyone celebrates the religious festival of Christmas but most people at least have a holiday around this time simply to take advantage of the number of public holidays available. Wishing someone a Merry Christmas is very presumptuous. Why wish someone something that they do not necessarily wish for themselves? Maybe they don’t want any type of Christmas. It is just as easy to respect the different choices by wishing them a good holiday rather than a merry Christmas. Many wish a merry Christmas simply because of the pressure they feel to show ‘goodwill to all men’. They are meeting their own needs to be good rather than the needs of the person to whom they are wishing. To them ‘happy holidays’ does not meet the criteria required to appease their guilt.

Celebrating Christmas only makes sense if you are celebrating the birth of Jesus. Why you would want to do that is another question but at least it is consistent. Exactly what everyone else is doing when they say they celebrate Christmas is a mystery. It would be better to wish them a happy family gathering or something. It makes no sense for non-Christians to indulge in Christmas behaviours at all so they must be responding to some kind of peer pressure or emotional blackmail from families. They usually rationalise their behaviour by saying they are celebrating ‘family’ or some other nefarious concept. Christmas behaviours are essentially neurotic. There is no reason or logic behind any of them. You can have just as much fun and joy at this time of year and have integrity at the same time by just enjoying the holiday and familial relationships in the same way you would at any other time. The stress that most people endure is a sure sign that what they are doing is not at all natural.

This article only reinforces my opinion that religious belief is purely a geographical accident dependent on where one is born in the world. Being brought up in India, Catholic or Muslim. Ireland a Catholic. England a Protestant and so on around the globe. Culture is exactly the same. If I had been born an Aboriginal, then perhaps I would believe in "Dream Time".

It is what you are taught to believe at an early age. I was baptised and confirmed into the Church of England, but I soon began to question this world of myth and superstition not substantiated by any sort of proven science and so have rejected it all in favour of evidence and scientific enquiry. Pray to all your various gods if you wish and it gives you succour, but ask yourself the question why you are not heard by your interventionist deity with any favourable result not based on coincidence.

Well Tanveer, you and the Jews can feel comfortable next to the ham.
There was a real purpose to the ban on pig meat originally.
In the middle east the method of animal husbandry that kept parasites
out of the pig were unknown.

The knowledge to do so was developed by the Chinese, before Christ
sometime I believe, and this knowledge got passed through to Europe
somewhat later. However the middle east missed out or it had become
dogma and so could not be changed.

It is burdens like this that religion leaves us with.
I am not sure if in the early first millennium if Europe had a ban on pig meat.
I wonder if the Romans ate ham ?

Well said *BazZ* visa vi the swine.

I often take perverse pleasure in stirring up my Islamic friends about pork. I say things like:

"Well, didn't *GodO* make everything?"

To which they usually respond:
"Yes He(cough) did Adam!"

Adam: "Oh Really?! So, what happened when he made El Porka? Did He ___k up?"

Mooslees: "No Adam, El GodO is perfect, He makes no mistakes?"

Adam: "Oh well, was He perhaps on the p!ss & special sheesha that day?"

Mooslees: "Oh! Adam, WHY do you say such things to us?"

Adam: "Well, what's the problem then? Grunt, Grunt?!"

Moozlees: "For it is written by the Prophet in the Holy Book."

(Wasn't he the illiterate fella who had to have his mates write down his auditory hallucinations so he wouldn't forget?)

Adam: "Truly Poppets. And WHY do you think he made that rule?"

Moozlees: " .. dah, dah, dah - because He is the Prophet,"
and we then degenerate into circular reasoning. "

..

(Re-Rolls out BazZ's comments)

Indeed it seems that the Clerics where the ones who butchered the carcass AND it was a good call in the interests of health to ban its consumption at that time and in that place *TIP* Only eat imported pork in Indonesia.

But since then, and with dirty, filthy political control of the masses mechanisms appearing to be involved, many poor uneducated Moozees are only taught that they MUST BELIEVE, and that is the end of the matter.

..

My wife is Islamic NU, non practising and progressive. She accepts the scientific argument, is happy to cook me up quality bacon and pork chops, but as of yet is not keen to consume herself. She wants her natural child (my step daughter) to grow up a child of the world though, so we left her to make her own choice without any UNDUE INFLUENCES. And that's part of the key.

One sniff of the crackle and she was into it, slurping with delight along the way. ;-) Crunch, Crunch, Crunch

1/2

We now have a dog - which the girls insisted on having - despite their Islamic upbringing and *POLINA* is a much Luved member of the family unit.

..

So, the issue to me really is quality education in a nurturing environment free of coercive practices.

And that's the problem with the manner that some religion is practiced. It is not so much the silly indoctrinated practitioners, but rather the vile, frothing at the mouth, intolerant fools who insist on inflicting their demented and deluded view of the world on others.

..

If this guy is only just getting used to the ham on the table *BazZ, it begs the question does it not? Maybe he got the encouragement award to help with some of those of his shared faith?

..

Some reasonable questions were posed to him by another poster. I am curious to see if he will respond.

Thank you Dr Ahmed for an amusing and practical article.
All too often people decide to take offense on behalf of others - when the others do not take offense themselves.
Wishing someone a Merry Christmas for those who do not believe is as meaningful as Happy Australia Day or Joyous Queen's Birthday. Neither are at all offensive, each is accurate, and are a nice exchange of pleasantries for the respective holidays.