Resolved: It should be illegal to take Christ out of Christmas and replace it with another phrase.

I hope that we can have some interesting discussions and a fun learning experience. ======== Cultural Assimilation - is a political response to the demographic fact of multi-ethnicity which encourages absorption of the minority into the dominant culture. (1) ======== I would like to come back to this. "The first Christmas was because Jesus Christ was born. " Very interesting point. While this statement is true, because up until that point it had many other names, however, the idea of celebrating birth is not. It is now well documented and widely believed the the birth of Jesus Christ did not take place in the winter months. (2) In fact, there is a divide between scholars, some say March 28 and others say September 11, 3 BC. (3) It stands to reason, that if scholars are still discussing the date of Jesus' birth then how can we be sure that the date December 25 is in fact the correct date? I will leave that question up to you. ---------------------------- Cultural assimilation was not a new idea. As an example, I have provided a list of the Greek gods for you to view. (4) As you can see the list is very long. The Greeks very good at assimilating the surrounding cultures that they conquered because they incorporated the what conquered believed in into their own. Why is this important? I used the list of gods to demonstrate that other cultures/religions have assimilated gods. (5) Here is an example of Christianity conquering the festival of Yule: "Many elements of the Yule traditions persevered [due to the interactions with Christianity], such as the Swedish tradition of slaughtering the pig at Christmas (Christmas ham), which originally was part of the sacrifice to Freyr. " (6) At the risk of going on and on citing different examples, I will instead post, along with my references, a suggested reading list. ----------------------------- "I think that it takes out the true meaning of Christmas when you take Christ out. " I would ask that my opponent describe clearly what the true meaning is. I understand that you mean Christ, but since I have shown that there is a discrepancy between birth dates, there might be other reasons related to Christ that you might be willing to put forth. "I understand that not everyone believes in Jesus Christ, but that's not the point. The point is that you're not being forced to celebrate him. " Since you are requesting that we keep Christ in Christmas, are you not then forcing us to recognize the existence of Christ and there by accepting your beliefs? How would you feel if Dec. 25 was known as Hanaka in the United States and instead Christmas? "So don't be a Grinch and ruin the whole season just because you are too lazy to write "Merry Christmas. " Or because you don't believe in Jesus. " This does not follow. Are saying that those who don't believe in Jesus and those who don't write "Merry Christmas" are the only ones who can ruin Christmas? I would ask my opponent to rethink this statement and maybe present another argument along a different line of questioning. I believe that replacing Christmas with an X would be a great thing. The 'X' could represent whatever you believe and celebrate during this time of year. In this way, people would be less worried about which phrase is correct and instead the 'X' could unite people of different beliefs, leaving more room to focus on kindness than semantics. I thank my opponent for the chance to discuss this. I look forward to my opponent's reply. References: . http://en.wikipedia.org... (1) . http://www.simpletoremember.com... - (2) . http://www.versebyverse.org... - (3) . http://en.wikipedia.org... (4) Joseph Campbell's Hero with a Thousand Faces (5) . http://en.wikipedia.org... (6) Suggested Reading/Watching (short list): . http://www.youtube.com... The Origin of Christmas 1, 2 and 3 on Youtube . http://www.history.com... . http://en.wikipedia.org... . http://en.wikipedia.org...