{"id":724,"date":"2009-12-01T11:43:00","date_gmt":"2009-12-01T16:43:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/?p=724"},"modified":"2009-12-01T11:43:00","modified_gmt":"2009-12-01T16:43:00","slug":"do-christians-own-december","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/?p=724","title":{"rendered":"Do Christians Own December?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It seems that right after Thanksgiving, the winter holiday season officially begins. These days, the holiday season usually starts before Halloween is even over. The thing is that it seems that fundamentalist Christians and even a growing number of mainstream Christians seem to think that this season is the Christmas only season.<\/p>\n<p>For the last three years, the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.fsgp.org\/\" target=\"_blank\">Freethought Society of Greater Philadelphia<\/a> has put up a winter display next to the Cr\u00e8che and the Menorah in front of the Chester County Courthouse in Pennsylvania. Last year some people on the street were interviewed about the winter display and some claimed that we should have put up our display at another time of year because December is the month of Christmas. Fox News commentator, Father Morris claimed that we were trying to \u201csteal Christmas.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>And just last week, the Washington Post\u2019s \u2018On Faith\u2019 section asked if this is another front in the \u201cWar on Christmas.\u201d As if there actually is a war on Christmas and as if there was already other fronts in such a war. How ridiculous. The fact is that every time an atheist wants to celebrate the winter season, we are told that December belongs to Christians. The irony is that Christians stole Christmas from the pagans to begin with.<\/p>\n<p>Are Christians really that insecure and arrogant that they feel the need to take over an entire month and to claim that only celebrations of their God are allowed during that month? More importantly, are we going to let them?<\/p>\n<p>Author\u2019s Note: I posted a response to the Washington Post\u2019s \u2018On Faith\u2019 question on the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.examiner.com\/x-8928-Philadelphia-Atheism-Examiner~y2009m11d30-On-Faith-holidays-or-holy-days\" target=\"_blank\">Examiner<\/a>.<br \/>\n<!-- AddThis Button BEGIN --><br \/>\n<a onclick=\"return addthis_sendto()\" onmouseover=\"return addthis_open(this, '', '[URL]', '[TITLE]')\" onmouseout=\"addthis_close()\" href=\"http:\/\/www.addthis.com\/bookmark.php?v=250&amp;pub=dangeroustalk\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" style=\"border:0\" src=\"http:\/\/s7.addthis.com\/static\/btn\/lg-share-en.gif\" alt=\"Bookmark and Share\" width=\"125\" height=\"16\" \/><\/a><script src=\"http:\/\/s7.addthis.com\/js\/250\/addthis_widget.js?pub=dangeroustalk\" type=\"text\/javascript\"><\/script><br \/>\n<!-- AddThis Button END --><\/p>\n<div class=\"linkwithin_hook\" id=\"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/?p=724\"><\/div><script>\n<!-- \/\/LinkWithinCodeStart\nvar linkwithin_site_id = 317364;\nvar linkwithin_div_class = \"linkwithin_hook\";\n\/\/LinkWithinCodeEnd -->\n<\/script>\n<script src=\"http:\/\/www.linkwithin.com\/widget.js\"><\/script>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.linkwithin.com\/\"><img src=\"http:\/\/www.linkwithin.com\/pixel.png\" alt=\"Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...\" style=\"border: 0\" \/><\/a><!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It seems that right after Thanksgiving, the winter holiday season officially begins. These days, the holiday season usually starts before Halloween is even over. The thing is that it seems that fundamentalist Christians and even a growing number of mainstream Christians seem to think that this season is the Christmas only season. For the last [&hellip;]<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><\/p>\n<script>\n<!-- \/\/LinkWithinCodeStart\nvar linkwithin_site_id = 317364;\nvar linkwithin_div_class = \"linkwithin_hook\";\n\/\/LinkWithinCodeEnd -->\n<\/script>\n<script src=\"http:\/\/www.linkwithin.com\/widget.js\"><\/script>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.linkwithin.com\/\"><img src=\"http:\/\/www.linkwithin.com\/pixel.png\" alt=\"Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...\" style=\"border: 0\" \/><\/a>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[937,44,642,9,797],"tags":[145,2307,940,939,2294,941,938],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/724"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=724"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/724\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":725,"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/724\/revisions\/725"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=724"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=724"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=724"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}