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Christmas recital cancelled not to offend other cultures

Estro Felino

Estro Felino

Believer in free will
Premium Member
Epic Beard Man said:
But where does it say there are Muslim kids?
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I read an Italian article which said that.

Btw whether we like itor not, Xmas belongs to the tradition and the culture of the West.
It's not something religious...it's part of our Western identity, otherwise London, Paris or Rome wouldn't look like this.

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Augustus

Augustus

…
Estro Felino said:
I read an Italian article which said that.

Btw whether we like itor not, Xmas belongs to the tradition and the culture of the West.
It's not something religious...it's part of our Western identity, otherwise London, Paris or Rome wouldn't look like this.

Master-Main(1).jpg


Paris-ST-e1460225971291-650x260.jpg


natale-a-roma.jpg
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Government money was spent on those Christmas trees, and they take up public space. Should be banned as they are not inclusive.

Should have a Secular Shrubbery of Humanity instead imo.

Culture and history are bad m'kay.
 
Curious George

Curious George

Veteran Member
Estro Felino said:
Traditional Christmas recital at Italian school cancelled to not offend children with other beliefs


No Comment
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We see this and think, "but it is just a recital, whats the big deal?"

Perhaps if schools had a history of being inclusive, we wouldn't have this problem. There is enough anecdotal evidence schools trying to embed religious instruction that they cannot really be trusted with any leeway.

Were we discussing a level playing field, then there would be no issue for many. We are not discussing a level playing field, so many think of all of the students. I am not sure what is wrong with making choices regarding all of the students.

One might argue that a major cultural learning opportunity is neglected. Yet, schools can have inclusive recitals, plays, and events. We can provide the same type of learning experiences while including everyone and avoiding religious instruction or favoritism.

If schools want to make decisions that respect all of the children. Why on earth would anyone complain or react melodramatically to a schools choice in this regard?
 
Revoltingest

Revoltingest

Pragmatic Libertarian
Premium Member
Flankerl said:
But it's not. It's to celebrate the birth of the J-guy.
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That's absurd.
No one I know here in Americastan associates Christmas with Christianity.
What it means to us.....
- Building departments shut down so that much work grinds to a halt.
- The court system shuts down so that lawyers can bill for hours despite no progress being made.
- Much agonizing over getting the right level of gifts for people, depending upon what they gave last year.
- All those rassin frassin light projector shows on houses of people too lazy to put up real lights.
- All thos rassin frassin lights people put up on their houses.
- Snow shoveling.
- No contractors available when the water heater springs a leak.
- The burden of writing thank you notes for gifts you'll just re-gift.
- Interminable repetitive Christmas songs.
- Jews & blacks trying to edge in some separate celebrations so that we must endure 3 useless holidays instead of just one.
- More snow shoveling.

Revoltistan has tried several times to get into the spirit, but it just doesn't work.
Our Passion Play was cancelled because we couldn't find 3 wise men or a virgin.
 
Flankerl

Flankerl

Well-Known Member
Cacotopia said:
That's not what it is to you. how hard is this to understand?
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And Christmas is to you what it is to you.

Really bad when it works both ways.


Cacotopia said:
You can see it in a negative light or you can see it in a positive one
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Or you can see it in a neutral light.


Cacotopia said:
that is your choice to be a Debbie Downer, during Christmas time
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So you want to force Jews to be happy about Christmas?
What next, should we also go to Church on high Christian holidays?


Cacotopia said:
A time to spend quality time with your fam fam and friends.
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This will shock you but we got our own holidays which include this.



Revoltingest said:
Jews & blacks trying to edge in some separate celebrations so that we must endure 3 useless holidays instead of just one.
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That is an American phenomenon that is rooted in the Christian majority culture.
We never called Channukah "Jewish Christmas" prior to American gentiles doing so.
 
sealchan

sealchan

Well-Known Member
Augustus said:
Often it is some PC do-gooder who decides other people will be offended, rather than the people who are supposed to be offended themselves who instigate such actions. The people who are being 'protected' from offence usually have no problem with the majority celebrating their cultural traditions as they have cultural traditions of their own that they also value.
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I think it is the context that matters...will a school preferentially host a particular religion-based celebration? For the school and the pc-do-gooder, it is a rational outcome of policy assuming that in Italy the policy is to separate church from state and the school is a public school. It doesn't help when those religions also dabble in politics making the likelihood of offense geometrically stronger.

But that solution, of course, oversimplifies matters. I agree that removing religion in all forms from school may be doing more harm than good. One can't ask minority religious members if they are offended as that unfairly singles them out for blame. It HAS to be a unilateral policy or it isn't fair.

Probably the best solution would be a grass-roots effort to introduce safe discussion of religion and story-telling that comes from those religions into our public education in the context of cultural studies. How local communities come together to safely recognize the need for mutual understanding in terms of religion may be vital to understanding how this might be done more systematically. Not to teach something of the history or origins or even beliefs of the various religions in terms of their primary host cultures would be a crime against knowledge itself. If local communities balk at the idea of teaching any rudimentary beliefs of another religion besides their own...then there is no ground for collaboration and all must be excluded.

We also have to recognize that religion can be a hurtful thing. Many who still believe and those who have lost their faith have emerged from emotionally (or physically/sexually) abusive situations which were either directly or indirectly promoted by a local church and having to endure anything church related in the safety of a public school may be too much to ask.
 
sealchan

sealchan

Well-Known Member
Christmas is interesting as it really has grown a large way away from being about Christ's birth or implying that those who celebrate will enter a church to hear mass.

But it still has those roots no matter how strongly the growth of mythic content away from those roots. Santa Claus, Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer, the Grinch, Frosty the Snowman...these are all non-Biblical beings borrowed either from other cultures or invented by recent story-tellers. Maybe it is time to break away Christmas from its Christian roots and acknowledge that it is a separate cultural holiday. Certainly the significance of the Christian Christmas was an effort to appropriate pagan ideas of sacred time, why not work in the opposite direction?

As such, such a movement could work in contributions of other cultures and even "re-add" Christ's birth as a "kindred spirit" (to use Anne of Green Gables' turn of phrase). Then we could figure a way to add Krishna's birth story and his great love of butter as a child into the mix! Ever religion could "plug and play" into this new holiday so that we could all celebrate together as having more in common than in difference.
 
Rational Agnostic

Rational Agnostic

Well-Known Member
dfnj said:
Anyone who doesn't care or not if they are offensive to other people is someone I do not want to be friends with.
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And I'm guessing you really don't care about offending people. Do you ever say "Oh My God" or "Jesus Christ" in public? If so, you're greatly offending devout Christians. Do you care? Or do you believe only non-Christians deserve protection from being offended?

In any case, I recognize that no matter what I do or say, I will inevitably offend someone. So, I don't filter myself, and say what I think. If someone has the emotional immaturity such that they cannot handle me saying something they don't like, then so be it.
 
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