Exoparadapsyphobia

I was watching the news a little while ago and it said that a Jewish Rabbi threatened legal action against an airport when they hesitated to set up one of Judism's religious icons next their christmas trees. In the end the airport, rather than deal with the hassle of negotiations, decided to take down their christmas trees which has resulted in threats and negative emails/messages against some Jewish communities in the area. But as of late, the Jewish Rabbi has claimed that he never meant for the christmas trees to be taken down and has volunteered to put them back up himself. Also it appears he does not have the backing of the Jewish community in the area and they have claimed that it was a violation of their religion to even threaten the airport with retaliation in the first place.

All in all this seems like an independent action by the person in question, and does not seem to be the idea of the Jewish community in general.

However my question to you is do you think that during christian holidays, when other religious celebrations might be going on, other religious celebrations should also be compensated and honored publicly as christmas is? Also it has been argued that the christmas tree is not a religious simble, since it originates from a pagan festivity which celebrated magic, which christianity condenmes as evil. So my second question is, is the christmas tree a religious simble? Or simply a simble of joy and festivity.

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gren

Anyone who threatens to sue over not having their religious holiday represented is clearly missing the point. Faith is an intensly spiritual experience, between an individual and whatever god he/she worships; religion is just a means to publicly acknowledge one's faith. What the rest of the world does, and what religious or paganistic icons it chooses to embrace shouldn't be of much consequence to the truly faithful.

Having said that, Christmas is not really a Christian holiday anymore; it's a consumer holiday. Stores don't post pictures of baby Jesus on the front page of their ads, or any other serious Christian icons, so I can't see what the big deal is with just letting the holiday be about coming together with people you care about and giving of your time and money to make someone else happy. What religion could find fault with that?

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Miroku4444

Yup, instead of doing what was right and put up the jewish thing. They go and do the ACLU thing and take down the tree. I think there would be far less complaints seeing a jewish symbol next to the tree, then when they actually removed it.

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Arrianna

I understand the reason they took it down was because it was their bussiest time of the year and they didn't have time to play legal footsies with them. The Rabbi should have just offered to provide one for them.

If they wish to be public about it more power to them. All religions should be recognized publicly if they wish to be by those of similar beliefs or feelings. However until 70-80% of the populace also follows the other celebrations they are not going to recieve the same public support. Simple as that.

Yes, of course it's a religious symbol. It's full of symbolism. Those symbols are used by many religions however. Just because someone else has similar beliefs or symbols doesn't somehow invalidate the other.

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rematche

is it just me or is the whole world is entering an ungodly age?

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fayt lingod

i think that the government needs to please the masses. technichally we are called an aetheist country, but really the majority is christian. the other religions should just deal with it. a rabbi who is offended by a tree is probably goin to hell.

And the christmas tree had it's ROOTS in pagan worship, but it is indeed taken for it's symbolism now (i don't see many Druids anymore). the evergreen is used because it never loses it's leaves and thus symbolizes eternal life, teh lights show that jesus is the light of the world. and on top of that is the fact that many pplz put angels on the top of their trees.

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_gwenibe_

I grew up with the notion that religion was a personal choice and was not to be pushed onto others,

So with regards to all religions who sue people for "offending" them, or whatever is the case, I feel like it's them trying to push their religion onto others. In the case of the rabbi him wanted to put a jewish (?) symbol up.

Not everyone is Jewish,everyone believes in different religion almost.
So if they are scared of getting sued, just put the basic symbols of x-mas up, tree's presents and santa.

Now if some one wants to sue them over those few symbols of x-mas, then they really have some issues.

It's hard to please every religion at this time.

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rematche

if ya can't take it leave it, rabbi. but just don't mess with it because you'll be messed up...eventually.

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ZeRoGravity

This is as stupid as to whether to change the name "Christmas tree" to the "holiday tree" and "Merry Christmas" to "Happy Holidays".

People just doesn't understand religious tolerance.

Quoted for emphasis.

Esperologist

I am a Christian - Baptist (Independent). If you want clarification on what my particular beliefs are, perhaps I'll figure out the journals thing to put that up.

In my opinion, the tree is not a Christian symbol. Sure, people have given it such symbolizm now, but I do not accept it. (Besides, there are other things given Christian symbolizm that are blatently not.)

Since Christmas is really Christ-Mass, it is just another way of saying church service... it just focuses on the fact that it is a service about Christ. Technically, I go to a Christ-Mass every Sunday.
However, Christmas is traditionaly considered Jesus' birthday. (Although, he wasn't born in December, from what I understand.)
A proper symbol is the Nativity (manger scene), though the normaly displayed ones tend to have some inaccuracies, but that isn't important.

Now, when it comes to religious based lawsuits, there are probably situations that it is okay... but usually, I'd say no. Since I don't consider a decorated tree to be a proper Christian symbol, I don't mind other religions protesting it.
It does look good, and makes public property look better too.

I celebrate Christmas primarily by going to my church's candlelight service that is geared to focusing on the birth and ministry of Jesus.
After that, we do exchange presents. However, if I should ever get married and have kids, I don't want to do Christmas presents. I'd rather have random presents during the year. I could suddenly come home in April with a board game, a video game and a gorgeous piece of jewlery for my wife... all for no apparent reason.

Well, back on topic:
Launching a religious lawsuit does more to hurt the religion of the one launching it then it does to the religion under attack.

Namida Goddess

I heard about this whole Christmas tree incident a while ago but never really knew the facts surrounding it all. I think that sending threatening messages after something like that is a bit redundant considering taking down all of the trees was over-reacting.

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