RayFan9876 wrote:Well Spiral I'm going to attempt to stop the wall with a shorter one since you keep turning what I say into a mix of public and private life. There's nothing wrong with Christmas trees or postcards, but as far as I know those aren't public. Those are things in your own home. If your evidence is so true and factual, then look at the big picture. Why is the Jewish community so hidden here? There's actually much more of them than there appear to be. And why are they looked at differently and mocked sometimes? You can't call yourself a Godly angel for saying no you never have. Also I notice you keep gradually turning "my own thoughts" (meaning yours) into everyone's thoughts which are quite odd thoughts sometimes, but sometimes not.
Why is the Jewish community in Canada hidden? You’re the one who lives there, so you tell me. Do the Canadian Jews in your area hide themselves away at Christmas because public broadcasts and announcements and advertisements have the word ‘Christmas’ on them? Wikipedia says that only 1% of Canadians are Jewish, so why on earth should they expect their religion to be given the same status and acknowledgement as the one practised by the 77% of the population who are Christian, in addition to the many non-Christians who also celebrate Christmas? Why shouldn’t a country place emphasis on Christmas when Christmas is the event celebrated by the overwhelming majority? I’d expect to see Hanukkah given more prominence if I went to Israel; and why not? If the majority of a country’s citizens observe a certain celebration in December, then that celebration is the country’s primary one and they should be allowed to treat is as such. Why are Jews ‘looked at differently and mocked sometimes’? Perhaps the reason they are ‘looked at differently’ is that they are not the same as everyone else. If I went to a country with an overwhelmingly Jewish population, I would expect to be ‘looked at differently’ too. What this comprises you leave unclear... I see no problem with being ‘looked at differently’. Why are they ‘mocked sometimes’? Everyone is ‘mocked sometimes’; this has nothing to do with particular words used in public broadcasts. Again you fail to specify what exactly this ‘mocking’ is. Do you really think that removing the word ‘Christmas’ from public broadcasts will cause people to stop ‘mocking’ Jews? Has this method worked so far? Have reports of the crime of ‘Anti-Semitic Mocking’ decreased since the introduction of ‘Happy Holidays’? This discussion is growing silly. Next you inform me that I ‘cannot call myself a Godly angel’ because I have not mocked Jews. I haven’t a clue what you’re trying to say here. Are you claiming that I have mocked Jews, or that the fact that I have not mocked Jews does not make me ‘Godly’? Please clarify. I don’t recall ‘turning my thoughts into everyone’s thoughts’, and would appreciate some examples to support this claim. I would also like to thank you for informing me that my thoughts are ‘quite odd sometimes, but sometimes not’. Marvellous bit of information there!
RayFan9876 wrote:spiraldoor wrote:Why should Jews care if there’s someone who doesn’t know the name of their religion? I wouldn’t care if I found out that there was someone who was unaware of things which are important to me; much less would I seek to foist knowledge of it upon those to whom it is irrelevant.
You can't be serious. Sure they wouldn't care if one person didn't, but the amount of knowledge-to-mock ratio is terribly low here, especially in the US, that it would definitely irritate the people of the religion enough. I know for a fact that people want some recognition for their most important holiday event of the year. You talk about people like "oh why would they do that? Why would they make fun of them and so on?" as if "why would someone in reality do that, it's impractical" yet people DO that whatever even though it might be wrong.
The ‘knowledge-to-mock ratio’? What is that? Some scale comparing the number of people who ‘mock’ Jews with the number of people who do not know what the word ‘Judaism’ means? You claim that this ‘ratio’ is ‘terribly low’ where you live; are you saying that the number of people who mock Jews in your country is higher than the number of people who know what Judaism is? Surely that can’t be right. You say that it ‘definitely irritates’ people when others don’t know about their religion; but why should this be the case? Why must everyone know all about minority religions and their celebrations? Why would the Jews be so fixated on the idea of making sure all the Christians know about Hanukkah to the point that they actually get irritated when people do not? Why can’t they just get on with their own celebrations like everyone else, without seeking to forcibly inform others about their beliefs? Why would Jews want Christians to ‘recognise’ Hanukkah? Why on earth would they care? Jews are the only ones who celebrate it, so they’re the only ones who need to know about it. I have a rough idea of what Hanukkah is and I have no particular desire to learn more; are you saying that there is something wrong with my position in this matter? You say you ‘know for a fact’ that some members of minority religions want all the non-believers to recognise their celebrations and offer no supporting evidence, so I suppose I’ll just have to take your word for it, but I have no intention to observe their wishes and learn more about the celebrations of religions which I do not believe in. I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re trying to say in the last sentence of the paragraph I’ve quoted here; it reads like you somehow got mixed up and attached the first half of one sentence to the second half of another. Perhaps you should rephrase it.
RayFan9876 wrote:ALSO sure artists on TV shows or whatever can do whatever they want with fictional stories, but I mean in general, if it doesn't have some affect other than your own stubborn annoyance and "protectiveness" over our country to which you somehow find it tenderly sacred to call it the "Christmas season" regardless of what anybody else thinks (such as ruining a story's plot and so on), then why not have some political correctness? Like above that store, instead of "Christmas sale" have "Holiday give-away". That's pretty catchy I think, or things like that (please don't confine just because I said above a store to stores).
I’m afraid that your increasingly abstract and convoluted sentences are beginning to confuse me. What exactly do you mean when you say ‘but I mean in general’? Those five words seem to be randomly inserted into your sentence, and the following words ‘if it doesn’t have some affect other than your own stubborn annoyance’ leave me perplexed. Are you trying to say that the mangling of stories through inappropriate pandering to the political-correctness brigade ‘has no effect’ other than annoying me? Not so; adherence to that sort of silliness can completely destroy works, as I believe I have already illustrated through several examples above. ‘‘Protectiveness’ over our country to which you somehow find it tenderly sacred to call it the ‘Christmas season’’?
What the hell are you trying to say there? I am genuinely baffled. I would appreciate it if you could rewrite this section in coherent English, as I can extract no logical meaning from it in its current form. Next you begin to openly advocate the employment of political correctness... oh dear. Now all hope has been lost. If you really cannot see why this is a bad idea even after my thorough explanations, I suggest that you should seek your answers elsewhere, as you seem to be beyond my power to reach. Should ‘Christmas sale’ be replaced with ‘Holiday give-away’? No, of course not; ‘holidays’ are during the summer, not Christmas. People are used to Christmas sales being called ‘Christmas sales’, and I am sick of the PC brigade attempting to limit and censor our usage of completely harmless and innocent words like ‘Christmas’, which we have been using since time immemorial without any negative consequences. ‘Holiday give-away’ doesn’t sound ‘pretty catchy’; it sounds like a dreadful, false, ugly, manufactured, superficial euphemism for a perfectly good phrase which is in no need of replacement. ‘Please don’t confine just because I said above a store to stores’? Confine what? You don’t want me to confine somethine? Just because you said... above a store to stores? What? It really is frustrating when you say things to me and I have no idea what they mean... I’m not sure if your incoherent statements are the result of some bizarre convergence of typographical errors or if they actually make sense to you, but either way, some rephrasing would be much appreciated.
And I’m way better at this ‘walls of text’ thing than you are. If there was a prize for walls of text, I would totally win it.
