What we talked about today was extremely sensitive and hard to say. Apparently, the symbol of one of the most famous holiday, Christmas, have recently become a talking point as a controversial problem in the U.S. As everyone knows, the symbol is a christmas tree.
Some people said that the government, the administration, or other authority should not cerebrate a specific religion because the conduct would be an establishment of a specific religion. For this reason, it is getting popular among the American citizens to call the christmas tree the holiday tree. I can understand why the people insisted that kind of opinion. However, changing the name is pretty weird for me as a solution because the event has been established or started as the holiday of Christianity, of course Christians should have the right of naming the symbol of the event unless other religions have the similar event using this kind of trees on the same date. Meanwile, I also understand, the multicultural big country, America, have a lot of different people who live by their own principles. The government should probably consider abount that. But i still don't think the christmas tree should be changed to "the holiday tree". It sounds weird and ridiculous for me. In addition, I'm not Christian.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Christians do have the right to name the symbol of a Christian holiday.
ReplyDeleteIt's the government that doesn't, as laid out in the Establishment Clause of the first Amendment of the US Constitution. Numerous Supreme Court cases over the history of this nation have interpreted the clause to mean that no federal governmental authority can do or say anything that specifically promotes any religion.
I think the Constitution and subsequent Supreme Court opinions also let the states decide for themselves. I'm not clear on what those rulings were like.
Also, the Christmas tree was taken from old Pagan winter rituals. It was great marketing for Christians to convert others to the Christian religion, when it let the older religions keep some old symbols around.
Also also, I like that you wrote "cerebrate". ^__^
ReplyDelete