Boards "Happy Holidays" announcement??

pickarooney

Sharrow wrote: »

Winter Soltice/Yule is a religious holiday celebrated by pagans, of which there are many who use this site, for one and this year Hannukkah is celebrated from Sunset, December 20 to sunset, December 28 and we have Jewish members of the site also.
So frankly your ignorance is showing.

Rubbish. The fact that Hanukkah (you might learn how to spell it before calling other people ignorant) happens to be during this week this year and the end of Ramadan is very occasionally at the end of December is of no consequence. If these were the reason for the phrase 'happy holidays' then every year that they didn't coincide with the 25th you'd have people complaining about insensitive Christians giving good wishes on the wrong date.

roger_pearse

Sharrow wrote: »

Winter Soltice/Yule is a religious holiday celebrated by pagans ... So frankly your ignorance is showing.

Know anything other than hearsay about Yule? Or is your ignorance showing?

Just because you are celebrating christmas it does not follow everyone else is.

Feel free not to! You'll be working on 25 Dec., right? Or making an excuse while bitching about others?

Morag

pickarooney wrote: »

Rubbish. The fact that Hanukkah (you might learn how to spell it before calling other people ignorant).

:rolleyes:

Not ignorant just dyslexic.

roger_pearse wrote: »

Know anything other than hearsay about Yule? Or is your ignorance showing?

I and many pagans who celebrate this both in Ireland and world wide.

roger_pearse wrote: »

Feel free not to! You'll be working on 25 Dec., right? Or making an excuse while bitching about others?

I have worked Dec 25 in previous years when my job required it, and other pagan holidays as well which are not bank holidays.
The 25h is a Bank Holiday so many people don't work it.

Sully

I wasn't that bothered lads, I didn't expect a bloody row over it.

But as a Catholic, I forgive each and every one of ye.

Zaph

mike65 wrote: »

I am disappointed but maybe not surprised that boards.ie with its cafe latte, metrosexual Guardian reading Admins bias has chosen to offend Christians and traditionalists in this manner.

I take great offence to this. I despise lattes.

Sparks

Hm. So, I'm celebrating the solstice, christmas and new year's in the one set of holidays.
So for me, "Happy Holidays" is just the efficient thing to say.

(ps. Christians aren't traditionalists. You crazy kooks celebrate the solstice three days late, using a german tree, pagan holly and mistletoe and other greenery brought into the home, a 1950s coca-cola Santa, an English pudding, and an American bird as the central part of your exceptionally ancient feast meal - the origins of which predate written history... So :P )

Sparks

Zaph wrote: »

I take great offence to this. I despise lattes.

A-****ing-men. Give me a filtered coffee or an espresso if I ask for coffee, not something invented for american GIs who couldn't stomach proper Italian coffee in WW2...

Orion

Sparks wrote: »

(ps. Christians aren't traditionalists. You crazy kooks celebrate the solstice three days late, using a german tree, pagan holly and mistletoe and other greenery brought into the home, a 1950s coca-cola Santa, an English pudding, and an American bird as the central part of your exceptionally ancient feast meal - the origins of which predate written history... So :P )

What's your point?

Sparks

Orion wrote: »

What's your point?

My deeply held philosophical belief states that at this time of year the point is shut up and pass the roast spuds and do you have enough wine in your glass there?

Hank_Jones

Honestly don't think I have ever uttered the phrase "Happy Holidays" once in my life.

Seems funny that the use of the phrase has ended up offending a fair few people,
when the intention was to include all and offend none. :pac:

pickarooney

Hank_Jones wrote: »

Honestly don't think I have ever uttered the phrase "Happy Holidays" once in my life.

Seems funny that the use of the phrase has ended up offending a fair few people,
when the intention was to include all and offend none. :pac:

If that really was the intention, it's a fairly ham-fisted attempt. Really now, if you want to be inclusive, by all means go ahead, but do it properly. Wish people a happy Eid, Rosh Hashanah, Diwali... but make the effort to do it at the right time instead of trying to shoehorn some largely insignificant festival in with your Christmas wishes.

How would you feel if, during Eid ul Fitr, Muslims made a point of adding "and have a wonderful feast of the Assumption!" so as to not make you feel upset? You'd either cringe, laugh good-heartedly at the well-intentioned but ultimately misguided sentiments or stare blankly and ask "feast of the wha'?"

Dudess

roger_pearse wrote: »

I love the way that atheists respond to inconvenient facts with monosyllablic denial.

I love "christians" who sneer at, and make up bullsh1t about people.

LoLth

Ok, I think this thread has irrevocably moved away from feedback. However, it has been useful and educational in its own way.

froma personal (non-admin) persepctive:

1. Some people will take offense at anything, no matter how innoccuous or well intentioned unless its phrased exactly as they want it to be , even though that phrasing might be more offensive to others.

2. Perhaps Boards.ie shouldnt bother with any form of well wishing in future and treat users and members of the community as "customers" and resources only to avoid unintentional upset.

3. it still amazes me that so often, the ones who preach "goodwill" , "understanding" and "acceptance" are rarely the ones to show it.



from an admin perspective:

thread closed.

Dav

I'm sorry to drag this up again, but there are some things I wanted to address and since I was on my holidays, I wasn't going to do it until today when I got back to the office.

1) I am not a Christian, so saying "Happy Christmas" to someone is somewhat silly not to mention hypocritical. As it happens, I'm a pagan and so celebrated Yule on the 21st like many others across the world. On a similar note, I was taught in Irish classes in school to say "Dia dhuit" (God be with you) as a greeting and "Dia is Mhuire dhuit" (God and Mary be with you) as a response, but if ever I break into a cúpla focail these days, I would never say this - I'll opt for "Chonas atá tú?" (how are you) instead. It may not seem like a big deal to most people, but making these distinctions is important to me.

2) Anecdotal evidence suggests to me that the majority of members of this site identify as Atheist or to some extent, Agnostic, so again, saying Happy Christmas makes little sense. A non-religious and secular wish is "catering to the default" as Sully put it. Maybe that's not the case, but there certainly seems to be a big enough number of posters who are vocal about their lack of belief.

3) I will never cease to be amazed at humanity's ability to find something to whinge about and I sat staring at this thread for 30 minutes wondering "why did I even bother?" You should see some of the messages that were left on the Announcement Thread (replies on that forum are unapproved). The guy wishing me to "DIE LONG AND HARD" has been site-banned and I suspect most of you will agree that issuing death threats because of the wording used on a message of good wishes to the members of the site is somewhat over the top...

So next <insert winter festival you celebrate towards the end of December of choice>, when I find myself in bed and about to go to sleep and I think "oh, it's ticked over to the 25th, I should post a message with some good wishes to the people of Boards" and I pick up my phone to type it, should I not bother?

Or maybe I'll just ignore the whingers and carry on because you know what? You folks are what makes this site and I'm not going to pass up an opportunity to wish you all well and share in the festive spirit with you all.

So I hope everyone had a good holiday/season/end of year/whatever - I know I did. Here's to a fine 2012 for us all!