Okay I found this extremely interesting article written very passionately by an author of www.weirdrepublic.com. After spending nearly two hours going through the whole article, pasting snippets in here for my blog, I got to the end and found that I had permission to republish it, so I will publish it here in a post called "Trashing Christmas". It's very late now, so I will add more of my thoughts later. But wow .. I just never knew, and find this information worth cross referencing personally to confirm it!!
* "In 1929, a Unitarian preacher named Charles Potter created the First Humanist Society of New York. A year later Mr. Potter penned Humanism: A New Religion in which he boldly declared, “education is thus a most powerful ally of Humanism, and every American public school is a school of Humanism. What can the theistic Sunday-schools, meeting for an hour once a week, and teaching only a fraction of the children, do to stem the tide of a five-day program of humanistic teaching?” "
{This is why we send our child to private Christian school .... }
"In 1933, thirty-four prominent Americans signed the Humanist Manifesto, among them the educator John Dewey. The Humanist Manifestospurned Christian beliefs and explicitly endorsed in their stead the humanist values of materialism, rationalism and socialism as the new cultural foundation of America.
The Humanist Manifesto made explicit the humanist objective “to elevate, transform, control, and direct all institutions and organizations by its own value system.” Their agenda was to tear down Christian values and elevate godless materialistic socialism; they have been wildly successful.
Humanism provided the organizing principles around which educators, steeped in the writings of John Dewey, would sally forth and make Secular Humanism the dominant philosophy of America’s public schools.
Humanism, as a stealth religion, has succeeded in becoming America’s de facto state-sponsored religion. It was a brilliant end run around the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment; while feigning neutrality, the new religion pushed Christian values into the shadows and replaced them with a grab bag of different, secular values.
John Dewey proclaimed humanism our “common faith,” but it is a faith that seeks to obliterate all other faiths; it is nakedly hostile to Christian values. Humanist Manifesto III was released in 2003; it reiterates the humanist belief system: its faith in the perfectibility of humans and the finality of death. "
" The Jews and the Humanists joined forces to sweep Christian sensibility from public life; it was a campaign brimming with bigotry. Secular does not mean value-free; humanism is bursting with values, ideas, and perspectives that are anything but neutral.
According to Steven Cohen: “Separation of church and state is but a part of a strategy on the part of modernizing Jews to establish a religious ‘neutral zone’ where religious and ethnic tolerance is a supreme value.” By “neutral zone” he means a comfort zone for Jews and atheists who are less than three percent of America’s population. This comfort zone has been created at the expense of almost four centuries of Christian culture on this continent.
Cohen continues: “For many Jews, being a good Jew meant being a good liberal; and being a good Jew and a good liberal also meant being a vigilant separationist.” This agenda was some assurance that young Jews would not be exposed to Christian sentiments, but it also meant that 86% of the population was put on a strict diet of godless humanist values.
Mr. Cohen tells us that “also fueling Jews’ separationism is their relative secularity, at least when measured in terms of the frequency of religious service attendance, with probably the lowest attendance rate of any major religious group in the United States. . . In other words, Jews as a group are not a very spiritual people and they would feel much more comfortable if everyone around them would please just shut up about their heartfelt beliefs; if you have any religious symbols, then keep them out of sight. These Jews are determined to have their comfort zone and they will defend it with litigation.
Jews overwhelmingly oppose school vouchers. On the one hand, they don’t want Christians to be demonstratively Christian in the public schools, but they also don’t want Christians to get a Christian education in a non-public school funded by Christian taxpayers. Everyone must remain on the Secular Humanist plantation.
"How the Jews Trash Christmas"
"The Lubavitcher handbills go on to quote Rambam Mishne Torah - Hilchos Melachim 10:9 to the effect that “A gentile...is liable for the death penalty...if he has invented a religious holiday for himself...The general principle is we do not allow them to make new religious rituals and to make ‘mitzvahs’ for themselves by their own devices...and if he does make some new ‘mitzvah’, we lash him, and inform him that he is obligated with the death penalty for this...”
The Lubavitchers proudly carry on their anti-Christmas campaign in cities around America. Their Noah’s Covenant website at www.noahide.com/paganism.htm goes on for pages spinning out their conviction that Christianity is just a cryptic revival of ancient pagan cults that “were notorious for practicing witchcraft, forced prostitution, self-mutilation, human sacrifice to false gods, and even burning children alive.”
"But Christmas is now the annual high-water mark of a rising tide of nonsense aimed at Christian believers. It is at this time each year that the voices of disgruntled Jews are joined by the chorus of witches, pagans and the aggressive advocates of atheism. "
"She [pagan parent Jehana Silverwing] notes the unintended irony of a Supreme Court decision: the law allows local governments to display Nativity scenes on public property only when the emotional impact of such scenes is diluted by the presence of objects and symbols deemed by the Court to be non-religious, such as plastic reindeer, inflatable Santas, Kwanzaa knickknacks, blow-molded snowmen and the ever-popular Christmas tree. "
"Meanwhile, American Atheists, Inc. is exercising its First Amendment rights by picketing Christmas displays on public property. Christmas is their busy season; it’s their best chance to grab a little on-camera time in their local television markets. On their website they quote “local American Atheist and state-church separation activist” John Messina who has a grudge against San Jose, California’s annual “Christmas in the Park” display.
Mr. Messina complains that “It is now blatantly obvious that the winter festival is being used to promote Christianity.” The hyperventilating atheist declares that “the crèche must be removed.” This is how the American Atheists, Inc website describes the offending display: “There are elves, reindeer, lighted trees, even the Aztec Quetzalcoatl . . .and the baby Jesus.” Well, that is offensive.
It’s one of those hodgepodge horrors that have been forced upon communities by foolish court decisions. So now an effigy of the blood thirsty feathered serpent deity Quetzalcoatl sits on public display at Christmas time, but the atheists are getting cranked about the little pink baby Jesus."
"Invent an Anti-Christmas "
"The day before the parade, Arthur Sulzberger, Jr., the third and reigning Sulzberger to hold the position of publisher of the New York Times, gave the gay actor, Harvey Fierstein, a spot on the op-ed page of America’s leading liberal newspaper.
Mr. Fierstein had been chosen by Macy’s to portray Mrs. Claus in their parade, or so Mr. Fierstein claimed. Mr. Fierstein began: “According to legend, New York lore and two major Hollywood flicks, Macy’s Santa is the real deal. And tomorrow, to the delight of millions of children, (not to mention the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court), the Santa in New York’s great parade will be half of a same-sex couple.”
Exactly why Harvey imagines that millions of children will be delighted to learn that Mrs. Claus is being portrayed by an aging male anal erotic in a red dress, only he could say. Perhaps this is one of his fondest fantasies. Fierstein goes on about his favorite subject: himself. Yes, he will be Mrs. Claus, “Me! Harvey Fierstein, nice Jewish boy from Bensonhurst, dressed in holiday finery portraying the one and only Mrs. Claus. Won’t America get a kick out of that?” "
{WWWWWHHHAAATTTT!!!???}
"If almost half of the Jews in America weren’t atheists or agnostics, then the Jewish community would be impervious to the glitter of Christmas. But they want to have it both ways: they reject Christianity while simultaneously embracing its secular rituals. That’s not a sign of robust mental health.
Writing in The Menorah in 1890, Rabbi Kaufman Kohler observed: “How can a Jew, without losing self-respect, partake in the joy and festive mirth of Christmas? Can he without self-surrender, without entailing insult and disgrace upon his faith and race, plant the Christmas tree in his household?” "
"This common Jewish sentiment turns to paranoia in Andrew K. Mandel’s commentary “Shalom Santa.” First Mr. Mandel tells us that the Christmas story “as related to generations of children through cartoon specials and annual retellings, is actually multifaceted: Santa Claus, the North Pole-dwelling, sleigh-riding bearer of gifts for the world’s children; the Dickens’ classic A Christmas Carol featuring the miserly and bitter Ebenezer Scrooge; the wholly evil Dr. Seuss’s Grinch Who Stole Christmas. All these tales demand respect for the Christmas celebration and consequently denounce non-celebrants, including Jews.”
In other words, the vast 86% majority of America’s population who are Christians are doing something bad to the Jews by fostering a spirit of generosity at Christmas time because it reflects badly on those Jews who don’t give a rat’s rump about Christmas. This is amazingly narcissistic; does Mr.Mandel also believe that Yom Kippur makes Christians look like heartless brutes because they don’t get into the spirit of atonement when that holiday rolls around? "
"But asking most of society to shut up and keep their customs and symbols out of sight will only bring these minorities the avuncular advice to behave like adults and let other people be themselves. So the campaign to diminish the scope of Christian religious expression in American public life, which is the real motivation for the assault on so many American traditions, must be disguised as some other high-minded motivation, such as the preservation of some constitutionally mandated barrier between all matters governmental and all matters religious. The United States Constitution contains no such mandate.
What the Constitution has to say on the matter of religion is summed up in a single sentence of the First Amendment. Here it is: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof...” That’s it." "
" “True religion,” said George Washington “affords government its surest support. The future of this nation depends on the Christian training of our youth. It is impossible to govern without the Bible.” "
{I like that quote}
"Government-dominated schools, as we know them today, date from as recently as the 1850s. These new schools did not increase student enrollment, but they did succeed in destroying a magnificently diverse array of private schools because their sponsors could not afford to support the private schools while also bearing the increased burden of taxation needed to fund the one-school-fits-all government academies. "
{Don't I know how that feels}
"When Mr.Donohue appeared on MSNBC’s Scarborough Country, host Joe Scarborough inquired of Mr.Donohue: “What do the New York City lawyers tell you? What’s their justification for saying its OK if you’re Jewish to bring your religious symbol in. It’s OK if you’re a Muslim to bring a religious symbol in, but if you’re a Christian, you can’t bring that symbol into our school, because that symbol alone will undermine our constitutional rights?”
Mr.Donohue replied, “They’re trying to claim that there’s a game here, that somehow the menorah became a secular symbol. And it’s insulting to Jews who practice their religion, and there are millions in this country, to claim that it has a purely secular value. The same is true of the Islamic crescent and star, which is the functional equivalent of the crucifix in the Christian religion.
The fact of the matter is we’ve gone on with this for too long, and I blame Christians in part who are 85 percent of the people in this country who have allowed the Christmas tree to be a substitute for the crèche and the nativity scene. It’s about time we had a wake-up call and educated people and stop with the atheists who claim that they’re value neutral. A lot of atheists in this country have hatred in their hearts for Catholics. Why don’t they just admit it?” "
" At the beginning of 2000 the Anti-Defamation League issued a pamphlet called The December Dilemma: Guidelines for Public Schools During the December Holidays The “guidelines” that these Jews thought appropriate would impose a virtual prohibition on the use of the word Christmas and the elimination of any explanation of the Christmas holiday. Their pamphlet was yet another weapon in the campaign to cleanse all signs of Christian culture from American public life.
If the pamphlet catches on, then more schools will become as culturally lopsided as the Jesse I. Strauss Elementary School. But the Jews understand that if there were no Christmas there would be no December Dilemma. Long before the ADL used it, this expression had become a time worn catch phrase for Jewish discomfort at Christmas time. The ADL literature has little to do with observing the law and everything to do with expanding a Jewish comfort zone at the expense of others. "
" Two years ago, in St. Paul, red poinsettias were banned from City Hall because someone was offended by them. Surely these offending plants must be a Christian symbol. After much rancor, white poinsettias were permitted into the courthouse and City Hall, but not red ones.
Do you see what’s happened? What at first pretended to be a high-minded movement to maintain a separation between church and state has devolved into bitter arguments about whether red tropical plants are stealth religious symbolism.
Does anyone in their right mind believe that red poinsettias threaten America with an impending establishment of state-sponsored religion? Matters have degenerated in this manner for one reason alone: the campaign against Christmas was never really about guarding against government favoritism toward a single religious sect; it was always about driving Christmas and Christian culture into the shadows.
When thirteen-year-old girls can be suspended from school for wearing red-and-green scarves and saying “Merry Christmas” it’s time to admit that Christian culture ensnared in a barroom brawl with a bunch of obnoxious religious bigots. By posing as victims of Christmas festivities, these small-minorities-with-big-priorities have taken advantage of the generosity of the greater Christian culture.
What began as a big-hearted attempt at inclusion has ended with the Christian majority being told it’s time for them to leave their own party. What began as an offer of friendship has ended as a parasitic relationship with the host culture being eaten alive. "
" The Jewish scholars at AskMoses enlighten us to the fact that “Much of Jewish integrity centers on rejecting foreign religions and ideologies . . .Negative Mitzvah #10 forbids a Jew from examining, studying, browsing or perusing the tenets, key points and definitions of any belief system outside of Judaism. Negative Mitzvah #47 stipulates that an intellectual ‘fence’ be constructed around Judaism’s belief system, so you don’t come to a point where an idea foreign to Judaism makes enough sense to you that you believe it over the Jewish approach to the same idea.” And you expect these people to be broad-minded about Christian festivities at Christmas time? It won’t happen. They will defend their comfort zone until the last crèche is safely in the dumpster. "
{and here's the kicker---}
"The American Jewish Yearbook estimated the total number of American Jews of all descriptions to be 6,155,000 in 2001. That would mean that Jews are about 2.1% of our total population. To put that in perspective, there are more fundamentalist Christians living in the southern states commonly called the Bible Belt than there are Jews of any description on the entire planet. "
{Oy!!}
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