I just read this article on the "Quiverfull" movement where the idea is to have as many kids as possible and that "God is the only one who can open or close the womb". Some of these idiots have 12, 18 and 20 kids.

Dumb, dumb, dumb.

I'll just assume that everyone on this forum is intelligent enough to know the reasons why this is a really bad idea, such as our severely dwindling environmental resources, for one.

On a more mundane level, every time someone complains about a new development going up behind their house, or long lines at the supermarket, or horrible traffic, I feel like screaming "that's because people are having too many *bleeping* kids!

It makes me so mad that people are so dumb.

Good on you Kygal! I dont know where people get off even having an opinion on how many children people have. Its nobody's business but the people involved.

Hi Wheetsin,

I'm not trying to be smart, really - I'm just wondering what is it that you are celebrating when you say holiday, if it is not religious, meaning the birth of Christ? What is a solstice tree?

Once again, I am genuinely curious, I'm not trying to start anything, okay?

I'll answer for myself, because I am also a Christmas-loving atheist. I think the Christmas season is beautiful. Everything, all the way from the nativity story to the godless commercialization that the holiday has become. I think the Jesus story is very lovely, and I have a nativity scene in my home. I love the aestheticly pleasing parts of the season, and I can even get behind people feeling more generous at this time. I don't feel like I need to believe in god to take advantage of this really wonderful time of year.

Also, Christmas is my birthday.

Copying this over to save myself some typing:

According to the Julian calendar, December 25th is the Winter Solstice—the shortest day of the year. Pagans considered this day to be the "nativity" of the sun, when light began winning its battle against the increasing darkness. It has been celebrated throughout the history of humanity. While it was adopted by Christians as the birthday of their Christ, the ancient holiday survives to this day.

Many Atheists have embraced the Winter Solstice as a nonreligious celebration of nature and humanity that can be enjoyed by everyone. The Winter Solstice is also celebrated by pagans, Wicca's, Humanists, and others throughout the state.

One Winter Solstice custom dating back to ancient Egyptian and Roman times is the decoration of an evergreen tree, which symbolizes spring's promise to return. The "Solstice tree" was also adopted by Christians, who dubbed it a Christmas tree, but such a display is still recognized by many as a Solstice tree, as it was originally intended.

Another argument I've never understood. Children should be born, or exist, or whatever you want to call it because you never know, one of them might change the world? Yeah, sure, that's true for everyone born. This includes people like MLK, and Einstein, and Watson & Crick. And it also includes people like Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Mao Tse-tung and Idi Amin.

I agree!! And how well put.. amazing how we naturally like to think that all children grow up to be good...

This topic is gonna get EVERYONE fired up...

By the way.... just because we all have Fat as a common issue in NO way means that we are ANYTHING else alike. Which is what is making these disucssions so interesting, even all the very religious are VERY differnt in their religious views... they could all get in some VERY VERY interesting religious debates..

THe best i have ever seen was my catholic grandmother and my mormon uncle in law.... it was a mess!!

So we dont all agree... if you are happy where you are at... then be happy... just dont force anything on someone else. They need to find their own happy.

According to the Julian calendar, December 25th is the Winter Solstice—the shortest day of the year. Pagans considered this day to be the "nativity" of the sun, when light began winning its battle against the increasing darkness. It has been celebrated throughout the history of humanity. While it was adopted by Christians as the birthday of their Christ, the ancient holiday survives to this day.

Many Atheists have embraced the Winter Solstice as a nonreligious celebration of nature and humanity that can be enjoyed by everyone. The Winter Solstice is also celebrated by pagans, Wicca's, Humanists, and others throughout the state.

One Winter Solstice custom dating back to ancient Egyptian and Roman times is the decoration of an evergreen tree, which symbolizes spring's promise to return. The "Solstice tree" was also adopted by Christians, who dubbed it a Christmas tree, but such a display is still recognized by many as a Solstice tree, as it was originally intended.

That's interesting. I din't know that.

THe best i have ever seen was my catholic grandmother and my mormon uncle in law.... it was a mess!!

Sounds like it is like what happens when my Catholic uncle (converted from Disciples of Christ when he married) and my Southern Baptist uncle go at it over whether or not Catholics are "reall Christians."

What I get from it is that some believe (me included) the USA was founded upon Christianity, and they simply want to get back to that. It is their right to erect it just as it would be your right to erect a statue such as Wheetsin suggested, on your own property. I may find it disgusting but I can always look away.

You may choose to believe that the earth is flat...only it ain't. Here is the text of Article 11 or the Treaty of Tripoli, unanimously approved by the Senate of the United States on June 17, 1797 and signed by John Adams.

Art. 11. As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquillity, of Mussulmen; and, as the said States never entered into any war, or act of hostility against any Mahometan nation, it is declared by the parties, that no pretext arising from religious opinions, shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.

Here is the treaty in its entirety:

http://www.stephenjaygould.org/ctrl/treaty_tripoli.html

Again, no one is picking on your RELIGIOUS beliefs. You are entitled to YOUR OPINIONS, you are NOT entitled to your own FACTS.

Hi Wheetsin,

I'm not trying to be smart, really - I'm just wondering what is it that you are celebrating when you say holiday, if it is not religious, meaning the birth of Christ? What is a solstice tree?

Once again, I am genuinely curious, I'm not trying to start anything, okay?

Missy,

I'm not trying to be a smart ass...some say it comes naturally. Anyway, if no one taught you that CHRISTMAS was based on the ancient celebration of the Winter Solstice, you have been cheated.

Short version--Wheetsin is far more spiritual and far less skeptical than I am--days kept getting shorter, people got scared, smart guy who noticed this happening last year told everyone not to worry, just fork over some dough and it would all go away..and guess what! Right around December 21st, it did. Every year, as the sun started to "die out" and the people got together and made sacrifices to keep the world from coming to an end, suddenly, the days got longer.

Okay, about 1700 years ago, a pope decided that since the pagans were all having a big party right then anyway, there should maybe be a good CHRISTIAN reason to have a big party (there is as I recall a long tradition of saints' days and miracles happening when the locals were already geared up for a party anyway...politics? miracles? Eye of the beholder)...and the Winter Solstice birthday of Jesus was announced. But then another pope changed calendars and a few days were lost in the translation and Christmas moved to December 25th.

Anyway, a festival at the Winter Solstice has been celebrated probably since before recorded history. The December 25th birthday of Christ, was slid right in to a waiting yule party about 200-300 years after his birth. AND, there are still some large religious groups which insist that, since there is norecord of a census having been taken ANYWHERE in the area in December, the actualy birth date was probably in or around March or April.

Anyway, a festival at the Winter Solstice has been celebrated probably since before recorded history. The December 25th birthday of Christ, was slid right in to a waiting yule party about 200-300 years after his birth. AND, there are still some large religious groups which insist that, since there is norecord of a census having been taken ANYWHERE in the area in December, the actualy birth date was probably in or around March or April.

I've heard the same thing, even in churches I've attended. That based on timing of the censuses, and also the fact the shepards were in the fields tending the sheep, it was likely spring.

Wouldn't that screw with the fundies' heads, knowing that their religious holiday was originally pagan?

Wouldn't that screw with the fundies' heads, knowing that their religious holiday was originally pagan?

Halloween next...all Saints' Day/All Souls Day just in time for when the days started getting shorter? How about Easter...what the hell do they think the bunny and the eggs are all about?

Bunnies and eggs and spring = fertility, eh.

Also, Christmas is my birthday.

Mine's Christmas Eve! I always thought my mom should have named me Holly or Noel or something seasonal and cute, but instead she let my grandmother name me. And my grandmother was very fond of a certain great uncle, whose first name was Carl. Oh, well....I had an Uncle Oscar, too. At least she didn't name me after him.

I was always glad my mom didn't know about St. Scholastica.

has anyone noticed that the more education people have...the less they breed excessively?

has anyone noticed that the more education people have...the less they breed excessively?

What constitutes "excessively", in your opinion? Robert and Ethel Kennedy were both college graduates. They had, I think, 13 children before he was assassinated.