Material Irony and PC Arrogance

I quite like the group feature which enables one to view which groups other people are joining. A friend of mine just joined this group today.

So fuck me; I've mentioned this before. This year holds more importance, as we are in fact, in a recession, and maybe we can appear to be less of pigs and more of humanistic peoples.

So, happy holidays. Christmas isn't a damn resemblance to what it was thousands of years ago, to the tale of the birth of Jesus. How can one equate the act of giving gifts to the alleged King of the Jews, to the incessant sprawl of consumerism and materialism? Was it really the intention of Jesus, who reportedly died for your sins, to fight like animals in the shopping malls at 4am on the "glorious" Black Friday, fighting for that new Xbox 360 for your likely already spoiled ten year old son?

And how can one not share their meaningless holiday with others, when they don't even adhere to the tradition? The best thing about Christmas anyways is that the act of giving gifts was originally a Pagan tradition. Yet we've learned, as so artfully demonstrated through A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, that we don't want to be the Ebenezer Scrooge of the holiday, so hateful and mean, and simply want to appear to be giving and festive in light of the holiday. So we just disregard the cultural premise of giving gifts, as do the thousands of businesses that so sore depend on your money spent on gifts to keep them alive. You do know what Black Friday actually means, no?

Church and worship of course can be meaningful, but I have a problem with that. I'm technically still a member of the church that I grew up in, Trinity Episcopal Church. It's a nice church, and I can appreciate it for it's liberal outlook on the supernatural. My family would always make sure that we attend church as much as we could, and then particularly for vital religious holidays, i.e., Palm Sunday, Easter, Christmas Eve.

I learned to recognise my fellow members quite quickly, and knew many of them personally. But suddenly, and oddly enough, only on Easter and Christmas Eve, did I see score of people that I've never seen in my life. It was truly baffling. Were they just members of the church that only made it to such vital holidays? I inquired about it to my parents. My father is particularly involved with the church, and he, as well as my mother, simply offered that they do not belong to this church, and merely attend because our Easter or Christmas services would be particularly appealing to outsiders.

Wait, what? Is Christmas really legit if you scout out a church that you're not a member of? What is wrong with your own church? Oh, wait. Do you even go? Is this a guilt trip? A moral obligation? Something to compliment your own materialism you're about to experience the following day? Is it ironic that you maintain faith, even though you only attend worship once or twice a year?

I quite honestly fail to see the religious importance of Christmas if society doesn't even adhere to it, let alone preach it. And no wonder we're regarded as pigs by our third world counterparts.

Please note that this is in no way an attack on the Christian faith, but rather our cultural logic for our current implementation of an ancient tradition, and how askew it's become.