[J_Joseph]

Your thought process confuses me. You say that talking about Dec 25th as Jesus' birthday is better than lies but that in and of itself is in fact a lie. You do not have to take my word for it, google will show you the path.

I am actually an extremely tolerant person. I do not care how absurd or ridiculous somebodies beliefs are so long as they help somebody be a better person for having them. That is not the common result of belief I am afraid. I do draw the line at pushing beliefs on others. Sure, one can say that mentioning Dec 25th is Jesus' birthday is not pushing an agenda but it is. Religion should be left to the individuals and the families and as guests in foreign countries we should be especially low key on the subject.

The other issue I take is that some like to portray their beliefs as facts even after being shown how completely wrong they are. Belief != Facts, that's why they call it belief. Belief is a powerful thing and it can have such a strong influence on some that they eschew reason and no longer think for themselves and become less likely to question other things they are told by figures of authority. To me, that is dangerous. Extremely dangerous.

Making our students aware of DEC 25th as the birthday of Jesus just to introduce the children to the idea of Jesus or Christianity or Catholicism or whatnot can be sugar coated to sound like a great idea but most things can. I think you know better though. It simply is not the place of an ESL teacher to introduce students to this type of information, especially when it is inaccurate.

So if you wish to explain the facts of Christmas to your class, I will not object one bit. You should do some research and teach them the actual facts though instead of parroting what you gave been told, you may find you have just as much to learn as your students.

As for why I don't want this to turn into a religious debate (which we are very close to) it's simply because nobody is going to change their minds. I can present the most well though out and intelligent argument backed with facts to illustrate my points (not that I have, far from it) and people who believe other things will still believe them regardless of how wrong they are. Sad to say but belief makes people ignorant in many cases. There is nothing to win really except the small pleasure of 'hearing oneself talk' and that has worn thin for me here.

[mesmark]

Quote J_Joseph

Belief is a powerful thing and it can have such a strong influence on some that they eschew reason and no longer think for themselves and become less likely to question other things they are told by figures of authority. To me, that is dangerous. Extremely dangerous.

Can I point out that you believe you are right. And in your own definition of belief, you define yourself as dangerous. You haven't prefaced anything you've said so far with "I think..." "It could be that ..." "In my opinion ..." You are spewing all this as fact, when indeed it's simply what you believe based on what you've read (from people who believed something.) What you might perceive as proof can also be shown to be perception by either side.

I'm sure most Christians agree with you (if that doesn't upset you too much.) Christmas is the celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ, not the day he was actually born. If I'm not mistaken I think most scholars put his actual birth in the summer sometime.

Are you saying that Christmas is NOT the celebration of the birth of Jesus? Or are you trying to point out that he wasn't actually born on December 25th? As far as I can tell, nobody is arguing that.

Quote J_Joseph

I do not care how absurd or ridiculous somebodies beliefs are so long as they help somebody be a better person for having them.

by using the words "absurd" and "ridiculous", it sounds as though you do care ... a lot ... It also sounds as though you are not "extremely tolerant".

Just for fun sake ... I assume you are American (as am I.) Can I ask how old you are and if you are married? I'm assuming American, young and not married but I could be wrong.

Another question, I assume you think we evolved and that's fine because you've read as such, but where did that first cell get its DNA it needed to replicate? That's really the million dollar question isn't it, because we know for a fact (because you like concrete facts) that a cell can't replicate without DNA. We also know DNA to be basically a code of information. Follow through with that and assume it formed with DNA, where did it get the RNA needed to translate the code?

The Origin of Species was published in 1859. We have learned a lot about those "simple" cells over the last 150 years ...

Again, I'm assuming you actually do want to get off topic, but the original question still remains. Feel free to ignore all of the above, and I'd love to see if you actually can, because you I know you don't need to "hear yourself talk"... But, when asked what is Christmas or in even just wanting to explain why Christmas is a holiday, what is your problem again with stating the truth? It's the day Christians celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ. Christians believe Jesus is the son of God.

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Eric, my apologies, and if this needs to be nipped in the bud I certainly understand.