mererdog Posted July 10, 2018 Report Share Posted July 10, 2018 4 hours ago, RevBogovac said: True... for the 0,1% thinking and acting like that. For the 99,9 other %... well... maybe... You think its that small a percent? Christmas is a massive economic driver here. No company can really avoid thinking about how it effects their bottom line. And the yearly media blitz extolling the virtues of "Finding The Perfect Gift" highlights the replacement of Christ with Consumerism as the centerpiece of the holiday in the collective consciousness... Quote Link to comment
RevBogovac Posted July 10, 2018 Report Share Posted July 10, 2018 2 hours ago, mererdog said: 7 hours ago, RevBogovac said: True... for the 0,1% thinking and acting like that. For the 99,9 other %... well... maybe... You think its that small a percent? Christmas is a massive economic driver here. No company can really avoid thinking about how it effects their bottom line. And the yearly media blitz extolling the virtues of "Finding The Perfect Gift" highlights the replacement of Christ with Consumerism as the centerpiece of the holiday in the collective consciousness... My emphasis was on "thinking", the rest are just consumers following the crowd... hence: lazy... Quote Link to comment
mererdog Posted July 11, 2018 Report Share Posted July 11, 2018 (edited) On 7/10/2018 at 10:01 AM, RevBogovac said: My emphasis was on "thinking", the rest are just consumers following the crowd... hence: lazy... It isn't simply a matter of lazily following the crowd. Its a cultural imperative. There are steep social penalties for failing to participate as expected, and massive social benefits for exceeding those expectations. This leads to most people giving it a great deal of thought, to the point where the holiday season becomes the most stressful season of the year. Its not pretty. Although at least they didnt keep all that weird blackface stuff when they made Santa Claus. Edited July 11, 2018 by mererdog Quote Link to comment
RevBogovac Posted July 12, 2018 Report Share Posted July 12, 2018 10 hours ago, mererdog said: It isn't simply a matter of lazily following the crowd. Its a cultural imperative. There are steep social penalties for failing to participate as expected, and massive social benefits for exceeding those expectations. This leads to most people giving it a great deal of thought, to the point where the holiday season becomes the most stressful season of the year. Its not pretty. Although at least they didnt keep all that weird blackface stuff when they made Santa Claus. You exactly emphasise my point. Do you think we don't have culture and social pressure in the Netherlands? Believe me, we have. But we (at least a lot more of us) take the trouble of thinking a couple of steps further; remember what is important and focus on our friends and family... instead of "just" following the leader... That blackface discussion further shows the point; nobody takes that serious over here... (except for a few exceptions on both ends of the extreme). For the fast majority we like the "Aristotelian golden mean" over here... as a Dutch saying says: "act normally, and that's already strange enough". I don't know if you saw the video of our Prime Minister bumping over his cup of coffee...? Quote Link to comment
zamber Posted July 13, 2018 Author Report Share Posted July 13, 2018 The intent of the Statue of Liberty was to celebrate the end of slavery. Not democracy and surely not immigration. It is a myth that the Lazarus poem is on the Statue of Liberty, it is actually located in a Museum below it. Libertas was the patron goddess of freed slaves and was used as a symbol by the abolitionists. Below is a picture of the neo-pagans. Notice they dress similar to the Statue of Liberty, and they even hold a torch. I do not know why atheists are required to pay in their taxes to a statue of a goddess that people worship. Shouldn't they pay for it? How about a statue of Frederick Douglas instead? Quote Link to comment
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