>> ^robbersdog49:

Attenborough? Nope.
Narrated by John Hurt.


This

Yeah I disagree with Penn on this point too. Christmas is a hodgepodge of myths and cultural traditions. Because some of those are based in the "Christian" religion and because Christians want to claim it solely a "religious" holiday is no reason for me to avoid it as an atheist. Santa, flying reindeer, xmas trees, gift giving, xmas dinner, xmas lights, yule logs, etc... Don't really have anything to do exclusively with the Christian religion so they don't get to claim ownership of it and expect me or anyone else to include the Christ myth in how we choose to celebrate it.

Interesting, but I disagree with Penn here to a large extent.

I am an atheist, but I don't think anyone should feel like they need to exclude themselves from celebrating Christmas, or any other holiday, out of respect towards those who assign a deeper / broader / different meaning to the day.

For one thing, start with the obvious: there is no indication that the person referred to in the Bible as Jesus, if he existed at all, was born on December 25th. I think that date was assigned at the Council of Nicea in 325AD, and was chosen because it was already celebrated as the winter solstice / birth of Pagan Sun God(s, of which the biblical Jesus could arguably be included amongst). So if secularists "steal" the "deeper meaning" of Christmas from Christians, they aren't doing anything that Christians didn't do to a long history of Pagans.

I think one can easily strike a respectful middle ground without bringing that up though. Celebrate the holiday in whatever way you want, including or excluding any elements you find good or bad. Make it exclusively about being with your family, and abandon the Santa / commercial aspects if you wish. Decorate the house, talk about Santa and Reindeer, and give small or home-made presents if you prefer that. Or explain to your kids that many if not most Christians celebrate the holiday for their own religious reasons, but that you prefer to see it as a time to celebrate the family bond.

Do whatever you want. Don't go out of your way to rub it in anyone's noses, and don't give a second thought to anyone that might tell you that you are somehow perverting or desecrating the "true spirit" of the holiday if they see that your house decorations are conspicuously missing a nativity, or that your list of preferred carols replaces "Silent Night" with "Frosty the Snowman".

Thanks for the promote

In reply to this comment by eric3579:
stupid fuckin' reindeer

stupid fuckin' reindeer

Yeah, you would think that Finland is all about polar bears and reindeer, but right now it's actually so hot that people are practically boiling out here!

>> ^visionep:

If I didn't know better I would call this fake.
Everyone knows that Finland is a land of ice and snow. They can't have beaches with people relaxing in shorts and no shirts.
Helsinki is at a similar parallel to Juneau Alaska.

Tags for this video have been changed from 'deer, woman, reindeer' to 'deer, woman, reindeer, supershort' - edited by Kevlar

Fortunately for all of us, the meme factory churneth:

http://videosift.com/video/Star-Wars-has-a-WTF-moment
http://videosift.com/video/Willy-Wonka-s-a-douche-and-his-factory-s-a-piece-of-shit
http://videosift.com/video/Buzz-Lightyear-knows-how-to-deal-with-stupid-questions
http://videosift.com/video/Rudolph-the-Reindeer-s-a-liar-and-now-we-red-f

The meme factory churneth:

http://videosift.com/video/Star-Wars-has-a-WTF-moment
http://videosift.com/video/Willy-Wonka-s-a-douche-and-his-factory-s-a-piece-of-shit
http://videosift.com/video/Elmo-pranks-Big-Bird-and-Snuffleupagus-permanently
http://videosift.com/video/Rudolph-the-Reindeer-s-a-liar-and-now-we-red-f

Fortunately for all of us, the meme factory churneth:

http://videosift.com/video/Willy-Wonka-s-a-douche-and-his-factory-s-a-piece-of-shit
http://videosift.com/video/Buzz-Lightyear-knows-how-to-deal-with-stupid-questions
http://videosift.com/video/Elmo-pranks-Big-Bird-and-Snuffleupagus-permanently
http://videosift.com/video/Rudolph-the-Reindeer-s-a-liar-and-now-we-red-f

>> ^packo:

more WTF moments please


Fortunately for all of us, the meme factory churneth:

http://videosift.com/video/Star-Wars-has-a-WTF-moment
http://videosift.com/video/Buzz-Lightyear-knows-how-to-deal-with-stupid-questions
http://videosift.com/video/Elmo-pranks-Big-Bird-and-Snuffleupagus-permanently
http://videosift.com/video/Rudolph-the-Reindeer-s-a-liar-and-now-we-red-f

>> ^Sagemind:
I was totally voting for the Reindeer! Why didn't Santa Save him?


That, sir, appears to be a Caribou from the Porcupine herd in Alaska (Rangifer tarandus granti) judging by the landscape and trees.

Nature can sometimes be cruel, but on the bright side, at least the mother Grizzly was able to feed her 2 cubs.

I was totally voting for the Reindeer! Why didn't Santa Save him?

Aerodynamics of the average reindeer..

Hey Eric3579. Thanks for the reference to the France fuck you very much video...I enjoyed it.

I'm actually messaging because I found an interesting and kind of unique documentary that I can't embed.

Since you liked the magic mushroom reindeer video(that you found)-thank u by the way. I thought you would find it interesting.

As a lower videosift member I can't embed the series but I think you can.

It's a nine part video 'In Search of The Amazon's Psychedlic Sapo Frog'. To which one lick is 100 times more potent than morphine. The host is entertaining.
I discovered the documentary from http://www.disinfo.com/content/index.php

Here's the video provider (unfortunately it has ads)
http://www.vbs.tv/video.php?id=24888645001

I feel I owe you for the reindeer video. And if you don't want to post it that's cool. Actually it may not be embeddable at all on VS. Anyway I hope you enjoy the video.