Belgian town: christmas Nativity scene offensive.

[Kalis]

Well that's the story I got, Jesus was born, the King heard about it, sent out his guards to kill all the new babies. :S

That was a retcon.

[Exeris]

Why not? They have been part of our Western cultural tradition going back centuries.

Getting difficult to ignore those that think it's a waste of time and money and/or think it offensive.

We move on, but if you want to fight it you are welcome to waste your time.

[Jessicka]

That was a retcon.

Right, like the whole 'love each other and don't kill each other' was retconned to 'suffer not a Witch to live', and other glorious statements from Leviticus?

[Deleted]

The story is what it seems. Green party pushed for a nativity scene ban (unique in Belgium) under false pretenses of banning all religious symbols from public view. Their real motivation is to cater to immigrant voters, an increasing demographic and significant enough to be an important target group. Next big election is in October 2018.

It's clear enough that this is their true motivation because it's supported by their federal policy. Suggestions like these are thinly veiled attacks on the N-VA, a conservative party and the opponent for the political left.

The ban even got criticism from muslim opinion leader Youssef Kobo.

"under false pretenses" "Their real motivation" These sound very much like your reinforced opinion.

[Kalis]

An Englishman showing his ignorance, what a shocker!

The Scottish are just as ignorant, hey ho.

Getting difficult to ignore those that think it's a waste of time and money and/or think it offensive.

We move on, but if you want to fight it you are welcome to waste your time.

I find lots of things offensive, I don't call for them to be barred if they are not harmful. And how much resources would a Nativity Scene expend?

[Kalis]

Right, like the whole 'love each other and don't kill each other' was retconned to 'suffer not a Witch to live', and other glorious statements from Leviticus?

The Nativity Scene is not supposed to be glorifying Herod. The slaughter of the innocents is a storyelling device, i.e. 'prophecy of future king leads current king to try and stop prophecy'.

[ophion1990]

There are plenty of "traditions" that are better left to history, let's be honest about that.

Like killing a goat for Allah? If muslims get to keep that tradition, I think a crib with a doll it it should be fine aswell.

Just like when christmas lights were removed from certain places in Sweden cause the poles couldn't hold the weight and the rightsheep happily shared fake news about muslims being angry, I'm gonna take this with a bucket of salt until I get to read more than 200 words translated from Belgian.

It's real (I'm from Belgium), it's non-muslims complaining about it though. It just makes me wonder why they're doing this so suddeny. Antwerp has a large amount of jews in the city yet they were never given the same consideration AFAIK.

Religion is nothing you put in puplic places, thats the right thing to do.

I don't nescessarily disagree. There's plenty of women wearing a burqa and whatnot, so that'd have to go aswell. That aside, there's still Catholic schools in Belgium that teach religion (though it's luckily not exclussively about god/jesus and stuff anymore). Stuff like that makes banning this tradition all the more ridiculous.

[Jessicka]

I find lots of things offensive, I don't call for them to be barred if they are not harmful. And how much resources would a Nativity Scene expend?

They can be pretty expensive actually; although I'm entirely okay with lights and trees as they're regarded as more secular.

That said, there is a Nativity outside my own town hall, it's probably 70 years old or something and was paid for long ago, certainly looks that way. If the 'star' on it wasn't a massive Pentacle, it'd probably annoy me a bit more. I'm not going to ask for it to be removed, but I wouldn't regard it as tasteful.

[Kalis]

Really? Brexit? Ignorant English much?

And England had different experiences that led to different wants. Foreign immigration played a large factor in Brexit, which isn't a major issue in Scotland as their population is over 90% white British.

[Jessicka]

Like killing a goat for Allah? If muslims get to keep that tradition, I think a crib with a doll it it should be fine aswell.

Where am I talking about muslims? Part of my credo is Luciferian. And the ritual killing of animals is by no means unique to Islam.

[Kalis]

They can be pretty expensive actually; although I'm entirely okay with lights and trees as they're regarded as more secular.

That said, there is a Nativity outside my own town hall, it's probably 70 years old or something and was paid for long ago, certainly looks that way. If the 'star' on it wasn't a massive Pentacle, it'd probably annoy me a bit more. I'm not going to ask for it to be removed, but I wouldn't regard it as tasteful.

Why would it having a pentacle make any difference? Cultural traditions do not have to be tasteful, look at Morris Dancing.

[Sevyvia]

The Burqa is offensive to me, so it should be banned.

If the above is not a natural consequence of the OP, then we (shocker, I know) live in a society with double standards and should take efforts to correct this. I am not religious and I don't give a flying fuck about church bells ringing time and again on the 24th where I live. Wouldn't it be nice if the same sort of "I don't care"-ness could be extended the other ways around.

[Jessicka]

Why would it having a pentacle make any difference? Cultural traditions do not have to be tasteful, look at Morris Dancing.

The traditional star you put on a Nativity is 4 or 8 pointed with an elongated bottom point; I just found it funny that they chose to use a Wicker 5 pointed star in a circle (pointing upward) that's usually associated with Wicca, or "devil worship" as some Christians might believe.

[Tackhisis]

How can people be against Nativity? Even if you deny the divine nature of our Lord Jesus Christ, the birth of Man is one of the most precious things. Banning it makes no sense.

[Belize]

There are plenty of "traditions" that are better left to history, let's be honest about that.

Bring back Witch Burning!

[ophion1990]

Where am I talking about muslims? Part of my credo is Luciferian. And the ritual killing of animals is by no means unique to Islam.

You said that plenty of traditions were better left to history. I made the "wild" assumption that you were specifically talking about the tradition in the OP. I just mentioned that if that tradition was 'better left to history', there's some others that should probably go first.

[Kalis]

The traditional star you put on a Nativity is 4 or 8 pointed with an elongated bottom point; I just found it funny that they chose to use a Wicker 5 pointed star in a circle (pointing upward) that's usually associated with Wicca, or "devil worship" as some Christians might believe.

Wicca is a modern invention, they may not have even known of its existence if it was pre-1970s. The pentagram was also associated with Christianity, as it is just an easy to draw star.

[JohnBrown1917]

The Burqa is offensive to me, so it should be banned.

If the above is not a natural consequence of the OP, then we (shocker, I know) live in a society with double standards and should take efforts to correct this. I am not religious and I don't give a flying fuck about church bells ringing time and again on the 24th where I live. Wouldn't it be nice if the same sort of "I don't care"-ness could be extended the other ways around.

If the town hall started showing of islamic signs and ringing church bells, I would be pretty annoyed.

[Deleted]

Do they? They shift. Now we don't have child labour and pretend we are awesome but our products are made with child labour in other countries. Now we can look away and earn even more.

Good call i was being glib.

Is it too late for me to swap child labour for tuberculosis?

[Jessicka]

The Burqa is offensive to me, so it should be banned.

If the above is not a natural consequence of the OP, then we (shocker, I know) live in a society with double standards and should take efforts to correct this. I am not religious and I don't give a flying fuck about church bells ringing time and again on the 24th where I live. Wouldn't it be nice if the same sort of "I don't care"-ness could be extended the other ways around.

Tricky one that entirely depends on the wearer's reasons for wearing it. It shouldn't be banned for those willingly wearing it any more than any other voluntary wearing of religious attire or symbols should be banned. Problem is that the Burqa is often 'enforced' and punishments dealt for not-wearing it, and that is entirely unacceptable and should not be tolerated. Herein you'll probably find that forcing someone to wear it by way of, usually violence or other abuse, is already illegal anyway and the problem is catching those people enforcing it.