Enforced Nativity Plays

Enforced Nativity Plays Little Richardjohn - 464th post - 17 Dec 2004 19:36
Or so it seems from the current hysteria about the encouraging tendency of schools to abandon these poisonous, stereotyping little propaganda tableaux.
The schools that decided not to stage Nativity Plays have boards of governors, I assume. And they have some say in areas like this. So we can roughly assume that the schools are acting with the permission of the parents. At least, those who can be bothered to be involved.

So the rest of us can mind our own dam business and go back to the endless search for the mystical I-Pod mini, and celebrate Xmas in the usual Christian way. By buying expensive junk for people we don't particularly like and eating too much and drinking until we're sick on the pavement.

For once and for all, this is NOT a 'Christian Country'. Thankfully, we haven't been defined by religion in this country since Cromwell. Northern Ireland fell into that trap, and look what a lovely 300 years they had.

This country celebrates the middle of winter to keep the economy going. As it always has done. Not out of gratitude or celebration of a Messiah who will save our 'souls'. Does anyone at the Daily Mail really believe they have a soul? And that it can be saved by following the teachings of Jebus?

Well if they do, they are very much alone. And in danger of going broke if they're as good as their word and want to return this economy to that of an ecclesiatically accurate facsimile of Christian doctrine. (And they talk about communism being impractical).

If the Daily Mail wants a 'Christian Country', it'd better consult its accountants and shareholders first.

It's religious correctness gone MAD! [reply] [Complain about this post]


re: Enforced Nativity Plays Don Glen - 2258th post - 18 Dec 2004 15:59
You are perhaps missing the point ever so slightly, R.L. If the schools in question were refusing to perform nativity plays BECAUSE they recognise that such plays are simply a manifestation of the collective insanity that is religion, than no-one would be making a fuss.
But what annoys a lot of people (me included) is that they do it so as not to offend people of other faiths; and THAT is humbug writ large. [reply] [Complain about this post]


re: Enforced Nativity Plays Little Richardjohn - 468th post - 18 Dec 2004 16:21
''Do it not to offend other faiths..''
You don't know that. There could be a dozen reasons. And anyway, it is their decision and none of anyone else's business.

And if they are there are true believers out there, surely they would be represented on B.O.Gs, and they wouldn't be put off by the opinions of others. The fact that they are not 'steadfast' enough in their beliefs only proves my point. No one believes in it. And from my point of view it's important not to fill the heads of very young children with this poison.

What got me going initially were the endless outraged e-mails on local TV news calling for the Nativity Plays to be made COMPULSORY, on the national curriculum even. Because of this myth that 'We are a Christian country.'

When we start behaving like one, then I might pay attention. But ubtil then, Xmas is nothing more than a capitalist surplus burning exercise. Like the Tomato Fiesta in Spain or war.

So at the end of the day, why nativity plays are not being performed any more is not as important as the fact that they aren't. It's a shame that any are. Their existence is a symptom of our lack of imagination and guts at this stage of our development as a culture. [reply] [Complain about this post]


re: Enforced Nativity Plays Marconi - 343rd post - 18 Dec 2004 16:56
Little Richardjohn. You’re not a lapsed Catholic by any chance are you? [reply] [Complain about this post]

re: Enforced Nativity Plays Little Richardjohn - 473rd post - 19 Dec 2004 15:39
How charming to be thought one. Flatterer.
Ex childhood Baptist though.

The broke the ice when they baptised my mother and when my cousin was done, the minister DIED with her in his arms. True stories.

''Wash me in the blood that flows from Calvary.'' All that. Great stuff.

Essential at the time to preserve the sanity of some during the worst povery and deprivation any of my mother's generation had experienced.

Not necessary now. Now we have other ways of making our lives feel significant. Ways which don't rely on the lie that we can live forever as long as we don't Live now. [reply] [Complain about this post]


re: Enforced Nativity Plays flatfour - 265th post - 17 Dec 2004 19:56
I have just read your item. I don't think I have read such utter drivel for many a day. Have a nice winter festival. [reply] [Complain about this post]

re: Enforced Nativity Plays Little Richardjohn - 467th post - 17 Dec 2004 20:07
Well if you're happy to be told you live in a country with the ideological and cultural maturity of Ian Paisley, best of luck to you.
If you are acquiescent in this campaign to foist a religious identity onto a people who have been happy without it for centuries, then at least we know where we stand. Anything goes.

Maybe you should retire to the golf course and work on your putts. [reply] [Complain about this post]


re: Enforced Nativity Plays Michael Calwell - 24th post - 17 Dec 2004 20:25
Seventy percent of people when asked say they are Christian. Only 15% claim to have no religion. And that's from an anti-religion website.
Maybe you 'd like to abandon Christmas altogether, or perhaps suggest an alternative.

Maybe you could suggest that your local primary school stages a few non-religious vignettes - the meeting of Marx and Engels, the Pogroms or the establishment of the People's Republic of China.

Messages of areligious hope for all. [reply] [Complain about this post]


re: Enforced Nativity Plays I Bell - 3169th post - 18 Dec 2004 11:52
"Maybe you 'd like to abandon Christmas altogether, or perhaps suggest an alternative."
How about reverting to the traditional pagan winter solstice festival? The one with a decorated tree, holly, mistletoe, yule log, and a pudding? [reply] [Complain about this post]



re: Enforced Nativity Plays Mavis Orpington - 1262nd post - 18 Dec 2004 14:27
The nativity play is fine as long as the children enter into it voluntarily, there is nothing worse than forcing a child to enter the daunting world of acting when they have no confidence to do so. I would like to see more imaginative plays held, pantomimes rather that nativity plays would be far better as the emphasis is not on the 'religious' but the lighthearted. [reply] [Complain about this post]

re: Enforced Nativity Plays Little Richardjohn - 470th post - 18 Dec 2004 16:32
Now you're talking.
Something which encouraged sociability and co-operation above the rigid hierarchy of the Nativity Sham. If you're Mary, you're the prettiest girl. If you're Joseph, you're the cleverest boy... It's the dreaded Queen Of The May all over again. Carnival Queen. Damn the Ordinary. [reply] [Complain about this post]




re: Enforced Nativity Plays I Bell - 3177th post - 18 Dec 2004 18:13
" what the people of Europe mostly celebrate at this time is the birth of Christ Jesus,"
Do they? How many attend a church over xmas? How many make a crib? About the only christian token you will find in most homes is an angel or star (supposedly that over Bethlehem) atop the pagan tree. An apt metaphor for the entire festival really. That and their kids being routemarched through the nativity at school, which is the subject of this thread.

No, the only god worshiped over the solstice these days is Mammon. The iconic infant has been overthrown by flyagaric Santa and his big sack of toys. Look at any high street to see the truth of this.

"If you want to stand in your garden on Dec. 25th dressed in a goatskin with woad in your hair and chant to the moon god"

I don't need to. I hang holly and mistletoe and decorate a tree along with the rest of Britain. It is the christian priests who don funny costumes and intone formulae that nobody cares about anymore. [reply] [Complain about this post]


re: Enforced Nativity Plays Little Richardjohn - 469th post - 18 Dec 2004 16:27
Do what you like with the midwinter festival. But don't spend taxpayer's money poisoning the minds of infants with prehistoric mumbo-jumbo about saviours who are going to make sure that they never ever ever die.
And especially stop doing it for your own amusement. Especially as you don't believe the myth yourself.

There are enough narcotics out there as it is.

Remember. I only want to stop them being compulsory, you seem to want to impose them on all schools because that is 'the British way'. Who's the totalitarian in that equation? Winston would be turning in his grave. [reply] [Complain about this post]


re: Enforced Nativity Plays James StGeorge - 3785th post - 17 Dec 2004 20:25
I am unconcerned about the religious part of such events. Yet they are part of our traditions, you do not have to believe in the mumbo jumbo. We still enjoy burning Guy Fawkes, why not the denying of Mary a room at the Inn? Just like an overbooked holiday hotel!
[JamesStGeorge my h2g2 page search there with no spaces] [reply] [Complain about this post]




re: Enforced Nativity Plays janner - 436th post - 18 Dec 2004 15:50
Are there any native traditions safe from the 'in' crowd?
I'll bet Ramadan, or any other foreign festival, is left well alone by you lot! [reply] [Complain about this post]


re: Enforced Nativity Plays Little Richardjohn - 471st post - 18 Dec 2004 16:45
By the 'in crowd' ypou mean of course the Boardsof Governors of the schools concerned and the teachers who have to sweat to produce these charades in the name of something they don't believe in.
You want Nativity plays, you organise them. But don't expect others to flog this dead fashion any further.

And since when were they traditional anyway. We never had them when I was a boy. There aren't any references that I can remember in Dickens even - and if Nativity plays for children aren't in Dickens. where are they.
I challenge this whole theory that they are a native tradition at all. They look much more Germanic to me. Like Hot Dogs.

Some people will believe anything as long as it's in the Daily Mail. You're confusing Christmas with Xmas. Xmas is a Victorian invention. Before that, and the invention by Coca Cola of the Santa Claus icon, December 25th was nothing much to write home about. It was a formal religious holiday, like as you say Ramadan. If we celebrated Xmas in the same way that other religions celebrate Ijd or Hanakhah then I wouldn't care. But it is a purely materialistic event. Face the truth.

Are you going to go to church on Xmas Eve, and morning and evensong? I doubt it. Because if you did, then you would be devoting as much time to your religion as a devout muslim. Time you started. You've got a bit of catching up to do. [reply] [Complain about this post]