Path: utzoo!hoptoad!amdcad!decwrl!ucbvax!rutgers!husc6!bu-cs!bzs
From: bzs@bu-cs.BU.EDU (Barry Shein)
Newsgroups: alt.flame
Subject: Re: Vegetarians in the Workplace
Message-ID: <17972@bu-cs.BU.EDU>
Date: 24 Dec 87 18:26:47 GMT
References: <22293@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> <17934@bu-cs.BU.EDU> <22303@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> <17951@bu-cs.BU.EDU>
Organization: Boston U. Comp. Sci.
Lines: 46
In-reply-to: bzs@bu-cs.BU.EDU's message of 24 Dec 87 03:36:38 GMT
Posting-Front-End: GNU Emacs 18.41.4 of Mon Mar 23 1987 on bu-cs (berkeley-unix)


Obviously from some of the mail I am getting I haven't really made my
opinion on Xmas very clear. Some of my comments were just intellectual
jousting on the subject. I do hate religion of all types and flavors,
I won't compromise that, but on this Xmas eve I'd like to make a few
comments.

I like Xmas, I think it's a great holiday, I wish people wouldn't get
so down on the "commercialism" and all that, that's the good part.

Every season should have a holiday, Xmas is marvelously set up for
the Winter Season.

It's a celebration of fire and ice (Xmas lights, White Xmas etc.)
which creates a theme of the ice we fear and the fire which protects
us.

It's a celebration of giving and sharing (why I like the
commercialism, well, why I don't get down on it.) This is important!

In more primitive times Xmas was timed to coincide with the entry into
the lean times of deep winter. This is when food stores got low and
health would generally suffer, hard times! Reaffirming community,
interdependance, noting those you love and are willing to share with
by the exchange of small gifts as a symbol is a marvelous idea at the
start of this hard season. That's what Xmas is all about. Most of us
don't interdepend in such fundamental ways anymore so we sometimes
forget that.

A gift at Xmas doesn't just say "here, I think you needed one of
these", it says "here, I'm your friend, call me for the good times and
the bad". You can't bury that under a ton of commercialism!

In these times where people are questioning why we support the poor
and unfortunate and try to apply rationalism to economics and our
interdependencies Xmas is a wonderful reminder of how completely
irrational we are, we use our rational minds to build pet rocks and
get the money to buy them and give them to our friends, that's
marvelous! How human! Never confuse *how* we live and *why* we live.

Merry Xmas! Just don't get all hung up on the religionism, it'll just
make you feel guilty and create stupid ways to figure out who your
friends are and aren't. Be wary of anyone who's basic message is
to tell you who's them and who's us.

	-Barry Shein, Boston University