Does 'Xmas' take the 'Christ out of Christmas'?

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I got this from MSN:

"Abbreviating Christmas as Xmas doesn't really "take the Christ out of Christmas." The X in "Xmas" stands for the Greek letter Chi, which is the first letter in Christos, the Greek word for "Christ," and a commonly used symbol to represent the name of Christ in religious writings."

I don't know if it is true though.

-- David Ortiz (cyberpunk1986@hotmail.com), December 19, 2004

Answers

bump

-- David Ortiz (cyberpunk1986@hotmail.com), December 19, 2004.

Whether it's true or not, the intent may be to take Christ out of Christmas. I'm leery about taking any refernce to Christ out of Christmas, especially the name. How many people know enough to make the connection between the "X" and Christ? Better we keep using Christmas.

-- Andy S ("ask3332004@yahho.com), December 19, 2004.

Its true - and I think it's okay to use Xmas because of it. We shouldn't have to make excuses for the uneducated. Instead, we should embrace the truth and tell others of this... so MORE can be informed and educated.

-- Jason Randall (Jason@signal27.com), December 24, 2004.

Xmas can be used perfectly well, and when someone around still feels that it removes Christ from Christmas, then it opens opportunity to educate someone. I'm more agnostic - and I find it sad when i know more about someone's religion than they do - thus the common case with this ...

-- sven (steve@ourdose.com), December 25, 2004.

Seems you guys may be right. Here are a few other links I found that discussed ancient use of the letters Chi Rho to represent Christ. Even though they mentioned that it was Chi Rho and not Chi only, I can see where Chi is an ancient symbol of Christ.

http://home.att.net/~wegast/symbols/chirho/chirho.htm

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08717c.htm

http://www.biblewheel.com/Wheel/Spokes/Vav_ChiRho.asp

My main concern comes from having seen "x-mas" used in place of "Christmas" primarily in secularist and consumerist circles. The intent seemed to be to shorten the word Christmas and to save writing space. Rather than using an ancient symbol for Christ, this always seemed like an offhand way of further reducing Christmas into a celebration of consumerism.

That's just my opinion. I don't see anything wrong with using "Chi" to represent Christ since that is the first letter of his name in the Greek New Testament. Just so it's clear and the reader is aware that the intent is not to remove Christ.

-- Andy S ("ask3332004@yahoo.com"), December 26, 2004.



"I'm more agnostic - and I find it sad when i know more about someone's religion than they do - thus the common case with this ... "--Sven.

That's an interesting comment, Sven. I wonder why someone would continue to have convictions in one's religion. Would they continue with their religion after knowing more?

Does "religion" lead one to Agnosticism? Or, is it simply an issue of faith?

......................

-- rod (elreyrod@yahoo.com), December 27, 2004.


M.E., I read your post on the other thread. Why don't you stick around here for awhile. BTW, you can't hate us, you don't even know us, yet!

-- Gail (Rothfarms@socket.net), December 30, 2004.

Maybe we should all be taking Christ out of Christmas!!! Christmas is a Roman pagan ritual and is only a representation of Christs birthday in name to apease the Roman masses when they converted to Christianity - they didn't want to lose a well cherished holiday!

Check it -

http://members.aol.com/libcfl/xmas.htm

-- Ron Jeremy (RonJeremy@hotmail.com), January 05, 2005.


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