To be surprised that the Royal Mail Christmas stamps are all religious?

[stampsurprise]

I thought for a change I'd get proper Christmas stamps this year. Didn't expect them to be all religious and no choice!

Is this usually what's on offer? I don't object personally, but I think most of those I send to won't care for a religious stamp.

Well we are celebrating the birth of Christ.

The son of God.

🤣

Sorry I can't even say it with a straight face 😂

I’m glad to see it and would be happy to see other religious stamps too.

Is there usually a choice ? Just ‘Christmas stamps’ or plain /usual, no ?

Is this usually what's on offer? I don't object personally, but I think most of those I send to won't care for a religious stamp

Yeah totally. If I receive a greetings card and the stamp doesn’t exactly reflect my personal moral, religious, political and ideological beliefs then I bin it straight away.

Brilliant!

I'm not religious so don't do Christmas but it wouldn't surprise me if stuff to make money out of a religious festival referenced said religious festival.

Why are you surprised? It’s a Christian festival.

I like the Christian stamps and I like that - somewhere - a company is still recognising what Christmas is for, and what it’s about.

@speakout

Stripesnomore

Which parts of christianity are drawn from paganism?

I refer you to my earlier post, which referenced the Virgin Birth thing - part of many other pre-Christian religions.

Then we have the ability to heal the sick, bring people back from the dead, perform miracles. All pretty basic God stuff.
And resurrection? Osiris to name one.
Most of the traditions around Christmas, including the Nativity (Mithras was pretty close)
The Trilogy of God (Egyptian, Babylonian, Sumerian)

Even much of the bits that were taken from Jewish beliefs e.g. the entire Old Testament, have parallels in other religions that date from before Judaism.

Allergictoironing

Then we have the ability to heal the sick, bring people back from the dead, perform miracles. All pretty basic God stuff.

Not recently though is seems. Is god on a vacation right now? Taking some time off from smiting?
Bless his cotton socks.

@Oreservoir

I want these French stamps.

Those are great!

I am sure they have non religious themed stamps available.

Unfortunately not. Just bog-standard ones with no theme.

I am taking a tip from a pp and adding robin stickers onto my envelopes

people who have convictions can just buy enough to last two years, or buy from other places that keep stock of the other stamps. Stamps don't have to be bought from the Royal Mail directly.

Good idea! I will stock up if next year they do a secular set. I had no idea about this switching back and fore. I honestly thought there were two types available just as there are with Christmas cards 🤪

These faux-confused ‘Christianity at Christmas, ooh how quaint’ threads really annoy me. What are you bothering to send Christmas cards for if the religious aspect of the festival is so distasteful to you or the recipients?

Well it's a religious, Christian festival so that might be a clue 🤔

@Weirdwonders

These faux-confused ‘Christianity at Christmas, ooh how quaint’ threads really annoy me. What are you bothering to send Christmas cards for if the religious aspect of the festival is so distasteful to you or the recipients?

I send Christmas cards Without a religious theme but they still say Merry Christmas I thought the same might apply to stamps but obviously not

Not recently though is seems. Is god on a vacation right now?

Mysteriously, God hasn't performed any miracles since video cameras were invented

@MrsTerryPratchett

Before it was pagan, what was it?

It was 'everyone is miserable, we're a bit worried the sun won't come back, I'm pissed off and hungry. Let's eat something nice, bring oil lamps/candles/fire into the hut and put some evergreens around so it's less depressing'' Day

I'm writing that in my cards this year...

MN has reached a new level of ridiculous! Who actually cares what stamp is on an envelope

I blame it on that wretched virus (borrowing Boris's words)

I think we should all come together and make some tacky handmade craft shite for our trees, hold hands, and celebrate Dec 25th from now on as Krusty Allslop day.

I knew when I saw the title of this thread it'd be a those annoying Christians who stole Yule type of thread. Oh, how I've missed them. And as a bonus we have Mithras, Osiris, Horus et al thrown in even though no serious scholars pay any credence to the 'similarities' cited by some very non peer-reviewed non academics and spread round the internet until suddenly there's a list comparing Mithras to Jesus of completely unfounded twaddle with no evidence whatsoever. Interestingly the only evidence we have for similarities are from post C1 so after the establishment of Christianity and it's more likely that the mystery religions borrowed off Christianity than the other way round (the very idea of a bunch of first century Jews looking at mystery religions and thinking hey, let's copy those, we just love child sacrifice and everything else these guys get up to' is just laughable and any serious scholars of the period - Christian or not - will confirm that.

For me as a Christian I don't care much about the date, I know Constantine came and imposed a whole load of stuff, I know the beginnings of both Yule and Christmas are all mixed up together in a whole load of ways. And now I'm just happy that people can have a time to celebrate, whether celebrating as Christians or not - the world is rubbish enough and we all need a bit of joy, so time with families, the giving of gifts and all the lovely lights are wonderful and should never be co-opted by Christians with the agenda of saying Christmas can only be about us. Jesus loved a party so I'm down with that anytime and love to see the joy and magic of Christmas in a thousand different ways. Enjoy it!

Saying all that, I really want the Marvel stamps now.

@S00LA

Is this usually what's on offer? I don't object personally, but I think most of those I send to won't care for a religious stamp

Yeah totally. If I receive a greetings card and the stamp doesn’t exactly reflect my personal moral, religious, political and ideological beliefs then I bin it straight away.

I'm a republican so ALL post would be going in the bin

I will stock up if next year they do a secular set

No need, OP - they do the plain stamps all year round
They'll offer the "specials" to you first because they don't want to have any left after Christmas, but they'll still have the others

So some people's logic is 'now most people who celebrate this festival aren't Christian, the festival itself isn't Christian anymore'.

Err... no. That's not how it works. If someone celebrated Eid by having picnics and suddenly it became associated with picnics worldwide, it wouldn't stop being a Muslim festival either.

@strivingtosucceed

So some people's logic is 'now most people who celebrate this festival aren't Christian, the festival itself isn't Christian anymore'.

Err... no. That's not how it works. If someone celebrated Eid by having picnics and suddenly it became associated with picnics worldwide, it wouldn't stop being a Muslim festival either.

by that argument you agree that it is still the original pagan celebration.

I think easter is more fun anyway. Celebrating the birth of the Christian god/prophet by giving each other chocolate eggs in the name of a fertility goddess.

I hope Christians have an explanation ready for when they meet their god cos it could be a bit awkward

what rsababe said. Christ mass.
Coventry has some amazing stained glass.