People say we have forgotten the true meaning of Christmas so may I ask if you believe in a god. [Spirituality & Religion]

@Aikarini Believing in God / a god is one thing. Believing in the Bible too closely is anothwer.

The Bible is not and never tried to be a scientific treatise! It, or at least the Old Testament and the Torah are simply their own, different selections in different orders of assorted ancient writings of over several centuries, of how one small, Late Bronze Age society developing its own ways, saw [i]and used[/i] the deity we still call "God" in their own, very fallibly human, historical context.

So whilst it contains some guesses that show their authors thinking a bit more deeply than their contemporaries who concocted some of the surrounding regions' faiths, it is absurd to try artificially back-tracking knowledge gained in the last 200-300 years, to a mish-mash of books 2000-3000 years old, describing what were probably bits of much older beliefs anyway.

Nevertheless there is no reason why we nowadays cannot - entirely by individual choice - accept what modern research from Galilei's and Copernicus' time and still advancing, is showing us; but still believe in that God driving it all. Including accepting the vast scales of time, sizes, distances and powers involved. Most modern Christians do. Indeed, if I were a practising Christian I would celebrate modern physics, astronomy, geology, palaeontology, etc. for revealing God's work as ever greater, older, more wonderful and beautiful than Moses' society could possibly ever have imagined in their wildest dreams.

The fundamental [i]difference[/i] is that monotheist faiths simply say "God did it" but [i]not[/i] How and When; but science asks How and When [i]not[/i] by Whom/What.

Their fundamental [i]similarity[/i] is notably, that neither try to ask Why; because that question is impossible to answer for theologian and scientist alike. (Some individuals are both!)

If you attempt asking it from a religious belief you risk wondering if it was merely its deity justifying its own existence. If you attempt it as an agnostic or atheist (as you know, there is an important difference between those), you find no reason at all: it just is. So "Why?" is a pointless and meaningless question.

Science goes above and beyond worrying about deities, but not only because a deity's existence or non-existence is improvable. That argument alone would be shallow and pointless because it is not answerable, and sometimes merely degenerates into childish rows over individuals' personal beliefs. Instead and much more importantly, it does so because it seeks knowledge that can be gained, debated, refined, exchanged and appreciated by [i]all[/i] people who allow themselves (or are allowed) that open-ness of mind and wish to learn; irrespective of nationalities, cultures or nominal religions.

If "God did it", so be it;' and how magnificent is His Work... but super- or supra- natural God or not, the physical "it" still exists anyway and is still magnificent in its own right.

@SW-User some say it is to give up one's very self — to think only of others — how to bring the greatest happiness to others — that is the true meaning of Christmas"

yeah.. its evolved along the way. the pagan holiday was very selfish people stealing from each other. now christmas is mostly a commercilized event.

[quote]the pagan holiday was very selfish people stealing from each other[/quote]
Where on earth did you get that from?