What's up with the word xian?

What's up with the word xian? I mean are you really so anti-christian you can't bring yourself to use the word "christ"? Really? It just seems to be a deliberate way to offend, and that seems kind of intolerant to me. We expect intolerance from religions. Atheists should be above that sort of thing. OK, defend the use of the word xian. Show me where I'm wrong.

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Permalink Reply by Akshay Bist on November 15, 2011 at 12:46am

It's short of christian, like k is short of ok, which is short of okay. Or u is short for you.

Chill out dude, it's the internet, lots of people don't use proper spellings.

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Permalink Reply by 52X Max GT on November 15, 2011 at 1:04am

I agree. I mean, no one bats an eyelash when people spell xmas that way.

Besides, Christ isn't even the name of Yeshua, it just means annointed.

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Permalink Reply by Lewal on November 16, 2011 at 12:20pm

I refer to him as Yeshua sometimes with some of my Christian friends. I also say "the one you call Christ" and when I really want to laugh at their vexation, refer to them as Yeshuan-sect Jews.

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Permalink Reply by Joe Brady on November 15, 2011 at 1:07am

I think of all things out there, militant secularist offenses go a lot deeper than something like 'xian.' If I were a Christian I'd be a lot more offended by the actual absurdities that make secularists look bad. And there's plenty of that already!

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Permalink Reply by IEatDinosaurMeat on November 15, 2011 at 1:22am

The shortening of Christian and Christmas to Xian and Xmas comes from the Chirho (XP) where greek characters were used to shorten the greek word "ΧΡΙΣΤΟΣ"(Christos) (thank you wikipedia for these characters I copied and pasted) Notice the first two letters? And the first letter is an "X" which is Chi in greek. Basically it's symbolically the same thing, just shortened...

Granted I could be wrong on the history, but being a research junkie I'll prolly find that out soon.

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Permalink Reply by Akshay Bist on November 15, 2011 at 1:31am

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Permalink Reply by Steve on November 15, 2011 at 11:50am

It does seem like internet lingo, but it is a bit weird to think that so many people assume this is a new thing. The XP symbol is rather common among Christians - at least the Catholics around here. I've seen it on crucifixes and especially on candles

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Permalink Reply by IEatDinosaurMeat on November 15, 2011 at 1:34am

Four minutes later... heheheheh!

I find it ironic, and a little more than just funny that so many Xians are put off by "xmas" and "xianity" abbreviations since they actually belong to xianity. I remember asserting the point about xmas, how it wasn't taking Christ out of it but making it shorter. Funny, though, how only people can be so narrow sighted about things sometimes. Heck, I was abbreviating it Xian while I believed in it!

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Permalink Reply by Tammy on November 16, 2011 at 1:46pm

LOL, loved the Ghostbuster reference there.

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Permalink Reply by Ash Pryce on November 15, 2011 at 7:14am

The "X" is a valid contraction, as others have said derived not from atheist offensiveness but from Christianity itself. I rarely use it, in fact I only use it in regards to x-mas. Xian for me has always been too close to Zion and I simply worry about confusing the point of the conversation.

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Permalink Reply by Robert Karp on November 15, 2011 at 8:56am

Since when does christianity deserve our respect or tolerance? Or any other religion for that matter. Am I intolerant of christianity? Absolutely. I can like a chrisitan, and have many christian friends. I can admire some of their literature and music and art. But am I tolerant of their apologetic stance towards their religion? No. Would I call them a xian to their face? No because I'm not an a-hole. But saying "atheists should be above that sort of thing" ? I have no reason to be.