Replies to This Discussion

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.

• ▶ Reply

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.

• ▶ Reply

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.

• ▶ Reply

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! 

• ▶ Reply

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.

• ▶ Reply

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

+1

• ▶ Reply

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

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Robert Medeiros on November 15, 2011 at 1:27am

Since the abbreviation is derived from the Catholic short hand for Christos, "ΧΡ" (Greek: chi rho), which gave us gems like Χ-ian, X-mas, and ultimately xian, it seems fairly innocuous to me. In fact, it's an interesting bit of ju jitsu that constructs a diminutive form of a religious symbol that ridicules the religion in an—I think—sly sort of way. The religionists don't have much ground on which to complain since they're the ones that kicked off the whole abbreviation process. I suppose it takes too much thread to embroider a cassock with the word "Christos".

 

Also: simply being an atheist is offensive to many religionists. When your very existence offends people, you might as well have a little fun lampooning their absurd and bizarre ideas. I'd even go so far as to say that atheism has roots in scepticism which is fundamentally confrontational, and that there are times when it is warranted to be intolerant. Eschatological lunacy should generally be mocked and otherwise resisted, for instance.

• ▶ Reply

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!

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Robert Medeiros on November 15, 2011 at 1:45am

I should have stopped after the first paragraph. Our posts would have collided and cancelled, or maybe our streams would have gotten crossed and taken out the server. Glad to see that we're on the same wavelength, though!

 

I like your point about Xians belonging to "xianity"; you might say that they're "in xianity" and since we're talking about abbreviations you could shorten that to inanity. I'm just saying…. :)

• ▶ Reply

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

LOL, loved the Ghostbuster reference there.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Robert Medeiros on November 16, 2011 at 11:54pm

I'm glad someone caught it. :)

 

I'm on a retro movie kick lately; saw Ghostbusters on the big screen last week, and I'm going to see Goonies later this week. On a related note, if I *had* to pick a god to worship, I suppose one could do worse than Zuul….

• ▶ Reply

• ‹ Previous
• 1
• 2
• 3
• Next ›
• Page