'Merry Christmas' or 'Happy Holiday'

[Kitsune]

Originally Posted by Brianna

Kitsune, dude, why all the fuss? Holiday expectations stressing you out? There's probably a nice, affordable foot massage/sex toy on sale at a Target somewhere near you! Kisses, you old fox. It will all be okay!

It's all gonna be okay... I just-- well, there's that 16 hour car trip ahead, dealing with two sets of families, the 'gift-guilt' problem, cooking for guests, the tangle of strings of lights, that creepy person ringing the bell with the red kettle outside of the place where I buy my groce-- oh, dammit, end it now! END IT NOW!



You're all getting pocket change for Christmas, you hear? Nothing but coffee money! I'll be in the woods in my tent next to a campfire on the 25th if you need me!

[vsp]

Happy Kwanzaa.

[xoxoxoBruce]

I'll be in the woods in my tent next to a campfire on the 25th if you need me!

I think you can do that.....it's a free country, right?

I think the first time I heard people bitching about other people screwing up Christmas by commercializing it was in 1950. I've heard it every year since, too.

I also think that Happy Holidays is an abbreviation of MerryChristmasandHappyNewYear, much to the chagrin of the sign painters local.

OK, I'm done thinking.

[fargon]

I am having a hard time beliving that a true christian would sue anybody over something as trivial as a holiday greeting. Now I can see some Left Wing Whakko sueing over this, I belive that this subject has gone to far. "Cant we all just get along" (Rodney King) MERRY CHRISTMAS

Thank You Terry Bell

[Bullitt]

I personally think this whole "attack on christmas" thing is rediculous.. christmas is not the only religious holiday celebrated by people this time of year.. so when in question of someone's specific beliefs, I'd say "happy holidays" is actually quite appropriate.
Now the whole "holiday tree" nonsense.. that's just wrong. It IS a christmas tree, plain and simple. I heard someone say that changing christmas tree to "holiday tree" would be like changing menorah (sp?) to "holiday candlestick".

[Happy Monkey]

Originally Posted by fargon

I am having a hard time beliving that a true christian would sue anybody over something as trivial as a holiday greeting.

They wouldn't. But these are people who see "Christian" as a political affiliation, not true Christians.

[Bullitt]

Originally Posted by Happy Monkey

They wouldn't. But these are people who see "Christian" as a political affiliation, not true Christians.

exactly

[Elspode]

Originally Posted by tw

Americans can be sued for changing the expression "Merry Christmas" to "Happy Holidays".

I'll be calling my Pagan lawyer tomorrow to discuss my suit regarding the appropriation of traditionally non-Christian holiday notions:

1) The whole damn Christmas tree thing in the first place.
2) Holly and Mistletoe.
3) Candles in the window.
4) Christmas caroling/wassailing.
5) Son, sired by his father (who is in fact another manifestation of himself) born of the goddess at the Winter Solstice.

Pagans 1, Christians 0.

[tw]

I believe it was Dave who can testify about Christmas Trees verses burning in hell. Christmas tree lights burned down an entire house in about 5 minutes. They lost many pets and are lucky to be alive.

If one must be so religious as to use a live Christmas tree, then also be secular. There exists a device called an Arc Fault GFI or AGCFI that is now required on all bedroom electric circuits. Change an existing circuit breaker that powers a Holiday Tree with an AGCFI type. This so that evil spirits cannot take revenge. AGCFI breakers will detect a short circuit (arcing) in a string of Christmas tree lights; quash an arc before that arc can kill household occupants, burn down the house, and wipe out the family pets.

[mrnoodle]

Pretending there is not an organized effort to eliminate all mention of Christ from any public arena doesn't make it so. There are any number of court dockets that show just that. The ACLU researches individual school districts to see if it can find any mention of Christmas, then warns the school board that they're going to get sued if they don't take out the offending references.

Kwanzaa my ass. We've allowed a small group of people to create the false impression that the Christian holiday is just one of many that are actively being celebrated, and that by paying attention to xmas, we are somehow offending practitioners of other faiths. If I move to India, I don't expect Indians to remove all signs of their predominant religion to keep my white Christian ass happy. Likewise, I don't intend to change my country to keep theirs so.

Grr.

I said I wasn't gonna get involved in this argument...

Elspode, you guys can have all that stuff back if you want. It's a pain in the butt to put up and take down every year. But pagans are older than Christianity, the ones who brought the traditions over were pagans who saw the light, so to speak. So you're gonna have to make a call to internal affairs -- don't blame it all on Dobson.

[Happy Monkey]

Originally Posted by mrnoodle

Pretending there is not an organized effort to eliminate all mention of Christ from any public arena doesn't make it so.

What, precisely, do you mean by "public arena"? Government?

[glatt]

Yeah, I kind of zeroed in on those two words too. I think there should be and is an organized effort to remove religion from government. Government should be fair to everyone.

But if you want to stand on a box on the street corner and spout off about your religion, that's fine with me. Just don't impede traffic.

[Elspode]

Of course, I *am* kidding. My point is that, if we're going to start suing each other, let's make sure everyone gets to play.

Fair is fair. If we're going to have government santioned Christianity, then we're gonna need to have some Evolution taught in churches. Otherwise, let's keep them separate. I'm not going to pretend that it isn't going to be painful from time to time to do so, but if we include one religion (yes, I know, Christianity is the only *right* one, but humor me) in our governmental processes, we're going to disenfranchise *all* the others, or at the very least, make them into second class religions in the eyes of the State.

Either all religions are equal and we are a Republic, or one religion is officially better, and we are a Theocracy.

I know which one I want to live in.

[Elspode]

As an afterthought to Mr Noodle (and please, take this as it is offered, which is with the greatest of personal respect to you, who I believe to be a fine person), pretending that there isn't an effort to insert Christ and Christian mores into our schools and public arenas doesn't make it not so, either.

I think the expansion in the effort to remove religious intrusions into secular areas is in direct proportion to the expansion in efforts to add them in the first place. The Constitution provides a mandate to keep Church and State separate, and that includes my Pagan theology, too.

For example - Just because Darwin happens to jive with my personal take on Creation doesn't make teaching Darwin religious, but teaching that Jehovah God (tm) created it all (even if it is disguised as "Intelligent Design", which, let's all be honest, is Creationism unless you also teach that it might have been the Flying Spaghetti Monster, aliens or a chem lab accident on Delta Tauri) is, in fact, religious, since the whole concept stems from the Bible.

I would have absolutely *no* problem with Creationism being taught as mythology, along with my own beliefs on the matter.

[Kitsune]

Originally Posted by mrnoodle

Pretending there is not an organized effort to eliminate all mention of Christ from any public arena doesn't make it so.

Happy Monkey got it. If you mean "the government" by "public arena", there is certainly an organized effort. My tax dollars don't need to go to sponsor any religion, including Christianity.

Originally Posted by mrnoodle

Kwanzaa my ass. We've allowed a small group of people to create the false impression that the Christian holiday is just one of many that are actively being celebrated

Trying replacing "Kwanzaa my ass" with "Hanukkah my ass" or any other number of major religious holidays. Your concept of any religion's validity and recognizability is beside the point, however.

Originally Posted by mrnoodle

and that by paying attention to xmas, we are somehow offending practitioners of other faiths.

That's funny, because the imression I've gotten is that a small portion of Christians are making it seem that it is as if they are being offended when their faith isn't expressly referenced everywhere by everyone. Why is it that when the system references nothing and permits people to observe anything that this small group of Christians think they are being expressly excluded?

Besides, this is all about a private business on private property using a phrase of their choice to wish their customers to what pretty much translates to "have a nice day". If you think there is an organized attack of Christmas, you need to adjust that foil hat of yours. Everything you see happening is either freedom of speech in action or the people of the US attempting to keep their government from mixing with a select religion and excluding taxpayers that don't subscribe to it.

Originally Posted by mrnoodle

If I move to India, I don't expect Indians to remove all signs of their predominant religion to keep my white Christian ass happy.

This is amusing, because India is supposed to be a democracy, too, yet they still seem to constantly fall into the trap of truly being a Hindu theocracy. The Indian government suffers from the same illness the US does.

Well, maybe you'd prefer to move to a country where the government recognizes a specific religion of your preference? Would that make you feel more secure about your faith?