Are you sick of Christians whining about "Happy Holidays"?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

As you may have read on the internet, there is a poem making the rounds entitled “Merry Christmas” and containing the usual rant of the religious right about how “persecuted” the poor babies are by not being allowed to impose their religion on everyone at this time of year. Below is the poem I wrote to reply to it (as well as the original “Christian” poem that inspired it, which follows). Please feel free to circulate it to all your friends.

Happy Holidays!

'Tis the end of December and once more this year,
Religious conservatives are bending our ear
Pretending they’re martyrs but using their votes
To shove their religion down everyone’s throats.

“Not a Christian was praying”? That I very much doubt!
You can pray almost anywhere, indoors and out.
You can pray in your church, in your home, in your car,
You can pray on TV, on a phone, at a bar!

You can pray in a chat room, preach your faith far and wide
You can wear your Christian crosses with pride
You can print magazines, or email any place
To tell everyone of “salvation and grace”.

You can show baby Jesus on your lawn in a manger
You can shout “Merry Christmas” to a friend or a stranger
You can send Christmas cards to through the mails far and near
As millions of Christians do quite freely each year.

You can sing Christmas carrols in churches and halls
And if the owners invite you, you can sing them in malls
I love to hear carolers singing to please us
Even though I don’t believe in your Jesus!

But what you can’t do in this land of the free
Is impose your beliefs on him, her or me!
Or use public places **ALL **our taxes have paid for
To push your own faith – that is not what they’re made for!

So what should the teacher be expected to do?
Impose Christ on atheist, Muslim and Jew?
So what if the stores say “Happy Holidays” to all?
Is it only good Christians who shop at their mall?
 
I know that to Christians this time of the year
Is supposed to mark the birth of their Saviour dear
(But a fact that is old, oft-repeated and worn
Is that nobody knows what date Jesus was born).

So I wish you Merry Christmas my Christ-loving friend
In the new year I wish you peace and joy without end.
Go to Church Christmas Day, worship just as you please
But remember to be thankful when down on your knees
That under our laws ALL believers are free
With Christians no worse and no better than me.

Here for reference purposes is the original poem circulating on the Internet:

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!
Twas the week before Christmas
When all through our land,
Not a Christian was praying
Nor taking a stand.
See the PC Police had taken away,
The reason for Christmas - no one could say.
The children were told by their schools not to sing,
About Shepherds and Wise Men and Angels and things.
It might hurt people’s feelings, the teachers would say
December 25th is just a " Holiday ".
Yet the shoppers were ready with cash, cheques and credit
Pushing folks down to the floor just to get it!
CDs from Madonna, an X BOX, an I-pod
Something was changing, something quite odd!
Retailers promoted Ramadan and Kwanzaa
In hopes to sell books by Franken & Fonda.
As Targets were hanging their trees upside down
At Lowe’s the word Christmas - was no where to be found.
At K-Mart and Staples and Penney’s and Sears
You won’t hear the word Christmas; it won’t touch your ears.

Inclusive, sensitive, Di-ver-is-ty
Are words that were used to intimidate me.
Now Daschle, Now Darden, Now Sharpton, Wolf Blitzen
On Boxer, on Rather, on Kerry, on Clinton !
At the top of the Senate, there arose such a clatter
To eliminate Jesus, in all public matter.
And we spoke not a word, as they took away our faith
Forbidden to speak of salvation and grace

The true Gift of Christmas was exchanged and discarded
The reason for the season, stopped before it started.
So as you celebrate “Winter Break” under your “Dream Tree”
Sipping your Starbucks, listen to me.
Choose your words carefully, choose what you say
Shout MERRY CHRISTMAS,
Not Happy Holiday !

2

No.

3

Why is this in GD?

4

Excellent job, Valteron!

Your poem is much better written than the original, too.

5

Yes.

6

Nice one, Valteron.

And yes, I am.

7

I am an agnostic who does not believe in churches and doubts the existence of God(s). I think the Christians should be allowed to say “Merry Christmas” if they want to without worry of offense and they should be allowed their Christmas Trees even in schools and town offices.

It really does no real harm and does not appear to impact non-believers as far as I can see.

Nice poem though.

Jim

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Yes I am.

9

What Exit?, I do believe in churches. But there is NO ONE who thinks that Christian’s shouldn’t be allowed to say “Merry Christmas.” It’s just that some store owners, in an effort to make everyone, including non-Christians, feel welcome in their stores, have told employees that they need to be inclusive and use a generic greeting. Store owners should be able to set employee standards of conduct, so that the other 25% of their customers feel just as welcome as the 75%.
ETA: Very nice, Valteron! Can I use it? Where do I send the royalty checks. By the way, if I were you editor I would suggest that these lines be re-done:

> I know that to Christians this time of the year
> Is supposed to mark the birth of their Saviour dear

It just doesn’t seem to have the same meter, and the “dear” seems tacked-on.

10

Sure am. “Put the Christ back in Christmas” also annoys me. Say “Merry Christmas” if you swing that way, but don’t whine like a baby if someone has the gall to include other holidays in their seasons greetings.

Joyous Solstice, and have a cool Yule.

11

I was under the impression the true meaning of Christmas had something to do with, you know, giving and so forth. Redemption of man. Faith. Hope. That kind of thing. Apparently now the meaning of Christmas hinges on whether people wish you a merry one or not, and what retailers elect to do in search of profit.

I for one am entirely sorry; i’ve bought presents for others this year. Apparently by doing so i’ve enacted some kind of censorous decree forbidding Christian talk and prayer. Sorry, all.

12

Nor should they be throwing apostrophes around willy-nilly when such an apostrophe could brighten up some apostropheless family’s holiday, whatever they may celebrate.

13

Not just stores by a long shot, but I get your point.

14

I have just responded to a “No christian is praying” glurge email by hitting “Reply to all” and sending your version.

It seems to have been quite a big list. (Everyone my brother has ever spoken to in his life, that about sums it up.)

Because yes I am tired of the whining. Why does everybody have to celebrate it the same way, for the same reasons?

I have always sent out “Happy Holidays” cards, just because I am too lazy to buy differet cards and sit down and sort them all out. I figure even for the atheists on my list, there’s a holiday in there somewhere that will count, so it works. I never used to get flak for it…now, I do. “Hey, how come you don’t want to mention Christmas? Huh?”

I may be getting crossed off a lot of lists!

PS If you want some kind of attribution, let me know. I guess I could have put, “By Valteron, of the SDMB Message Board,” but that just seemed wrong.

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“Cause of accident ?”

“He doesn’t believe in churches. Tried to cut across what he thought was an empty lot. Smacked right into the north wall.”

“Just like that Amish guy last week, who didn’t believe in cars, eh ?”

16

Puh-leez–the “War on Christmas” is old hat.

That dreadful bit of glurge you chose to parody is hardly being shoved in anybody’s face. Your answer would work fine as a reply (Reply To All) if somebody spams you with tales of salespeople being forced to say “Happy Holidays.” But the Christian Right–not just “Christians”–has moved on.

The Christian Right has bigger worries now; Barack Hussein Obama will soon be sworn in as President. Back when Their Boy was in The White House acting all Fake Christian, everything was fine in their little world. Now, they’re worried! (Hey, since you hate Muslims, maybe you can sympathize.)

Besides, the direct spiritual ancestors of the Christian Right waged the original War Against Christmas. Those were the bluenosed Puritans who banned the Holiday because it was Papist, with suspicious Pagan roots. Of course, they were right about those roots–but their ban has been overruled by the people.

Get with the program!

17

You could make the line a little less lame by saying:

Christians believe that this time of the year
Marks the birth of their Saviour dear

Sorry, “dear” needs to stay to rhyme with “year”.

Hey, you were expecting Tennyson? I knocked it off in an hour on my computer:D

But feel free to use it. I claim NO copyright on it. Go nuts.

18

You can just say: the happy atheist wrote it. Actually, it is also circulating under my real name, but I claim NO copyright. Go nuts.

19

Oh, I believe in the buildings all right, I just don’t believe that even if God does exist that any church has it right. Some seem honest enough to admit this and many others do not.

20

Obama is not a Muslim and I do not hate Muslims. I have attacked ISLAM, which is the Naziism of religions, and which rightly should be feared and despised by anyone who cares about freedom and the rights of the individual as we understand them in the west. Individual Muslims my be nice people. I know several. But as I have constantly pointed out in past threads, it is impossible that every single one of the 5 million members of the Nazi party were evil people. But that does not change my view of Naziism.