I hope everyone has a festive Alban Arthuan, while we’re on the subject.
Those who have birthdays around this time of year know what the Three Wise Men said to Jesus: “Now, this is both for your birthday and Christmas.”
“Excuse me, do you have Jewish New Year cards?”
“Oh, I’m sorry, we don’t get our New Year cards until December, but we’ll have Jewish Christmas cards then too!”
Is terrorism something you often talk about with anyone, that you might expect such a comment?
Of course, by circulating the OP’s poem, you look like you’re part of the (true or not) suppression of Christmas.
When the subject comes up, I always say “I’m an atheist. I do not believe in any supreme being.”
The person inevitably asks “Well, how did we all get here?”
I say “I don’t know. And you don’t either.”
That ends the discussion. You may believe in a way that we all got here, but you do not know.
And which, of course, is not what SA claimed. What I claimed is that there is no codified specificity outlining conditions in which warfare may be conducted by Christians, especially against non-believers.
And Valteron’s response is about as prescient as anything I would come with, as follows here in case you missed it:
*I will probably curse myself for having hijacked my own thread, which has nothing to do with Islam, but I must point out that the fact that the Bible contains such passages really does not equate to a moral equivalency between Islam and the west in the 21st Century. How many Christian-majority nations do you know who apply such rules in their laws? Now look at Muslim nations. Just a small example: ALL of the nations who provide the death penalty for homosexuality, and all of those who provide 11 years to life imprisonment (except for India which has a huge Muslim population, BTW) are Muslim countries. Many Muslim countries apply the death penalty or other severe punishments for the “crime” of rejecting Islam.
There is a world of difference between the practices of the west and Islam. The fact that the Bible contains a few dusty passages that are nothing more than embarassing fossils for even the most conservative believers hardly compares with 17 young Muslims hijacking planes in the 21st century and flying them into the WTC because they were raised to live and breathe every word of the Koran and believe they are going to Paradise while tjhe “infidels” in the aircraft and buildings will go the eternal torment for not believing in Allah. *
And for the record, the Bible is not my book. I believe in God but other than that am pretty much areligious. I see the hand of man much more at work in most religions than I do the hand of God. Still, to the degree that I am religious I would tend toward Christianity.
My gripe is with those who are trying to remove Christianity and its images, particularly Christmas-related ones, from public view, and who claim that they are somehow having Christianity "imposed’ upon them by having God on money, displays of Christian images at Christmastime, and having to hear wishes of Merry Christmas when they aren’t Christians.
Then there is the whole other erroneous contention, eventually okayed by the Supreme Court, IIRC, that the Constitution prohibits public display of religious symbols and/or imagery in a publicly paid for or government building or property, which is utter hogwash. The Constitution clearly prohibited the government from establishing a church-state as had previously existed in Europe, and activist judges here perverted that intent into the contention that any government display (or government allowed display) of religious imagery constituted establishment.
This was picked up by liberals, mostly because religious values are contrary to their own (que liberal Christian rebuttal here, but remember the exception doesn’t prove the rule), and so began the effort to ban Christmas images from public view if at all possible, even those not on government property.
Thus began the intimidation of store owners to be “all-inclusive”, to make “Happy Hollidays” the PC version of Merry Christmas, and to create the current environment where people catch themselves in mid-sentence to change Merry Christmas to Happy Hollidays for fear of looking un-PC. (How political correctness has gained such widespread acceptance is an utter mystery to me; I guess people are more afraid of being called names than they are of looking stupid.)
And for the record also, I had no problem with Happy Hollidays in the sixties, seventies, etc. It was only when it became the required greeting by the PC crowd that I began to have a problem with it.
In short, I don’t believe for a second that the primary motivation for Happy Hollidays is inclusiveness, though no doubt there are those who have been deluded into believing it, rather it’s an attempt to marginalize Christianity and its influence upon the populace by those who object to it.
Probably not in casual conversation. But I would have thought, if I were a Muslim aware of worldwide Muslim terrorism and visiting a country that had been attacked by Muslim extremists, that I would take some sort of pains to let my hosts know that the terrorists’ views were not those of my own, nor of Islam in the main, and that I did not approve of them.
I would also think that public demonstrations of anger and disapproval over the perverted way in which their religion was being promoted would be expected. But the Muslim community in main has been largely silent. This creates the impression that even though the individual Muslim may not favor the terrorists’ actions, they more or less understand where it’s coming from and don’t want to appear disloyal to their religion by voicing opposition to it.
That, or they’re afraid they themselves will be killed for speaking out, which of course would be yet another example of how widespread the tactic of fear and killing is in the world of Islam.
The Winter issue of my company’s magazine has “Happy Holiday” on the cover. :rolleyes: Yes, I’m absolutely sick of the whining.
Side note; Almost 20 years ago my daughters and I played the Christmas party for the University of Maine for three years in a row. When we arrived for the last one the lady organizer who was my contact requested I not sing any songs about Jesus and stick to songs about Santa and reindeer and stuff. I was pretty surprised. I asked her if she had had complaints and she said yes. Although not a church goer at the time I still respected the story of Christ and the overall message of love, peace on earth, etc. At the time I wondered why people would come to the “Christmas Party” knowing what the Holiday was about and object to hearing songs about Jesus. Nobody was preaching or asking them to convert. I think the last minute request caught me off guard as well. If they called it the Holiday gathering and requested that up front no problem, but why be offended at a song or three about Christ when you attend the** Christmas** party?
or
According to Christians, this time of year
IS all about Jesus and not 8 reindeer.
Which one? Maybe they should have included a subtitle: “Take your pick.”
Here’s what pisses me off about the whole fuckin’ thing: For lo, these many decades I’ve used the “Happy Holidays” statement. It’s very handy. It covers Christmas, New Year’s Day and any other sort of thing that falls at this time of year in one simple, blanket statement.
Now when I say “Happy Holidays” I get people looking at me like I’m trying to express some kind of political/religious opinion when in fact all I want to say is, wait for it…Happy Holidays!
I’m guessing they meant Christmas; the front featured clipart of red and green ornaments.
Well, I guess it was bound to happen eventually. I was corrected to tonight. I had the opportunity to work the registers tonight, so I got to be stuck in one spot. I wished everyone who left my counter “happy holidays.” Most people thanked me and said something to the effect of “you too!”
One woman very pointedly stopped on her way toward the door, turned around and responded with “Merry Christmas.” Of course, I thanked her, but inside I was suffering a mad case of rolleyes. So, what I suppose. If she felt vindicated, it’s no skin off my nose. At least she wasn’t all huffy and nasty about it.
I had a few people do that to me in my cashier days too. I even had one woman call me on why I didn’t say Merry Christmas. I just told her, because I used “Happy Holidays” to cover the many holidays that were coming up, because most likely I wouldn’t see the same people before the next holiday. I believe she just said, “Oh”, and walked away.
I think it’s things like this that end up giving the wrong impression. And now I believe the same person that started that thread has begun another one in the pit. < sigh >
I would be, except I haven’t heard anyone doing it.
Yep, seven gifts to be exact. One for each day of Kwanzaa.
Eh, I haven’t really heard any of it, but I did notice that the majority of stores I’d been shopping at haven’t said the word “Christmas” and figured such whining would ensue. It’s nothing new; I’ve been hearing my family complain about “X-ing the Christ out of Christmas” for decades.
Honestly, the only thing that bothers me personally about all this is that I think in the future it may extend to less time off from work for me. The trend seems to be going in the direction of getting real about the separation of religion from public affairs, as it should be, but I’m selfishly worried that the work holidays my employer calls “Christmas Eve”, “Christmas Day” and “Day After Christmas” will eventually be eliminated or at the very least trimmed to one day.
Awesome poem, though. If anyone sends me the “Merry Christmas” one, I’ll be sure to reply with yours. 
My grandpa opened his mail last night and must of gotten a “holiday” card. I hear him howling about how Christmas is “just a holiday” now. I was confused; I thought it was always a holiday and said so. He started whining about the “Happy Holidays” thing and I said I was tired of hearing about it. He thought I meant I was tired of hearing “happy holidays”. I told him I was tired of hearing the whining (he does it every year, and the “taking Christ out of Christmas” bit too).
He asked what other “holidays” there were, if not Christmas? I listed off Yule, Hanukah, Kwanzaa, Eid, sometimes Ramadan, New Year, Epiphany. And that Diwali is a bit early for Christmas time, but could be included if it was said nearer to Thanksgiving. He had known about Hanukah, but was completely ignorant that there are other winter holidays, many of which include gift-giving. Hopefully I won’t have to hear this again next year.
So yes, some people still haven’t let it go.
I never ever hear Christians whining about Happy Holidays, but I am sick to death of hearing atheists whine about Christians whining about Happy Holidays. ;p