Something to Ponder on the Day Before Christmas Eve

Wow. That’s some puerile logic there.

While there possibly are people who are actually offended by a “Judeo/Christian celebration”, the vast majority are not offended by the celebration itself, but by the manner in which the celebration is executed (see the idiotic War!On!Christmas! for details—Hurry! Offer expires soon!).

Being offended by the manner of execution of a celebration is quite different from “think[ing] of women as less than equals” or being offended simply by black people.

I would say calling someone a bigot or a homophobe for simply disliking their parade would be wrong. Which brings us back to the poorly formed argument above—is the offense experienced caused by the mere existence of blacks and homophobes? It’s implied as such by the author by equating offense of blacks and homosexuals to not thinking of women as equals.

The glaring difference is that those who are annoyed and offended by the Judeo/Christian celebration do not shun those committing the offense.

That doesn’t make it right, nor does it make his argument any more logical.

If that was his point, he’s a poor writer. That point is non-existent anyway, as I’ve been called anti-Christian enough to consider it moot.

…doesn’t make it right from either side.

?

Oooh.. I knew them damned evil “libs” was responsible for this! Those minority-loving “dems” and “libs” are always pissing on Christians. I’ll bet the 40+ percent of American voters who are registered Democrats all sit at home burning Bibles on December 25.

I’ll never understand how the 85% majority of Americans who identify themselves as Christians can possibly feel so oppressed by the mere 15% of us who don’t. For Heaven’s sake, George H.W. Bush told the world in a press conference that atheists should not even be considered citizens of this nation! And this man was elected President only a year later.

FWIW, I personally have no problems with public displays of Christmas, or Chanukkah, or whatever. It’s government advocacy of religion that bugs me – regardless of which religion it is.

Liberals have an issue when the separation of church and state gets trampled (as with the pledge—Pat Robertson’s God is a fuck lot different than my wife’s God, which one is in the pledge?)

This argument is ludicrus: You’re not discriminating against a group of people simply because you don’t like their actions, whether some homosexual calls you a bigot because you don’t like his flambouyant parade or some Christain thinks your oppressing him being you don’t like Christmas.

Not liking Christmas is not the same as not liking Christians.

But merely mentioning Christmas is not advocacy, nor is putting up a Christmas tree, as some fine ACLU folks would like us to believe.

I would agree with that, but only because of how secular Christmas is. If you are looking at Christmas as solely a religious holiday then, yes, celebrating it as a government would constitute state-sponsored religion.

First off, thank you for the linkage, Vinny.

Next up, the guy may not have been specific enough for some here, but you can only use so many words in letters to editors if you want them to be printed, so let’s try this (taken from my own experiences):

If I say that ‘Affirmative Action’ is a bad policy because it preferences one race over another, I’m called a racist.

If I say that gay marriage should be voted on by the populace of a state instead of being pushed through via the courts, when the issue breaks down to making a civil right out of something as abstract as ‘love’, I’m called a homophobe.

If I say that a 14 year old child should be made to tell her non-abusive parent/guardian who is medically responsible for her that she is pregnant and wants an abortion, even though I could care less what she does to her pregnancy when she turns 18, not only am I called a sexist for ‘wanting to control her reproductive rights’, I’m accused of treating her ‘like a child’ and of being a troglodyte.

Yet, if I say that someone is an idiot for taking a local city to court over a dead Douglas Fir with baubles and lights on it that stands in the large entryway of the city hall, I’m beating up on their First Amendment rights.

The first three points are all ‘Progressive’ or ‘Liberal’ talking points whose only reply to those who oppose them is to call that person a name that derides their character.

The fourth point is gaining traction among leftist groups whose members also subscribe to the first three. It has had trouble doing so because religion is hard to set off to the side of a person’s identity. But if you look at the organizations who push the Danbury Baptist Letter view of the first amendment, they also believe in the first three.

While I tend to think that the ‘War on Christmas’ is actually more of a guerilla action or an insurgency than a war, I think that it still deserves to be squashed due to its idiocy.

Wow. That’s some puerile logic there.

While there possibly are people who are actually offended by a “Judeo/Christian celebration”, the vast majority are not offended by the celebration itself, but by the manner in which the celebration is executed (see the idiotic War!On!Christmas! for details—Hurry! Offer expires soon!).

Being offended by the manner of execution of a celebration is quite different from “think[ing] of women as less than equals” or being offended simply by black people.

I would say calling someone a bigot or a homophobe for simply disliking their parade would be wrong. Which brings us back to the poorly formed argument above—is the offense experienced caused by the mere existence of blacks and homophobes? It’s implied as such by the author by equating offense of blacks and homosexuals to not thinking of women as equals.

The glaring difference is that those who are annoyed and offended by the Judeo/Christian celebration do not shun those committing the offense.

That doesn’t make it right, nor does it make his argument any more logical.

If that was his point, he’s a poor writer. That point is non-existent anyway, as I’ve been called anti-Christian enough to consider it moot.

…doesn’t make it right from either side.

I’ve been called anti-Christian.

If that were true, we’d have serious problems around our house.

I’ll never understand how the 85% majority of Americans who identify themselves as Christians can possibly feel so oppressed by the mere 15% of us who don’t.

Dude, think about how silly that sounds when you look at decisions that ban the damned pledge because it dares say “one nation under God,” and make that statement again.

And as for government “advocacy” of religion, I’m not in favor of that either. But merely mentioning Christmas is not advocacy, nor is putting up a Christmas tree, as some fine ACLU folks would like us to believe.

That is the problem.

It is liberals that have the issue. Sorry to rain on your parade. Most atheists are not right wing christian conservatives.

Bah, fuck. That’s what I get for using the damn laptop and not logging on as me. That last comment was mine. Feel free to credit it accordingly.

I would agree with that, but only because of how secular Christmas is.

Most reasonable people would.

Glad to see there’s still hope for you folks

Dude, think about how silly that sounds when you look at decisions that ban the damned pledge because it dares say “one nation under God,” and make that statement again.

Think how silly it is that the pledge was just fine without that whole “under God” nonsense in it until it was added in 1954. And after all of Dwight Eisenhower’s hard work, those damned evil “libs” go restoring the pledge to its original verbage. The pledge is a perfect — dare I say textbook — example of government endorsement of Christianity. So again I ask, how is the 85% Christian majority in America being oppressed? Because a court finally recognized that this clearly violates the first amendment? Who’s oppressing whom?

And as for government “advocacy” of religion, I’m not in favor of that either. But merely mentioning Christmas is not advocacy, nor is putting up a Christmas tree, as some fine ACLU folks would like us to believe.

That is the problem.

It is liberals that have the issue. Sorry to rain on your parade. Most atheists are not right wing christian conservatives.

When did the word “conservative” in this country become synonomous with “Christian”? And when did Christianity become the exclusive domain of Republicans? Are you trying to tell me that liberals are, by definition, not Christian? I think there are many millions of them who might take issue with that.

Anyway, this whole “War on Christmas” nonsense is just that. There is no war on Christmas. Seriously…

There is no war on Christmas.

There will always be people who act like assholes when faced with any display of religion (as a Buddhist, I can give many examples of Buddhist monks being harrassed by intolerant Christians when they try to start monasteries in this country). But let’s be realistic – there is no liberal cabal trying to eradicate Christmas. Every year the lunatic fringe of Christianity foams at the mouth about this supposed war on Christmas, yet every year — to paraphrase Dr. Seuss — it comes. Somehow or other it comes just the same.