Being without television, I'm spared the rambles of Fox News (especially since I need to catch up on the Daily Show lampooning them), but I'm sure they've been whining about the fictitious "War on Christmas" while I haven't been looking. It's their attitude that got me out of saying "Merry Christmas."When a normal person says "Merry Christmas" or "Happy Holidays," they are expressing a friendly desire for you to enjoy the celebrations going on. It's a slightly more warm and fuzzy version of "have a nice day." I'm perfectly happy with that, and both expressions work. "Happy Holidays" is a less specific version intended to avoid offending those who celebrate something else. I was quite happy with the arrangement, as were many others.
Then the fundies had to come along and overreact to some stores favoring "Happy Holidays." Because the stores chose to self-censor to minimize offense, the fundies weren't happy. The fundies want everyone to say "Merry Christmas" the way one would shout a bigoted epithet. They want the stores to proclaim that Christians get special treatment. To pretend this simple act is a form of persecution, they choose to lie: They wail as they claim that it's now illegal to say "Merry Christmas" or some such nonsense. It's the same old sad story with prayer and bibles in school: Because the government must exercise self-censorship by law, they lie and claim that now their children are unable to pray or read the bible on their own initiative.
Anyway, I got sick of the whole thing a while back, which is why I primarily refer to December 25th as Decemberween when I blog. With the various Fox Fundies spewing out the phrase "Merry Christmas" without a trace of compassion, I'd rather not facing even a tiny risk of coming off like that by saying it.
5 comments:
My family isn't Christian, but when I was growing up, we mostly used "Happy Holidays" to include New Year's, which is only a week later, after all, or when offering season's greetings to Jewish friends.
These days, I celebrate Yule, aka the Winter Solstice. "Happy Holidays" seems only polite when you don't know what religion the person being addressed is.
I see you've turned on word verification. When did that happen? Anyway, my word is "dismo," clearly the spell used to maintain dismal conditions at that haunted house.
Looks like your website is under attack from supernatural forces...
http://dyn.politico.com/members/forums/thread.cfm?catid=2&subcatid=7&threadid=3449994
you really need to add comment moderation to your blasphemy...
Default Atheism is DEAD...FOREVER!
Anyone care to tell us which tired old cliche Dave/Dennis is touting this week? I doubt he's got anything original that'd overturn the whole of logic.
Sad little fucker has no idea how to interact with people on the internet.
You could leave "on the Internet" out of that post and be just as (if not more) correct.
Dave, exactly how does Nostradamus "demolish" atheism? Even if Nostradamus wasn't a hack poet with a cult-like following of idiot drones and the clinically insane, how would his existence "demolish" the lack of belief in gods? Even if Nostradamus did have magical powers to see the future, that says absolutely nothing about the existence of gods.
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