Merry Christmas - happy holidays?

[Mark TKO]

OK so I'm reading this morning about Trump and this merry Christmas carry on.

I've obviously missed something or it's just stateside but when the fuck did saying merry Christmas become offensive.

This is so fucked up

[Gandalf]

The way things are going language will be banned and having an opinion in the mind will be a crime within about 20 years. Christmas is a daft concept considering it is just extremist consumerism these days, but not calling it Christmas because it might be offensive is just as daft. Personally I go around sending cards to people with pictures of snowmen on the front and the message "Delightful extremist consumerism salutations to you all!" duly inscribed. It makes me feel jolly inside.

[El Kabong]

I've stated this previously but .....


When I say "Merry Christmas" to someone even if they are not of the Christian faith all I am doing is wishing them the best of hope, love, friendship, etc that my faith has to offer. So if someone told me "Happy Chanukah" I would accept it that they were doing the same but from the Jewish faith.


People just search out reasons to be offended...it's childish, look at college campuses in America today......just a bunch of bed wetters

[El Kabong]

[Spicoli]

Merry Christmas for me and I'm as non religious as they come. It's more so how I was raised and frankly fond family memories. Many of the bigger stores are pretty much told to keep it "Happy holidays" as to not offend or exclude anyone but I make it a point to drop Merry Christmas at every dealing or transaction. If someone tells me Happy Hanukkah or what have you I'm not offended in the least. It's what they know, like and follow so all the power to them.

[Master]

This is just right wing propaganda and complete nonsence to divide people against non-Christians.

Do not fall for it.

[El Kabong]

This is just right wing propaganda and complete nonsence to divide people against non-Christians.

Do not fall for it.

There are little things that DO get blown well out of proportion like Starbucks and their red cups rather than Christmas cups....big whoop, whatever


But there are things that happen that do make you wonder, for example ... UNC-Chapel Hill library drops Christmas trees :: WRAL.com

.....and then there are countless efforts to remove nativity scenes.

Sometimes there are on government land which hey, that's fine, nobody is telling you that a Menorah can't go up or a Kinara (basically a Kwanzaa Menorah) or something to do with Eid or what have you....it's always about taking down it's never about, "I'd like space to also put this here" .....and then of course you get asshat trolls who want to put up Satanic shrines or what have you and they only do it to try to get the goat of the Christians and piss them off....and this is part of the reason I like keeping my faith to myself...it's between me and God and that is it with everything else I just try to be a good person and be nice to others.

[Britkid]

Most people in the world are not Christians. They dominate political discourse, so it is quite funny winding them up about their insecurities, particularly because it will not be me who pays the price, but sadly some poor villagers in Syria or Iraq...

[El Kabong]

Most people in the world are not Christians. They dominate political discourse, so it is quite funny winding them up about their insecurities, particularly because it will not be me who pays the price, but sadly some poor villagers in Syria or Iraq...

1. True
2. False, there are PLENTY of people of different religious affiliations that are involved in politics and a growing number of atheists and agnostics
3. I wonder if it would be as funny if you were talking about winding up someone of a different faith
4. Like there are not Christians in those places and also why would a "War on Christmas" have ANYTHING to do with Iraq or Syria?

[Britkid]

Most people in the world are not Christians. They dominate political discourse, so it is quite funny winding them up about their insecurities, particularly because it will not be me who pays the price, but sadly some poor villagers in Syria or Iraq...

1. True
2. False, there are PLENTY of people of different religious affiliations that are involved in politics and a growing number of atheists and agnostics
3. I wonder if it would be as funny if you were talking about winding up someone of a different faith
4. Like there are not Christians in those places and also why would a "War on Christmas" have ANYTHING to do with Iraq or Syria?

1. We agree

2. You cannot be President of the USA without being a 'active' Christian; my Country (the UK) also has an 'active' Christian leader. who recently destroyed in an election his two atheist rivals. There is no place for an atheist in politics in the UK.

3. Yes I wind up all members of all faiths. But at the same time I try to envision a line that I try not to cross, but I admit I probably do every now and again. It is one thing to say 'Happy Holidays!' to my Christian friend who gets really annoyed by such a comment, but it is quite another to say burn their bible.

4. Sorry; but I still see red on the subject despite it being a decade since my then Prime Minister Tony Blair admitted to praying with your then President Bush (Junior), whilst deciding what to do about Iraq in 2002/03. Such comments really make me understand why so many Muslims in Iraq and sadly now Syria think the bombings in their Countries are a 'Modern Crusade'.

[El Kabong]

Most people in the world are not Christians. They dominate political discourse, so it is quite funny winding them up about their insecurities, particularly because it will not be me who pays the price, but sadly some poor villagers in Syria or Iraq...

1. True
2. False, there are PLENTY of people of different religious affiliations that are involved in politics and a growing number of atheists and agnostics
3. I wonder if it would be as funny if you were talking about winding up someone of a different faith
4. Like there are not Christians in those places and also why would a "War on Christmas" have ANYTHING to do with Iraq or Syria?

1. We agree

2. You cannot be President of the USA without being a 'active' Christian; my Country (the UK) also has an 'active' Christian leader. who recently destroyed in an election his two atheist rivals. There is no place for an atheist in politics in the UK.

3. Yes I wind up all members of all faiths. But at the same time I try to envision a line that I try not to cross, but I admit I probably do every now and again. It is one thing to say 'Happy Holidays!' to my Christian friend who gets really annoyed by such a comment, but it is quite another to say burn their bible.

4. Sorry; but I still see red on the subject despite it being a decade since my then Prime Minister Tony Blair admitted to praying with your then President Bush (Junior), whilst deciding what to do about Iraq in 2002/03. Such comments really make me understand why so many Muslims in Iraq and sadly now Syria think the bombings in their Countries are a 'Modern Crusade'.

1. Good, always happy to find common ground

2. Well all have been Christian but there are several different kinds of Christian no? Hoover & Nixon were Quaker, Andrew Johnson and Abe Lincoln weren't Bible beaters by any stretch of the imagination and were thought to be nonreligious. Grant and Hayes were non-denominational. JFK was Catholic. A couple Presidents were Unitarian, a couple Episcopal, a few Presbyterian, a few Congregationalists, a few Dutch Reformed.

3. Good for you that you know there is a line not to cross. It's a showing of respect and that's admirable.


4. Iraq was getting invaded and it's not because they were brown people, not because they're Muslim people, not because of 9/11 or weapons of mass destruction....they may have been floated up as the reasons but there was something else....oil....maybe though can't say we really rolled around in low cost gas here right after the invasion. Perception is reality though so I guess if people are dumb enough to believe it's a crusade then that is their reality....never been that in my eyes. I just want our soldiers to do their jobs, win, and come home safely.

[Mark TKO]

[Britkid]

4. Iraq was getting invaded and it's not because they were brown people, not because they're Muslim people, not because of 9/11 or weapons of mass destruction....they may have been floated up as the reasons but there was something else....oil....maybe though can't say we really rolled around in low cost gas here right after the invasion. Perception is reality though so I guess if people are dumb enough to believe it's a crusade then that is their reality....never been that in my eyes. I just want our soldiers to do their jobs, win, and come home safely.

I agree it is mainly about oil. But seeing your wedding bombed and family members killed, or seeing the local hospital bombed, with 26 dead; is not going to change some people's mind that this is a Modern Crusade, and it is insult to suggest they are dumb.

The incidents I mention I am almost certain were terrible accidents, but that is small comfort if you are burying your family because of the bombings. And Leaders of Countries praying for guidance on whether or not to attack, and ultimately defying the UN does not help matters either.

The UK has done some terrible things in the past, but you have thought, as at the time Suez was less fifty years previous, that they would not make the same heinous mistake. Sadly though they did, led by the Country that rightly tore us a new arse hole for behaving like we did in Egypt.

[El Kabong]

I don't think it was about oil, I said that's a reason people think we went to war, but I believe it's over something different.

I mean shit the US gets the majority of it's oil from Canada and Mexico....we'd invade one of them if we "really wanted oil"

[Britkid]

I don't think it was about oil, I said that's a reason people think we went to war, but I believe it's over something different.

I mean shit the US gets the majority of it's oil from Canada and Mexico....we'd invade one of them if we "really wanted oil"

What is your take then? Hegemony (a warning to China)? A 'Crusade'? Something else?