captaincaptain

It's the holiday season. As is tradition over the past 10 years or so (at least here in America), Fox News and other religious zealots such as the American Family Association come out with guns a blazin' with the supposed "War On Christmas". Every time a school leaves out religious songs at school recitals, a company say "Happy Holidays", instead of "Merry Christmas", or a city decides not to put up a Christmas tree these organizations make a big stink about it.
Do you think they have a legit argument? Personally, I've always seen things like Happy Holidays more of a way to cover all bases with different holidays at the end of the year, religious or secular i.e. Thanksgiving, New Year's, Chanukah, etc.. Also believe the government has no business sanctioning any religious holiday, so things like Christmas trees in city squares and stuff shouldn't be allowed. If it's done on private or commercial property that's another thing.

Here's some examples of buffoonery that I've mentioned.





This is a list the AFA comes out every year calling for the boycott of companies for supposedly having policies forbidding the use of "Merry Christmas" and for other reasons.

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RYM

Janszoon

I've never understood why these people take such issue with "happy holidays". Even in their narrow little world where everybody is a Christian, there are still two holidays one week apart from each other, what's wrong with a greeting that covers both?

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Time & Place

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captaincaptain

Nothing, in fact it's cost effective for most businesses for advertising/decorating purposes.

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RYM

Mykonos

If you ask me, these people are advocating forced religious worship. If that isn't violating human rights, I don't know what is. The simple fact that folks like Bill O'Reilly will never understand is that religion does not, and should not, have a direct influence on the way a country is run, and that when it does that country can quite easily be labelled a cesspit of ignorance and intolerance (hey Saudi).

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Janszoon

Exactly. Especially when the country in question explicitly calls for the separation of church and state in its constitution.

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A Night in the Life of the Invisible Man

Time & Place

25 Albums You Should Hear Before the Moon Crashes into the Earth and We All Die

last.fm

Goofle

Echo what other shave been saying.

In England you very rarely hear people say "Happy Holidays" anyway, you either get "Merry Christmas" or nothing. Nobody really cares about offending anyone (as if it would) it seems.

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captaincaptain

What gets me going is when someone claims we are a Christian nation. When was this proclamation made? A great part of living in the United States is you a free to practice/not practice any religion you want. If you want a Christian nation go to Costa Rica or Scandinavia. If you want a Muslim nation go to Jordan or Egypt. If you want a Jewish nation go to Israel. As individuals we need to respect that other people are not into the same stuff as you are, so respect that by not shoving one's beliefs down the gullet of another's.

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RYM

Bane of your existence

It's not the phrase "happy holidays" that people don't like. It's feeling like they're being pressured into saying it. People like Christmas, and things about Christmas, including its greeting. If people feel like that is being taken away from them, of course they're not going to like it.
There's been pressure to say Happy Holidays for decades now, and there's a staunch resistance to it obviously.

Calm

The funny thing is, while countries like those in Scandinavia, and even the UK, are technically Christian nations, they are becoming ever increasingly atheist. No country is really what it claims to be, and to the rest of the western world the US seems to be quite scarily Christian - as shown in politics, media etc. It's not in writing, per se, but it's culturally enforced.

As far as "Happy Holidays" goes, I know for a fact that I could not care less. People like to be riled up about something though - as getting riled up over anything actually important would require effort and justification - might as well be about whether you are judged slightly for saying "Merry Christmas".

Happy Christmas Holidays!

SIRIUSB

The Nazarene's birthday according to most scholars is not 12/25, furthermore the concept behind this birth date is borrowed from older religions.

That said; Happy Winter Solstice, Saturnalia, Sol Invictus, and Yule