E
EDB
Guest
Penny Plain:
Christmas is a federal holiday for EVERYONE. What’s wrong with saying “Merry Christmas”.
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B
Bob_Baran
Guest
Once you become Politically Correct, you simultaneously become Spiritually Incorrect!
S
S.J
Guest
Penny Plain:
Why do you think so many were so troubled by GWB winning a second term?
The moral reletavists look at Christianity (and to a lesser extent, other religions) as the stumbling block to instituting there agenda.
So you deny that there is an attack on Christianity and Christian values in our society?
Why do you think so many were so troubled by GWB winning a second term?
The moral reletavists look at Christianity (and to a lesser extent, other religions) as the stumbling block to instituting there agenda.
T
Tantum_ergo
Guest
Yes, but as a Catholic I don’t celebrate “Happy Holidays”, either. I celebrate Christmas.
When did it become obnoxious to state one’s own belief? When did stating one’s own belief turn into dissing somebody else’s belief?
Why, as a Christian, can’t I say “Merry Christmas”? I don’t mind if people respond to it with their own “Merry Christmas”, or if they say, “Happy Hanukkah”, “Blessed Solstice”, “Happy Holidays” or even “Bah Humbug” if that expresses their belief.
By my stating my own belief, I am not attempting to deny anybody else his or her different belief.
But by making some sort of generic, catch-all phrase that somehow doesn’t offend somebody else–and you can bet that somewhere there is somebody just furious about “Happy Holidays” anyway–isn’t the inclusive gesture you might think. It’s just another dilution of a legitimate religious expression into a secular “comfort zone”. It’s denying our right to freedom of worship by attempting to “guilt” us into thinking that saying “Merry Christmas” marginalizes anyone who isn’t Christian.
P
Penny_Plain
Guest
S.J.:
S.J., I think gettting exercised about the use of the term “happy holidays” is pure silliness. You don’t. That doesn’t mean I’m attacking your values; it just means that I disagree with them and choose to order my life along different priorities.
Likewise, I think there are many Americans who disagree with one or more Christian values. Probably many Christians do. That doesn’t mean they’re attacking Christianity or Christian values; that just means they disagree with some aspect of them.
Disagreement is not attack.
Yes. I think that most Americans fall into the category of “live and let live.” I also think that too many people (both liberals and conservatives) are far to eager to jump on any disagreement with their positions as an attack on their values.
S.J., I think gettting exercised about the use of the term “happy holidays” is pure silliness. You don’t. That doesn’t mean I’m attacking your values; it just means that I disagree with them and choose to order my life along different priorities.
Likewise, I think there are many Americans who disagree with one or more Christian values. Probably many Christians do. That doesn’t mean they’re attacking Christianity or Christian values; that just means they disagree with some aspect of them.
Disagreement is not attack.
P
Penny_Plain
Guest
Tantum ergo:
Did you have a good Ramadan, TE?
S
S.J
Guest
Penny Plain:
Many liberal elites want to eradicate religious morality from public discourse so that their agenda (gay marriage, euthenasia, etc.) will win the day.
Alas, we are experiencing the limitations of web board posting. I am not nearly as concerned with the actual language used this time of the year as I am with the drift toward secularization, moral relativism, etc.
Many liberal elites want to eradicate religious morality from public discourse so that their agenda (gay marriage, euthenasia, etc.) will win the day.
P
Penny_Plain
Guest
S.J.:
And the pro-euthanasia people are certainly out in force, no question. Why, I remember Kerry’s speech calling for the execution of everyone over sixty-eight to solve the looming Social Security crisis like it was yesterday.
Actually, this is a great example of what I’m talking about. Christians have perceived the attempt of gays to marry as a full-scale attack on religious morality. I don’t see it, myself. Whether two men marry or not will have absolutely no impact on my right to worship as I choose and live as I choose. Gay marriage is not an attack on religious morality; it’s the effort of a small percentage of the population to live differently.
But we have gotten a long way from “happy holidays.”
Ah, yes. You can tell how many “liberal elites” there are by the resounding defeat of the gay marriage amendments in exactly zero states.
And the pro-euthanasia people are certainly out in force, no question. Why, I remember Kerry’s speech calling for the execution of everyone over sixty-eight to solve the looming Social Security crisis like it was yesterday.
Actually, this is a great example of what I’m talking about. Christians have perceived the attempt of gays to marry as a full-scale attack on religious morality. I don’t see it, myself. Whether two men marry or not will have absolutely no impact on my right to worship as I choose and live as I choose. Gay marriage is not an attack on religious morality; it’s the effort of a small percentage of the population to live differently.
But we have gotten a long way from “happy holidays.”
C
chicago
Guest
Tantum ergo:
With this in mind, I don’t think that there is anything inherantly wrong or problematic with someone of Christian faith wishing a “Merry Christmas!” to others, even if they are not of that faith. Afterall, a Christian does want them to experience the joy of Christ. Likewise, I take no offense if a Jew wishes me a Happy Hannukkah. For, even though I am not Jewish, I recognize that he is offering a blessing, and wants me to share in the joy which he has of God’s great gift to his people.
But I also don’t have a problem with people wishing “Happy Holidays”. For it is merely a positive, though generic, greeting expressing something of the same sentiment, namely “I wish for you to experience something of the joy of this blessed time”. Especially if one is offering a greeting within the context of not knowing how any particular person might react or what their own background of faith is, this can be a legitimate way to get around what could be a sticky situation when you are greeting so many people who you don’t really know well if at all.
Yes, I suppose that something can be said about doing so somehow watering down a greater fullness of the season. However, I don’t think that it necessarily leads to us having to hide under a rock or undermining our faith in Christ and expression of it.
Can it get taken overboard at times to the extreme that kids can’t even sing a traditional Christmas carol at a school or something? Sure. But this is a larger matter that gets at a greater problem of the silly season in which we live. We ought to be watchful and fight for reasonable expressins of faith and culture, but shouldn’t get too hyper about supposed all out attacks to eradicate faith, either. Yes, there are secularists who want to insist that all religion must be privitized (hey, if this were any other endeavor, then, they would in some ideological sense make good conservatives!) and that public expressions are out of place. But this doesn’t mean that there might not be appropriate accomodations, nonethless.
In recent decades many people had kiniption fits over using “X” rather than spelling out “Christ”. “Don’t take Christ out of Christmas” was the slogan. They failed to realize that the X was an ancient symbol for “Christ” and did not do what they thought, but actually brought about a greater understanding of the fuller reality. Similarly, expanding a greeting to “Happy Holidays” may also enable all people to ultimately recognize what a blessed time it is… and why.
I don’t see why it must be either/or. I agree that someone shouldn’t have to sacrifice their own faith’s greeting. We should expect a Christian to speak with a Christian perspective, a Jew with a Jewish perspective, a Hindu with a Hindi perspective. That’s fine and appropriate.
With this in mind, I don’t think that there is anything inherantly wrong or problematic with someone of Christian faith wishing a “Merry Christmas!” to others, even if they are not of that faith. Afterall, a Christian does want them to experience the joy of Christ. Likewise, I take no offense if a Jew wishes me a Happy Hannukkah. For, even though I am not Jewish, I recognize that he is offering a blessing, and wants me to share in the joy which he has of God’s great gift to his people.
But I also don’t have a problem with people wishing “Happy Holidays”. For it is merely a positive, though generic, greeting expressing something of the same sentiment, namely “I wish for you to experience something of the joy of this blessed time”. Especially if one is offering a greeting within the context of not knowing how any particular person might react or what their own background of faith is, this can be a legitimate way to get around what could be a sticky situation when you are greeting so many people who you don’t really know well if at all.
Yes, I suppose that something can be said about doing so somehow watering down a greater fullness of the season. However, I don’t think that it necessarily leads to us having to hide under a rock or undermining our faith in Christ and expression of it.
Can it get taken overboard at times to the extreme that kids can’t even sing a traditional Christmas carol at a school or something? Sure. But this is a larger matter that gets at a greater problem of the silly season in which we live. We ought to be watchful and fight for reasonable expressins of faith and culture, but shouldn’t get too hyper about supposed all out attacks to eradicate faith, either. Yes, there are secularists who want to insist that all religion must be privitized (hey, if this were any other endeavor, then, they would in some ideological sense make good conservatives!) and that public expressions are out of place. But this doesn’t mean that there might not be appropriate accomodations, nonethless.
In recent decades many people had kiniption fits over using “X” rather than spelling out “Christ”. “Don’t take Christ out of Christmas” was the slogan. They failed to realize that the X was an ancient symbol for “Christ” and did not do what they thought, but actually brought about a greater understanding of the fuller reality. Similarly, expanding a greeting to “Happy Holidays” may also enable all people to ultimately recognize what a blessed time it is… and why.
C
chicago
Guest
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C
chicago
Guest
Actually, a good argument could be made that Catholic European societies of centuries past had a better idea in celebrating feasts quite liberally and with regularity. This offerred a more well paced situation whereby festival and rest periods were to provide for a healthy human heartbeat, so to speak.
Sadly, we live in a workaholic society which values “productivity” to an extreme (and bases a person’s value largely upon it), such that we have lost a proper sense of the dignity of man’s work as well as the need to sanctify time.
For not only has Sunday been watered down (and, indeed, become a very busy day where great amounts of work are done), but we fail to properly commemorate even our secular holidays. Again, they are often days which people laregly ignore in favor of doing more work. And even when they are acknowledged, it is too often not in a spirit of genuine commemoration and associated festivity or rest, but simply time for a bar-b-que or whatever.
How far we have fallen. Indeed, perhaps more holidays is precisely what the doctor ordered.
M
Michael_C
Guest
Penny Plain:
The name of the federal Holiday that we are all off from work for is “Chrsitmas”. I notice in the Happy holiday cards “happy new year” is specifically mentioned. How come we don’t worry about offending those who don’t celebrate that?
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Faustina
Guest
Perhaps, but Maryland was orginally a Catholic colony.
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Penny_Plain
Guest
Michael C:
Well, merry “Chrsitmas” then.
M
Michael_C
Guest
Penny Plain:
Merry Christmas! Peace and Good will.
F
Faustina
Guest
Tantum ergo:
Well said!!!
P
Penny_Plain
Guest
Michael C:
Merry Christmas to you, too, with peace (but not peace all the time because that would be boring) and enough good will so we can make it through the day but not so much that we can’t get charged up about giving it good and hard to somebody who has it coming every once in a while.
So yes, peace and good will, but with footnotes.
Well, if you’re going to be that way about it…
Merry Christmas to you, too, with peace (but not peace all the time because that would be boring) and enough good will so we can make it through the day but not so much that we can’t get charged up about giving it good and hard to somebody who has it coming every once in a while.
So yes, peace and good will, but with footnotes.
K
katherine2
Guest
I guess we are all different. When with another person, I presume its not all about ME. Therefore, my greeting is not about ME – ‘merry Christmas’. Yes I am merry about Christmas. But I want to wish the other person happiness in their celebration rather than have my meriment the center of attention.
So I wish my Jewish friends a Happy Chanukkah, my secular friends a Happy New Year, most of my Christian friends a Merry Christmas and my Julian calendar friends a very early merry Christmas.
B
bapcathluth
Guest
As usual, Katherine, you are a voice of reason on these boards. If you definitely know that somebody is Jewish or Muslim, why would you purposely wish that person a Merry Christmas? It makes no sense since they don’t celebrate the holiday, or believe in Christ for that matter. I don’t think an “in your face” Merry Christmas is going to give these non-Christians the “peace of Christ” as the earlier poster mentioned.
On the other hand, if you don’t know somebody and wish them a Merry Christmas, then I don’t think that would be a problem since it is the Christmas season and you are just trying to be friendly.
I say a mixture of Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays. If I know for sure that somebody isn’t Christian than I would wish him well for his holiday.
If somebody says “Happy Holidays” to me, I am not going to feel that my Christianity is under attack. They are just trying to be friendly.
C
chicago
Guest
I usually wish people of other faiths a greeting which is appropriate to their own holiday. So to Jewish persons I will say “Happy Hannukkah” this time of year.
However, I do have one Jewish friend who jokes about how they have had the “Synogogue Christmas Party” on Dec. 24 in years when their holiday coinides that closely with our own. I once asked him if they break out the Isiah scolls at midnight, then exclaim, “He’s here!” He assured me that the celebration is very much… not like that.
However, I do have one Jewish friend who jokes about how they have had the “Synogogue Christmas Party” on Dec. 24 in years when their holiday coinides that closely with our own. I once asked him if they break out the Isiah scolls at midnight, then exclaim, “He’s here!” He assured me that the celebration is very much… not like that.
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