I happen to do a lot of traveling, and it never ceases to amaze me how thoroughly Christmas, in its purely secular version, has permeated humanity.

I was in Guanzhou, China, yesterday. Not a particularly westernized place, particularly with regard to Hong Kong or Shanghai.

Christmas decorations just about everywhere (in a large pedestrian shopping area anyway).

Japan -- same.

I'm in Almaty, Kazakhstan today. Not quite so prevalent, but obvious nonetheless.

I'll bet most of these people couldn't tell you the first thing about Christ, and certainly not the second or third.

For non-christians, christmas is nothing more than what Mithras was, except Mithras was a week long. I think it's probably a good idea that, once a year, most of the world takes a day off to spend with family and friends and thanks them for what they add to one's life. What I'm against is the asserted ownership of an entire month by a single religion, particularly when Jews have Hannukah (and let's be honest, Christians owe tons to the celebration of Hannukah, b/c without that 'miracle', Christianity would not, in fact, exist.)

As per the 'war' on christmas, it once again must be asked 'how is winning defined?' When everyone recognizes that jesus is the reason for the season? Nobody is complaining about Christmas, and as the commenter above has pointed out, it is recognized just about everywhere. What Bill-O, Taranto (who I actually enjoy reading sometimes!) and plenty of other fundamentalists desire is the religionizing of a holiday celebrated centuries before the first christmas ever was. This isn't a war on christmas, per se. It is a war to impose religious beliefs on others. Plain and simple.

What other reason could there be for arguing FOR municipalities putting up nativities?

And since when is saying, "Happy Holidays" considered ammunition against Christmas? To demand that people say "Merry Christmas" is absurd, and only further founds the above point, that is, there is no war on christmas but for that created to convince others that christmas is a christian-only holiday and must be observed as such.

If there is a "war" on any christmas, let Bill-O be to this as Niedermeyer was to Vietnam.

Merry Christmas, Mithras, Festivus, Hannukah, Boxing Day, and New Year.

When an especially Christian city in America puts up a nativity scene, it's just not in my heart to weep over the constitutional implications. Being rude and shriek-y* isn't the same thing as being alert to religious dogmatism.

There are fashions in everything, even holidays. But recent commenters sharp and blunt have noted that some traditions just cannot gel.

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* E.g., do you care whether or not Coulter thinks something is "synthetic"?

Nothing illustrates for me just how shallow some Christians are than their own behavior: they get ugly immediately whenever their "happy place" is disturbed.

Sheesh, the puritans were the first group in this country to declare a war on Christmas.

This has become a perennial story, like how lettuce gets expensive every winter when, surprise, there's a freeze.

Merry Christmas everyone!

I love the way Christian relish themselves every time they claimed to be persecuted. They always bring the same spiel:

"Lo and behold, We are the meek and the affable! We are persecuted by those who DARE to ask us to respect the law of the land when we are respecting the desire of GOD! Those heatens will surely burn in Hell for attacking such defenseless creatures like us."

I see it again and again; the Godly "Card Carriers" of Sky-Daddy whining two weeks a year for the so-called persecution of Christmas while spending the remanning fifty remembering us the wraith of god for anything non Heterosexual, Christian, Selfless or Obedient.

As far as my Atheist self is concerned, there's always a party around the winter's solstice. Right now, the one in vogue is the one with Santa-Claus and gifts. Calling it Christmas is just a bonus. I just don't want to be remembered that some crazy religion push the weird idea that someone is born today to save me from crimes that I dint committed and that he will die in April anyway.

Merry Christmas Everybody!

> I love the way Christian relish
> themselves every time they claimed
> to be persecuted.

Now come on, it's not just Christians. Consider some of the people on this blog: Every defining encounter of their lives (auto accidents, employment, romance) is treacherous gameplay where the only rational response is selfishness and solipsism.

Rich people deserve to get some value from their tax dollars, too. Christians deserve protection from assholes just as much as do Jews, Muslims, and atheists.

I didn't read the O'Reilly piece, because from my experience his strengths are loudness, interrupting and preaching to the choir. Perhaps if you had quoted it in all caps, that would have captured the spirit.

Your description at the end about how you handle Christmas describes my feelings perfectly though.

While we are airing grievances, I would like to point out the war metaphor has become one of my pet peeves. We supposedly have wars on crime, drugs, poverty, Christmas, "family values", whatever. How dumb do you have to be to think this is a useful way of thinking?

Now that I've gotten that off my chest, in the spirit of Dr. Nick, Merry Christmas everybody!

". . . and if they're happy because it's Jesus on the cross time (oh, wait, that's Easter) or whatever, good for them. . . ."

Thank you! You might be surprised at the number of complainers about this so-called "war" who have become befuddled when I responded that I thought the main Christian day of celebration was Easter - remember the Resurrection?

Hey Skipper, do you fly for Big Brown?

Yes, the Chinese and most of the rest of the world are not politically correct* as the US, England and western Europe. That's why they don't have their proverbial "panties in a wad" (how bout a ban on that one, Amy, for a little while - it is so overused it does not get me excited anymore) about Christmas as some of the "Happy Holidays" idiots do.

Merry Christmas!

* funny that the phrase came from the murderous Mao Zedong, and yet, now, the Chinese have much to teach us about freedom.

Oh, and they really like colored lights over there (Asia, I mean), so that may have something to do with all the Christmas decorations. Also, they really, really like girls in uniform over there, teal, peach colored, deep forest green curves that fit very tight around their as ... OK, going off on a tangent here. buh bye

> the Chinese have much to teach
> us about freedom

?

Well, Crid, you can pop a beer on the street there (at any age) and no one's going to give you s__t about it, as just a starter. Their version of the "TSA" aren't idiots with a mandate against common sense. Economically, they could teach us a whole lot about freedom - from onerous regulations on business, from jackpot lawsuits to support our 1,000,000 trial lawyers' BMW payments, etc.

If you want to get something done there, Crid, you just freakin do it! Granted, it is like the wild West in some places, but you don't see that much really bad happen due to the Chinese being pretty responsible and calm people.

If they could carry guns or keep them (not saying it will happen any time soon, if at all), then I'd say they are a freeer (sp?) people than we are, by a lot. We are going the wrong way, they are going the right way.

Our country has people worried about a 5 year-old boy molesting a 5 year-old girl in kindergarden by grabbing her butt. We have people telling restaurants how much fat they can cook the food in, telling us what light bulb we need to buy, and that we should worry that the sea may rise a foot or two by 2100. Meanwhile, the Chinese worry about how to make products, and they produce almost everything in the world. They are not dicking around, man.

At this rate, who will be left in 50 years, as a serious country? (That is rhetorical, Crid, I already know the answer.)

i love the persecution complex.

i particularly enjoyed when a born-again bible beater said she felt persecuted because people thought her beliefs were a little unfounded.

i knew a guy, once, a black christian from Darfur. i went to seminary with him. (an unfortunate couple of years, but i went) he celebrated the birth of his first child while we were there, back in Sudan. his name was Reuben. i sometimes wonder if he's still alive and what happened to his son.

he described real persecution, you know, the kind where he might actually die for being a christian, his wife could be raped, and his son forced into the army as a child. he was very matter-of-fact about it, no whining, didn't even use the word persecution. it was just the way it was.

but we thought the bible beater's ideas were silly. poor thing.

Why yes Dave, the Chinese could teach us all about freedom. Like the freedom to congregate and protest the government (or even say or write criticisms of their government). And boy, can they teach us about the freedom to practice their religion.

Sure, you can pop a beer on the street, of course you have to be able to afford one.

And don't think for a second that they have nearly the freedom you think they do. They have all sorts of business regulations, the problem being that they are reactionary in nature. Such as the scandal that erupted after some toothpaste that one of their companies sent to Panama killed people, because it contained glycol instead of glycerin. They couldn't catch it beforehand, but they gathered up everyone who might have been culpable after the fact and executed them. Not just the selfish, murdering bastards who knew full well what they were doing, but the folks who the government felt should have known.

The problem with regulation before the fact, is that, for example, there are nearly two hundred thousand pharmaceutical manufacturers in China. Hard to regulate that. For the most part, China places regulatory burdens on the countries where the products are sold. Which means that even in the U.S. we end up with products that don't meet U.S. health and safety standards.

And lest folks think I'm talking about standards that are just coddle the kids bullshit, this includes products that contain highly toxic materials. Such as the balloons in a tube, that my son bought a few years ago. Just from the smell I could tell you it was dangerous. And when you read the ingredients, that's confirmed. It included keytone solvents, latex emulsifiers and, you guessed it, glycol. Impossible to use this stuff without sucking down fairly high concentrations of the fumes.

Yup Dave, China fucking rocks.

Hey, Dwayne, how 'bout not shooting your mouth off about Chinese freedom until you've been there, mmkay?

I have been there many times. What do you know about the price of tea, oops beer, in China,man? (I just had to say that ;-) A beer might cost you 2 to 5 RMB (about 30 cents to about 75 cents). That ain't too bad, even for a Chinaman or Chinachick. Nobody will want to check "your papers, please!" when you go to buy it either.

Talk all you want about toxic products - that's not at all what my comment was about. You are free, Dwayne, to not buy your kid's "balloons in a tube" from a Chinese manufacturer, but I wish you good luck with that. It'll take you 2 days of ultimate shopping to find out that nobody makes stuff here. What good are regulations that put American manufacturing companies at too much of a disadvantage to stay in business?

Back to my point, I've seen way fewer cops on the streets in Chinese cities than in America, by far. On the road, I've seen people pulled over by cops for revenue collection a very few times (partly due to the fact that, the driving in the cities is so crazy that a car chase would be laughable).

There is a video on YouTube showing some guys in New England somewhere (say only 10 of them) protesting about some guy getting taken to jail for some minor thing, and the cop is out giving them crap and asking for a permit. You think you have freedom here until you try to exercise it, unless you are of a special color or wear a certain head-garb, of course. Try growing a marijuana garden in your yard, and see how much freedom you have in America.

Like I said, the guns are the only thing left (and religion too). Buy em now.

If you could go there sometime, Dwayne, I highly recommend it.

Merry Christmas First! I love your site. mdf board