"Happy Holidays" is more chronologically correct than "Merry Christmas" (minority, America)

[Bright-ness' Shadow]

From an article here

If you want to be technical, you can only use "Merry Christmas" one day, just as you would not say, "Happy New Year," one week before or one day after New Year's Day and the same applies to Thanksgiving. These people who feel their holiday is being stolen are ignoring the facts to pick a fight with all the people who dare not go along with the majority in celebrating Christmas.

From Thanksgiving through New Year's Day, "Happy holidays" can be used correctly because we in the West know that this is the holiday season. "Happy holidays" is not a cover for non-Christian holidays or some new trick to dilute Christmas. We Americans have always used it as a way to allow the good that we feel to flow from Thanksgiving to Christmas and then to New Year's, like a bridge.

"Happy holidays" allows us all to celebrate five weeks instead of just three days. Some of us like the idea that we have five weeks to try to be a little nicer and more positive to those around us. Now this wonderful time of the year, this season where most faiths emphasize the brotherhood of man, is turning into another opportunity for xenophobic Americans to pick a fight with another imaginary enemy. No atheist invented "Happy holidays" to deny Christians the right to celebrate Christmas.

[Sunstone]

One of the things that has happened over the last few years is that certain notions -- such as the notion that Christians are a persecuted minority in the United States -- have become so well accepted by so many people that very few people seem to actually think about it when someone claims yet another instance of "Christian persecution".

This season, when Macy's greeters began saying "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas", the Religious Right immediately jumped on the change to claim that Christ was being taken out of Christmas. Hysterical.

[retrorich]

Originally Posted by Sunstone

One of the things that has happened over the last few years is that certain notions -- such as the notion that Christians are a persecuted minority in the United States -- have become so well accepted by so many people that very few people seem to actually think about it when someone claims yet another instance of "Christian persecution".

This season, when Macy's greeters began saying "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas", the Religious Right immediately jumped on the change to claim that Christ was being taken out of Christmas. Hysterical.

Christians are a persecuting majority, not a persecuted minority. Consider the results of the recent presidential election. Christians, flocking to the polls in Ohio to vote for same-sex marriage bans, are responsible for the reelection of the worst president in U.S. history, George W. Bush. (That was determined through exit polls.) These bans are a form of persecution against a minority group, gays.

[Bright-ness' Shadow]

Originally Posted by retrorich

Christians are a persecuting majority, not a persecuted minority....

While I would agree with the distinction of minority/majority, I am not sure sure that the term persecution can be applied meaningfully to any Christian in the United States. What passes for "persecution" is more likely a denial of ascendency in governing the nation. Wishes (implementation of a worldview counter to American rights and freedoms) being denied is hardly a form of persecution.

The great freedoms in America prevent that persecution found in more totalitarian states - where, I'm sure, any group seen as a threat to the ruling government is surpressed and even brutally so. "Cry babies" in America do an injustice to those who really are persectuted be they religious, intellectual, or liberal.

Bob

[retrorich]

Originally Posted by pah

While I would agree with the distinction of minority/majority, I am not sure sure that the term persecution can be applied meaningfully to any Christian in the United States. What passes for "persecution" is more likely a denial of ascendency in governing the nation. Wishes (implementation of a worldview counter to American rights and freedoms) being denied is hardly a form of persecution.

The great freedoms in America prevent that persecution found in more totalitarian states - where, I'm sure, any group seen as a threat to the ruling government is surpressed and even brutally so. "Cry babies" in America do an injustice to those who really are persectuted be they religious, intellectual, or liberal.

Bob

I consider the unjust denial of basic rights (including the right to marry) to any individual or group to be persecution. Denying same-sex marriages is a form of persecution. If certain Christians are responsible for the persecution, they are persecutors.