T-Dawg
Self-appointed Lunatic
How does a religious display offend unless the display is intentionally saying something bad about someone? You really have to look for something to be offensive don't you? I'm Wiccan and I fail to see what is offensive about a Nativity scene. Now, if the display is on public or government property I would hope that it is equally open to other displays by differing faiths, or even non-faiths, as not to do so would show favoritism to a particular religion and that doesn't set well with me, as it shouldn't set well with anyone in what is supposed to be a secular country.
But why would we have the display at all when we could easily have no display? Representing every possible belief is going to be impractical. We would need money for Christmas, for Kwanzaa, for Hanukkah, for Festivus, for Generic Capitalist Wintertime Gift-Giving Season, for Saturnalia, for the Rite of Belial, and whatever else people think of that I have forgotten... and each one of these would cost money, time, labor, and space. You'd need to pay for each little decoration, hire people to put them up, and cram them all into whatever space you decided to put them in.
And then you need to hire bureaucrats to make sure the displays are all equal and each possible religion is represented fairly.
I have no doubt that you are a troubled person if that's how you see life and the world in general. You do realize "the religious" covers quite a wide array of beliefs and faiths don't you? In fact, I think if you were honest you'd find that the people who you think are so against you are an extreme minority in the world. Most religious people are not like that at all. I should think you would know that.
Oh yes, it's a very wide array of people. Sometimes I feel like I'm in the middle of Mordor, only I don't have the Ring, so I can't do anything about Sauron.
The people who are so against me vary, oddly enough. Sometimes I find that many Christians are just as human as anyone else; then, just as quickly, they can go all berserk every now and then. It's like they turn their faith on and off at key moments.
I find that the extreme minority you mentioned has control over the others. Everyone seems to temporarily become a rabid extremist with just a little encouragement, hence the phenomenon of "Sunday Christians" - people who are normal six days of the week, and then become fundamentalists for the duration of Sunday.
Of course, there is no way to tell when a Christian is about to take their faith seriously and attack me. I can only assume that anyone who worships God will be like God, and go forth murdering innocents (Exodus is a good example), inflicting plagues (Exodus is a good example, as is the story of David's census), perverting justice (Christians explicitly believe that innocents have to die for the sins of the guilty, hence the sacrifice of Jesus), and the like. If they didn't approve of these things, they wouldn't call themselves Christians.