War on Christmas 2014

[rightwinger]

I'm not religious, and I think Christmas is lovely. I don't make a big deal about any other holidays, and I don't feel about Christmas in a religious way, but the trees, the decorations, the parties, drinks and food: I enjoy all that.

Exactly, the notion that those of us who aren't religious are making 'war on Christmas' is ridiculous.

Indeed, Christmas is also a secular holiday, where the Winter Solstice has been celebrated well before Christians misappropriated the season.

Some of us celebrate Santas birthday

 

[Carla_Danger]

I'm not religious, and I think Christmas is lovely. I don't make a big deal about any other holidays, and I don't feel about Christmas in a religious way, but the trees, the decorations, the parties, drinks and food: I enjoy all that.

I still drive around looking at the lights! I really love this time of year especially since I quit stressing over it.

For religious conservatives, howling over the so-called "war on Christmas" has become an annual holiday tradition almost as enjoyable as Christmas itself. On Tuesday, Sarah Palin seeks to capitalize on the phenomenon with the release of her newest book, Good Tidings and Great Joy: Protecting the Heart of Christmas. Daily Intelligencer purchased the Palin-narrated audiobook from a local bookstore, where it was on sale early, and listened to all four-and-a-half hours, which is technically not a violation of the Geneva Convention if you're getting paid to do it, New York's legal team insists.

The book is part tribute to the joys of Christmas, part how-to guide for oppressed Christians looking for ways to fight back against whiny and litigious secularists, and part manifesto on the general superiority of Christianity over atheism. Palin, throughout, appears incapable of fathoming why a business catering to people from all walks of life may prefer to use inclusive holiday-season language in promotional items, or why a non-Christian may not appreciate a government institution expressing a preference for Christianity over other religions. To hear her tell it, such attitudes imperil America's dedication to religious freedom itself. Click around on the Christmas tree below to hear some of the book's more memorable lines.


Be sure to click on the Christmas tree ornaments @

The Sarah Palin War-on-Christmas Soundboard -- NYMag

 

[Carla_Danger]

"Christmas could not survive if Christ were thrust into the background by materialism." --A NYT study of sermons delivered in 1931.

 

[Carla_Danger]

Here's the entire article

A little history for you on the “War on Christmas.”

Christmas wasn’t a particularly American holiday at the start of the nation. The Puritans rejected it, insisting the date derived from the Roman pagan holiday of Saturnalia. From 1659 to 1681, the colony of Massachusetts outlawed celebrations of Christmas. Observation of the holiday grew slowly in America -- by the Civil War, Christmas was recognized in just 18 states.

Over time, Christmas gained popularity as an American celebration, helped along by the publication of Moore’s “Visit from St. Nicholas” and Nast’s Harper’s Weekly drawings which cemented the image of a white-bearded gift-giving Santa.

In the 1920s, the retail industry began marketing the “Christmas shopping season” in earnest, and Christian religious leaders strongly objected. A New York Times study of sermons delivered in 1931 “reported a common theme: ‘the suggestion that Christmas could not survive if Christ were thrust into the background by materialism.’"

Where does the modern belief that secular Grinches have their bazookas of atheism pointed at Christmas come from? Mostly from an anti-Semitic kook named Peter Brimelow. Brimelow published a book called “Alien Nation” where he argued that the influx of “weird aliens with dubious habits” from developing nations was eroding America’s white Christian “ethnic core,” and in turn, sullying its cultural underpinnings. The War on Christmas was, in his view, a particularly pernicious iteration of the multicultural “struggle to abolish America.”

Brimelow tried to get the conservative “National Review” to take up the cause of the war on Christmas by hosting “an annual competition for the most egregious attempt to suppress Christmas.” A change in leadership at the “National Review” killed that idea, so Brimelow founded a web journal called Vdare.com along with Jared Taylor, a white supremacist publisher, and Kevin MacDonald, an evolutionary psychology professor who has argued that Jews are genetically equipped to out-compete Gentiles for resources and power.

VDare became the staging ground for the War on the War on Christmas. Unlike their more respectable counterparts, Brimelow’s writers dared to name the true anti-Christian Grinch: Jews. The winner of Brimelow’s 2001 War on Christmas competition, a “paleoconservative” writer named Tom Piatak, insisted that those behind the assault on Christmas “evidently prefer” Hanukkah, which he called the “Jewish Kwanzaa,” a “faux-Christmas.” “Teaching children about Hanukkah, rather than the beliefs that actually sustained Jews on their sometimes tragic and tumultuous historical journey,” Piatak fumed, “inculcates negative lessons about Christianity, not positive ones about Judaism.”

VDare’s 2005 War on Christmas winner, Steve Sailer, a Eugenics enthusiast and author of the "biography" called "Barack Obama, America’s Half-Blood Prince," picked up where Piatak left off. “American Jews,” Sailer wrote, “those exemplars of successful assimilation now seem to be de-assimilating emotionally, becoming increasingly resentful, at this late date, of their fellow Americans for celebrating Christmas.” Sailer went on to quote at length from a column by the purportedly Jewish writer, Bert Prelutsky, called “ The Jewish Grinch Who Stole Christmas.”

In 2005, this vile germ seeped from the Internet into the waiting Petri dish of Fox News. Bill O’Reilly and John Gibson began dedicating entire shows to Brimelow’s thesis. Now it’s an annual tradition.

Recently, “Fox and Friends” hosted an actor dressed up as Santa Claus so that they could interview him and get confirmation that the War on Christmas continues to rage.

So, Merry Christmas to my Christian friends and to those on Fox News fighting the good anti-Semitic fight... get fucked. - Bill Prady

 

[turzovka]

Since so many say that Christians brought on this “silly” war on Christmas, might you answer the following questions:
Why do many retail giants forbid their staff from saying Merry Christmas after a sale?

Why do many retail giants playing holiday music during the Christmas season forbid any religious songs from being part of the songlist, that includes even just instrumental songs, no religious instrumentals?

Why do most major network newscasters or commentators when interviewing someone who experienced a great tragedy just now say “our thoughts are with you” instead of “thoughts and prayers” like they used to?

Why are any public school speakers cautioned against using the word God in any context to the point of total absurdity?

Who started those little wars?

 

[Carla_Danger]

Since so many say that Christians brought on this “silly” war on Christmas, might you answer the following questions:
Why do many retail giants forbid their staff from saying Merry Christmas after a sale?

Why do many retail giants playing holiday music during the Christmas season forbid any religious songs from being part of the songlist, that includes even just instrumental songs, no religious instrumentals?

Why do most major network newscasters or commentators when interviewing someone who experienced a great tragedy just now say “our thoughts are with you” instead of “thoughts and prayers” like they used to?

Why are any public school speakers cautioned against using the word God in any context to the point of total absurdity?

Who started those little wars?

My guess is that it's because they are in business to profit. Profit trumps religious beliefs.

How does people being courteous and respectful to all religions, equal a war on Christmas?

 

[Dont Taz Me Bro]

I haven't cared about Christmas in years. It's nothing more than a commercialized holiday now.

 

[turzovka]

Since so many say that Christians brought on this “silly” war on Christmas, might you answer the following questions:
Why do many retail giants forbid their staff from saying Merry Christmas after a sale?

Why do many retail giants playing holiday music during the Christmas season forbid any religious songs from being part of the songlist, that includes even just instrumental songs, no religious instrumentals?

Why do most major network newscasters or commentators when interviewing someone who experienced a great tragedy just now say “our thoughts are with you” instead of “thoughts and prayers” like they used to?

Why are any public school speakers cautioned against using the word God in any context to the point of total absurdity?

Who started those little wars?

My guess is that it's because they are in business to profit. Profit trumps religious beliefs.

How does people being courteous and respectful to all religions, equal a war on Christmas?

I had four very specific questions and you answered two in very weak and evasive terms. Why not be more honest? Maybe because we will get at the truth.

 

[Carla_Danger]

I haven't cared about Christmas in years. It's nothing more than a commercialized holiday now.

That's true.

 

[rightwinger]

Since so many say that Christians brought on this “silly” war on Christmas, might you answer the following questions:
Why do many retail giants forbid their staff from saying Merry Christmas after a sale?

Why do many retail giants playing holiday music during the Christmas season forbid any religious songs from being part of the songlist, that includes even just instrumental songs, no religious instrumentals?

Why do most major network newscasters or commentators when interviewing someone who experienced a great tragedy just now say “our thoughts are with you” instead of “thoughts and prayers” like they used to?

Why are any public school speakers cautioned against using the word God in any context to the point of total absurdity?

Who started those little wars?

My guess is that it's because they are in business to profit. Profit trumps religious beliefs.

How does people being courteous and respectful to all religions, equal a war on Christmas?

I had four very specific questions and you answered two in very weak and evasive terms. Why not be more honest? Maybe because we will get at the truth.

He answered quite simply
Profit

Stores want to profit off of the Holiday season not just the Christian Holiday Season

 

[Vandalshandle]

They still say, "Merry Christmas" at Sears.

They announced yesterday that they are closing another 235 stores.

 

[turzovka]

Since so many say that Christians brought on this “silly” war on Christmas, might you answer the following questions:
Why do many retail giants forbid their staff from saying Merry Christmas after a sale?

Why do many retail giants playing holiday music during the Christmas season forbid any religious songs from being part of the songlist, that includes even just instrumental songs, no religious instrumentals?

Why do most major network newscasters or commentators when interviewing someone who experienced a great tragedy just now say “our thoughts are with you” instead of “thoughts and prayers” like they used to?

Why are any public school speakers cautioned against using the word God in any context to the point of total absurdity?

Who started those little wars?

My guess is that it's because they are in business to profit. Profit trumps religious beliefs.

How does people being courteous and respectful to all religions, equal a war on Christmas?

I had four very specific questions and you answered two in very weak and evasive terms. Why not be more honest? Maybe because we will get at the truth.

He answered quite simply
Profit

Stores want to profit off of the Holiday season not just the Christian Holiday Season

Yeah, so? Are you suggesting if they played Hark the Herald angels sing in their muzak selection you would have some insurrection of shoppers?

Are you suggesting if Tom Brokaw said "our thoughts and prayers are with you" to some grieving family or celebrity that it would alienate their audience?

 

[Vandalshandle]

I feel the presence of Jesus at Walmart every time Black Friday rolls around...especially in the parking lot, when I hear people screaming, "Jesus Christ! Look before backing that sonabitch up!"

 

[rightwinger]

Since so many say that Christians brought on this “silly” war on Christmas, might you answer the following questions:
Why do many retail giants forbid their staff from saying Merry Christmas after a sale?

Why do many retail giants playing holiday music during the Christmas season forbid any religious songs from being part of the songlist, that includes even just instrumental songs, no religious instrumentals?

Why do most major network newscasters or commentators when interviewing someone who experienced a great tragedy just now say “our thoughts are with you” instead of “thoughts and prayers” like they used to?

Why are any public school speakers cautioned against using the word God in any context to the point of total absurdity?

Who started those little wars?

My guess is that it's because they are in business to profit. Profit trumps religious beliefs.

How does people being courteous and respectful to all religions, equal a war on Christmas?

I had four very specific questions and you answered two in very weak and evasive terms. Why not be more honest? Maybe because we will get at the truth.

He answered quite simply
Profit

Stores want to profit off of the Holiday season not just the Christian Holiday Season

Yeah, so? Are you suggesting if they played Hark the Herald angels sing in their muzak selection you would have some insurrection of shoppers?

Are you suggesting if Tom Brokaw said "our thoughts and prayers are with you" to some grieving family or celebrity that it would alienate their audience?

Why should Tom Brokaw participate in some religious fantasy to placate you?
Should he say "the stars are with you"?

 

[Carla_Danger]

Since so many say that Christians brought on this “silly” war on Christmas, might you answer the following questions:
Why do many retail giants forbid their staff from saying Merry Christmas after a sale?

Why do many retail giants playing holiday music during the Christmas season forbid any religious songs from being part of the songlist, that includes even just instrumental songs, no religious instrumentals?

Why do most major network newscasters or commentators when interviewing someone who experienced a great tragedy just now say “our thoughts are with you” instead of “thoughts and prayers” like they used to?

Why are any public school speakers cautioned against using the word God in any context to the point of total absurdity?

Who started those little wars?

My guess is that it's because they are in business to profit. Profit trumps religious beliefs.

How does people being courteous and respectful to all religions, equal a war on Christmas?

I had four very specific questions and you answered two in very weak and evasive terms. Why not be more honest? Maybe because we will get at the truth.

Okay, lets recap.

Since so many say that Christians brought on this “silly” war on Christmas, might you answer the following questions:
Why do many retail giants forbid their staff from saying Merry Christmas after a sale?

Why do many retail giants playing holiday music during the Christmas season forbid any religious songs from being part of the songlist, that includes even just instrumental songs, no religious instrumentals?

Why do most major network newscasters or commentators when interviewing someone who experienced a great tragedy just now say “our thoughts are with you” instead of “thoughts and prayers” like they used to?

Why are any public school speakers cautioned against using the word God in any context to the point of total absurdity?

Who started those little wars?

1) Retail giants are in business to profit. If telling people to have a shitty holiday resulted in higher profits, that's what they'd tell their employees to say.

2) See number 1 (although, I do believe I still hear Christmas music at the Mall, so you may be a tad delusional)

3) I've already answered this question on page 4, and you still haven't answered the questions I asked of you! Here it is again.

There are private religious schools you may want to consider, if your wish is that your child prays at school. Public schools are tax funded and we are a very diverse country. Plus, there's plenty of time for prayer before school, after school, and at bedtime.

4) The War on Christmas is imaginary.

 

[Vandalshandle]

I think that doing away with Christmas would be a mercy killing. Can you guys imagine the pure joy we all would feel if we knew for sure that we will never, ever again have to hear Frosty the Snowman, Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer, and Burl Ives, singing, Have a Holly Jolly Christmas"?

 

[turzovka]

Since so many say that Christians brought on this “silly” war on Christmas, might you answer the following questions:
Why do many retail giants forbid their staff from saying Merry Christmas after a sale?

Why do many retail giants playing holiday music during the Christmas season forbid any religious songs from being part of the songlist, that includes even just instrumental songs, no religious instrumentals?

Why do most major network newscasters or commentators when interviewing someone who experienced a great tragedy just now say “our thoughts are with you” instead of “thoughts and prayers” like they used to?

Why are any public school speakers cautioned against using the word God in any context to the point of total absurdity?

Who started those little wars?

My guess is that it's because they are in business to profit. Profit trumps religious beliefs.

How does people being courteous and respectful to all religions, equal a war on Christmas?

I had four very specific questions and you answered two in very weak and evasive terms. Why not be more honest? Maybe because we will get at the truth.

He answered quite simply
Profit

Stores want to profit off of the Holiday season not just the Christian Holiday Season

Yeah, so? Are you suggesting if they played Hark the Herald angels sing in their muzak selection you would have some insurrection of shoppers?

Are you suggesting if Tom Brokaw said "our thoughts and prayers are with you" to some grieving family or celebrity that it would alienate their audience?

Why should Tom Brokaw participate in some religious fantasy to placate you?
Should he say "the stars are with you"?

Since you are unable to answer a question directly I will help you. NBC, et al. instructed their newscasters to say "our thoughts are with you" and not prayers as well because they either 1) live in fear some group of freaked out atheists will start a major campaign against them (which I doubt), or 2) there are enough delusional secular humanists out there to take notice enough to say "How dare they?" and become ins cense for a moment but surely not enough to abandon the network, yet idiot NBC still would not care to take that improbable risk, or 3) the ideologies of those who run NBC or its parent corp are so anti-God that this is another way they can contribute to coddling an ambiguous America to think less and less about God.

 

[Carla_Danger]

I think that doing away with Christmas would be a mercy killing. Can you guys imagine the pure joy we all would feel if we knew for sure that we will never, ever again have to hear Frosty the Snowman, Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer, and Burl Ives, singing, Have a Holly Jolly Christmas"?

LOL!

I do like my Blues Christmas CD! But yes, I could live without all that other garbage.

 

[Vandalshandle]

My guess is that it's because they are in business to profit. Profit trumps religious beliefs.

How does people being courteous and respectful to all religions, equal a war on Christmas?

I had four very specific questions and you answered two in very weak and evasive terms. Why not be more honest? Maybe because we will get at the truth.

He answered quite simply
Profit

Stores want to profit off of the Holiday season not just the Christian Holiday Season

Yeah, so? Are you suggesting if they played Hark the Herald angels sing in their muzak selection you would have some insurrection of shoppers?

Are you suggesting if Tom Brokaw said "our thoughts and prayers are with you" to some grieving family or celebrity that it would alienate their audience?

Why should Tom Brokaw participate in some religious fantasy to placate you?
Should he say "the stars are with you"?

Since you are unable to answer a question directly I will help you. NBC, et al. instructed their newscasters to say "our thoughts are with you" and not prayers as well because they either 1) live in fear some group of freaked out atheists will start a major campaign against them (which I doubt), or 2) there are enough delusional secular humanists out there to take notice enough to say "How dare they?" and become ins cense for a moment but surely not enough to abandon the network, yet idiot NBC still would not care to take that improbable risk, or 3) the ideologies of those who run NBC or its parent corp are so anti-God that this is another way they can contribute to coddling an ambiguous America to think less and less about God.

Well, it seems to me that Christians cope with this in three ways:
1. Boycott NBC, et. al., or
2. Pass a law requiring everyone to say Merry Christmas, or
3. Become aware that there are other religions, including Jews, in America, who would prefer not to have your religion in their face 24/7 from Thanksgiving to New Year's...especially in a commercial establishment.

 

[Carla_Danger]

Since so many say that Christians brought on this “silly” war on Christmas, might you answer the following questions:
Why do many retail giants forbid their staff from saying Merry Christmas after a sale?

Why do many retail giants playing holiday music during the Christmas season forbid any religious songs from being part of the songlist, that includes even just instrumental songs, no religious instrumentals?

Why do most major network newscasters or commentators when interviewing someone who experienced a great tragedy just now say “our thoughts are with you” instead of “thoughts and prayers” like they used to?

Why are any public school speakers cautioned against using the word God in any context to the point of total absurdity?

Who started those little wars?

My guess is that it's because they are in business to profit. Profit trumps religious beliefs.

How does people being courteous and respectful to all religions, equal a war on Christmas?

I had four very specific questions and you answered two in very weak and evasive terms. Why not be more honest? Maybe because we will get at the truth.

He answered quite simply
Profit

Stores want to profit off of the Holiday season not just the Christian Holiday Season

Yeah, so? Are you suggesting if they played Hark the Herald angels sing in their muzak selection you would have some insurrection of shoppers?

Are you suggesting if Tom Brokaw said "our thoughts and prayers are with you" to some grieving family or celebrity that it would alienate their audience?

Here's Ron Tillman's brother expressing how an atheist family feels about religious comments while the family is grieving.