Does "Happy Holidays" offend you?

I’ve
heard some variation of this idiotic proclamation dozens of times each
year for more than a decade. I’ve been told that my disagreement with
the statement makes me un-American, unreasonable, and even a religious
bigot (the irony of that last claim will be discussed later).
Apparently, there is a world-war on the spirit of Christmas.

I
don’t hate religion. And even if I did, that isn’t the point of this
post. If you believe in God and have a personal relationship with Jesus
Christ, which enhances your life; I’m sincerely happy for you. And if
you truly follow the teachings attributed to Jesus, nothing I’m about to
say, applies to you anyway.

Let’s start with what should be
excruciatingly obvious: NOBODY IS TRYING TO STEAL YOUR DAMNED HOLIDAY!
Sorry to be so blunt, but get over yourselves. It’s unbelievable.
Christians make up between 60 and 80% of this country, depending on what
pole you believe. You make up more than 97% of our government,
including our president, speaker of the house, and the majority and
minority leaders of both the House and Senate, and the Whips of both the
House and Senate. Unless I’m mistaken, Christians make up 50 out of 50
governors in this country, and they have a strangle-hold on our
military. The Christian religion could not possibly be in less danger.
In fact, the greatest threat to Christianity, is not political
correctness (about which I will rant later), but science. The more
science reveals, the less we need supernatural explanations.

These
are the facts of the situation. The whole “war on Christmas” theory is
predicated on the premise that non-Christians are trying to steal your
precious holiday. But the problem with this is that it wasn’t yours in
the first place. Christians stole Christmas from Pagans. Originally, for
Pagans in Rome, Greece, and throughout Europe and northern Africa; the
Winter Solstice was cause for a festival. By the time Rome was
instituting Christianity as its national religion; Roman Pagans had
adopted Yule, and Saturnalia as the holidays they would celebrate in the
winter. It was these holidays that Constantine ordered changed to a
celebration of the birth of Jesus.

The reality is that Mary and
Joseph were in Bethlehem when Mary gave birth; according to the New
Testament; so that Joseph could report for a census. According to the
timeline in the Bible, this was under the reign of Caesar Augustus.
Augustus held his census’s in the summer and early fall, so that
travel would be easier, since every man had to return to the city of his
birth. This means that Jesus was most likely born around August.

So
when you talk about remembering “the reason for the season”; unless you
mean that Apollo is now bringing the sun back, you don’t know the
reason, yourself. So you see, it isn’t your holiday for non-Christians
to steal.

But that is really a lesser point in the grand scheme of
things. Every year, I hear someone sing about “the most wonderful time
of the year. I hear this time referred to as a time of love; and yet I
hear people saying Merry Christmas, not because they ACTUALLY want
non-believers to have a good day on December 25th; but because they want
to see if they can get a reaction.

And that brings us to
political correctness I’m tired of hearing that word thrown around as a
pejorative. Do you know what it is? It’s respect for those who are not
like you. It’s doing what your mother told you to do. What JESUS told
you to do. To do unto others as you’d have them do unto you. That’s it.
Nothing more, nothing less.

When you say “happy holidays”, you are
saying “it’s none of my business what your religion is, if any; but
there are some holidays coming up and the odds are you’re gonna
participate in one or two of them, so I hope they are joyous”. Merry
Christmas (especially since you guys have gone all militant about it)
now says “if you don’t love Baby Jesus, go to hell!; but if you do, have
a lovely day”. It's become your "shibboleth".

What you guys don’t get is that if the spirit of
Christmas is love; limiting your holiday greeting to those who share
your holiday is defeating that very purpose. You aren’t spreading joy or
love or kindness. You’re spreading vitriol and hostility.

I don’t
care if you celebrate the birth of Christ, the bottomless jar of oil,
or the fact that you’re off work and have some time for your family. And
I really don’t care what greeting you present to me; as long as it’s
presented with love, and not for the purpose of starting a fight.

Christians,
you’ve got this country by the balls. You can spike the ball in the
end-zone if you like. You can chip away at the wall of separation
between church and state as much as you like (though I’ll fight you
every step of the way); but for the love of all that is good in this
world; grow up! Stop acting like YOU are the persecuted ones. You can’t
possibly believe that. You can’t be THAT delusional. Get over yourselves
and have a happy holiday season.