What's wrong with "Merry Christmas"?

[Goddlefrood]

> montims:
> People today have proudly claimed the term Pagan, because they 
> were being called it anyway, but Pagan per se is not a religion 
> - it is a non-belief in the Hebrew God.

Goddlefrood:
Just on this point, and for the record I'm nominally Jewish, but 
with definite atheistic leanings, what would an atheist or agnostic 
be called? They're unlikely to term themselves pagan. The way that 
I understand the word pagan is that it refers to several things. 
One, as in the statement made by momtims that it refers to all 
who are not of one's own religion, like the Jewish use of gentile. 
Secondly, it refers to someone who does not adhere to one of the 
three monotheistic religions, although personally I would never 
describe a Hindu, a Jain, a Buddhist or a follower of Shinto and 
several other religions as pagans. There is no pagan religion as 
such as each belief has its own name, and as we have seen earlier 
we have at least one Wiccan amongst us. The Norse religion is now 
defunct (except in The Long Dark Tea Time of the Soul) and would 
surely be referred to as a pagan religion. This is not meant to 
be derogatory, it's just that there's no other word that covers 
the diversity that pagan does.

So, if my usage of pagan in the previous post was ambiguous, it 
was not meant to be, the usage was referring to pre-Christian 
beliefs, a quite common usage amongst Christians, and Geoff will 
no doubt correct me if I'm mistaken on that.

> Geoff:
> These traditions are not actually part of the essential message 
> of Christianity and, hence, of Christmas and really are irrelevant 
> to what the season is all about; however, they make useful red 
> herrings to distract folk from investigating what our faith is 
> all about.

Goddlefrood:
Peace on earth, good will to all men, salvation through penitence 
etc. What peaceful times we live in. The matters referred to, 
and many others, are part of the Christmas tradition whether 
some Christians like it or not. I agree they may not be part 
of the message of Christmas, but with the rampant commercialism 
of today's world - even in Fiji - they have become part of its 
traditions. 

I've always celebrated Christmas, I've even been to the occasional 
mass (my school was CofE, I got married in an Abglican church, my 
wife's a Catholic). This wasn't about Christianity, it was about 
Christmas and no amount of proselitising is going to change that. 
Trees, Father Christmas, decorations, turkeys and many other things 
are part of Christmas, full stop.

Happy holidays, merry Christmas, shalom, dhanavad, vinaka na siga 
ni sucu, what you will.

No feelings were hurt during the course of the preparation of this 
post, and no offence is intended even if taken. Finally, in answer 
to the question originally posed by Carol, there's nothing wrong 
with merry Christmas, IMO.

Goddlefrood, laying good odds that trees abound in the homes of 
many on this list, that Father Christmas / Santa has called at 
the homes of many of our children and that turkeys are in trouble.