So, recently the "holiday season" has come around. And my school has been telling people to say "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas". They've been super strict about it. I even got a detention for "offending other's religion".

I also had an argument with someone on the bus about me celebrating Christmas with out being Christian. He even said that all Atheists should create their own holiday, and that they shouldn't be able to celebrate Christmas.

Do you think that saying Merry Christmas is offensive? Do you think that atheists shouldn't be able to celebrate Christmas?

I guess I see where your school is coming from, but I think a detention is pretty harsh

I'm not a believer myself, which means i'm not convinced that some higher power created the earth from magics. Having said that, Christmas is the day that we celebrate Jesus, Yahweh or that one guy, being born. Saying that atheists can't celebrate christmas is like saying that every christian has to go to every single church service.

And this guy telling you to make your own holiday is really ignorant.

This is just my opinion though

If someone says Happy Hanukkah to me, it's not like im going to be offended. When you get down to the basics of it, these are all different ways of celebrating the same holiday really. Your school is being pretty ignorant about it; every person has the right to express themselves, it's not an offense to say happy hanukkah in the presence of christians.

Your school is just being a group of almighty higher, I have a job title and you don't group of doushbags imo

also, proper religions don't say that only they are allowed to celebrate their holidays or that they put down other religions. They respect each other, and their ideals, e.t.c.

tl;dr - your school is pretty much being anti-religious by saying you aren't allowed to express your own description of the holidays

Did you really get detention just for saying 'Merry Christmas'? I only ask because it's such a ridiculous situation, I dunno if it's true.

He did only say that he got a detention for "offending others' religions". He never said that he said "Merry Christmas" in the presence of a school official and got a detention for it.

If this is all true, I feel like a few parents are going to sue the shit out of the school for obvious reasons.

I want to know what he did to offend someone's religion, then.

Because I'm not Christian, I guess that means I can't celebrate a Christian holiday that is supposed to celebrate the birth of Jesus on the day that he wasn't actually born on and was actually adopted from a Pagan holiday to aid in the conversion to Christianity. Shucks, guess I better find another arbitrary reason to buy presents for myself in December.


Honestly, it's kind of an overreaction to stomp down on saying Merry Christmas because it supposedly offends other religions. However, I can understand why they are trying to keep it from being said, as it does exert some religious pressure on people, particularly if a large enough amount of people say it, and say it often. And since it's hard to define when well-meaning holiday spirit turns into well-meaning religious pressure, a blanket approach is overall safer.

It is still christmas time in my opinion, the term is as accurate to Jews as it is Christians because it is referring to the time leading up to christmas rather than the actual religious ceremony. You wish people a happy Christmas long before Christmas as a general show of good wishes for them in the times running up to christmas, you don't mean that you hope their actual "religious" ceremony of Christmas goes well. Therefore, because of the reduced meaning of the term which we now have, I don't believe it is offensive or oppressive to other religions.

I wonder if they would give you detention for wishing someone a nice sugar feast. You should try it.

for a country that prides itself on freedom of whatever they want, the United States has a bad reputation for having no concept of tolerance.

As a South African Christian, I come from a very colourful cultural and religious background, if a Hindi wishes me a happy Diwali, or a Muslim wishes me a happy Eid, which has happened, even if im not participating in the festival of lights or breaking the fast, I dont complain that theyr not being respectful of my religious boundaries.
Theyr passing on their good will to me during an important cultural occasion, not trying to convert me.
over here, Christmas is celebrated by all, everyone celebrates Christmas, Muslim, Chinese, Hindi and all our little African cultures aswell.

Christmas is as much a social event as it is a religious one. Santa claus has no direct link to the birth of Christ, only that Saint Nicholas himself has roots in european Christian history.
but the concept of the Santa we have today is so far removed from the original, that he is an entirely western social figure, rather than a religious one.

Christians celebrate the feast of the birth of Christ at church, the gift giving and the holiday season in general, have little bearing on the feast itself.

claiming that athiests and whoever else should create a holiday for themselves is redundant and ignorant, because they already have.