Quote Originally Posted by MMI View Post
Look. To me it's simple. If you're Christian, you celebrate Christmas. Non-Christians don't. Jews celebrate Hunnukah, non-Jews don't. Moslems, Eid: non-moslems ignore it. Atheists celebrate I don't know what ... Solstice, perhaps (see post 23 above), like pagans, or anything at all (post 17). Non-atheists don't.

If any one of those groups is sufficiently large, they are entitled to have their celebration observed by the relevant authorities at public expense, and anyone who objects is being nothing other than churlish in my opinion. Hang it all - it's a celebration!

But for an atheist to want to change Christmas because it excludes him is just wrong. Of course it excludes him - he's not Christian. Eid excludes non-moslems and so on. A celebration of godlessness would be just as exclusive of religious people, wouldn't it?

But I do agree that it's also wrong for Christians etc to force non-believers to join in and pray. In the schools I went to, pupils would be excused acts of worship if their parents requested it.
What he said.