MMI: Nope - not kidding, but not losing my sense of proportion either. We're talking about funding religious celebrations, not imposing some kind of religious dictatorship over the whole nation.

THORNE: No, we're talking about funding a PARTICULAR religious celebration while prohibiting others. Baby steps. How would you feel if you were forbidden to say Merry Christmas, or Happy Holidays, and were only allowed to say Happy Hanukkah?
Let's go back a baby step ... remind me where in America it is illegal to say Happy Holidays/Hanukkah/Diwali/Solstice? Or if it is not illegal anywhere yet, tell me where, realistically, it is likely to become illegal.

MMI: But they don't succeed do they? Seems that even when fundamentalists have control, they have a hard time imposing their own views, then.

THORNE: They don't succeed because people like me won't LET them succeed. But if you pay any attention to the current crop of Republican presidential candidates you would see that most of them would gladly gut the Constitution to make special provisions for their fundamentalist beliefs. Another baby step.
Define "like me". Are you claiming that only grumpy old atheists are protecting the Western World from the excesses of tiny extreme right-wing sects of little or no consequence, or do you agree that middle-of-the-road and even liberal Christians and other religious groups would also resist them? If the former, that's nonsense; if the latter, it's still nonsense, but how does it justify banning Christmas?


THORNE: I don't have any "case" against Christmas ...
Indeed, you don't

THORNE: ... Only against those who would force it down my throat. I don't want to ban it, just keep it where it belongs. In the churches, in peoples homes, not in the courtrooms or legislatures of the nation.
Christmas in the courtrooms? I think we can trust the courts to deal with frivolous litigation in the way it deserves, and the higher courts to protect the system against bad laws. And on the other hand, we can depend upon them to defend our freedoms and liberties, whether we are religious and wish to celebrate religious events, or atheist and wish to celebrate whatever atheists celebrate.

Christmas in the legislatures? I think we can depend upon the state governments to govern their states more or less according to the wishes of the electorate, and upon the Federal government to ensure fundamental liberties guaranteed to all citizens are not eroded by unrepresentative extremists. For example, I doubt it would be within the powers of the New York state legislature to amend the US Constitution so as to prohibit people from wearing crucifixes or other religious symbols and forcing them to celebrate only New Year as Winter begins. So with Texas.

Confining religious celebrations to churches or homes? That's effectively banning it ... as a public celebration anyway. So much for Liberty. Christmas is an open celebration and everyone is invited (not forced) to participate. Restricting it to private places denies Christians the right to express themselves as freely as atheists would wish to be able to. It would be just as oppressive as the supposed Texan ban on non-Christian festivities.

I still refute your claim that Christmas (as a religious celebration) is forced down your throat. I can accept that big business exploits Christmas to extract more money than is necessary from everyone's pockets, but big business is a non-religious organisation. The next time you see a reference to Christmas, look deeper to see whether it is trying to deliver a message of goodwill - in which case it is likely to be religious - or if it is trying to get you to spend money, in which case it is probably nothing at all to do with religion. Christmas, as a religious celebration is forced down people's throats no more than, say New Year, which is a non-religious celebration frequently observed at about this time at considerable public expense.

(Strange how, when I asked what they celebrated, no atheist mentioned New Year. Either they take the public expenditure on that particular non-religious event for granted, or they are so sour they don't even celebrate that.)