I kind of resent the idea that these ads are "shameless". Why, exactly should we be ashamed? For daring to suggest that we don't need childish fairy tales like hell to scare us into treating other human beings well?

To Humanist,

I agree. Christmas is used as a crutch that this is the only time of year where you see human decency…a way for religion to guilt us into being kind at least once a year. Why is it we never see this human decency all year long from all people and religions??? I say Happy Holidays, so I guess that doesn’t make me a Christian…but I am. Christ doesn’t care if you say Happy Holidays or Merry Christmas; the point is to practice what is preached all year long, everyday of our lives. As for the ads, I am amused by them, we all should be. There is no shame or disgrace in asking questions, it surely doesn’t mean I have lost my faith. If anything asking hard questions makes our faith stronger. I believe it was Jeremiah who said, “He who forsakes his knowledge is a fool…” As dutiful Christians we are supposed to absorb ourselves in all forms of knowledge to lead us closer to the truth, even if that means indulging in an Atheist’s debate about the existence of God…who knows both sides might actually learn something. Christ never attacked or assaulted anyone, he listened.

I believe in a "clear-light Deity Entity" - as it once caused a White Streak to 'appear' in my hair, while Meditating (I'll leave it to your imagination regarding what I saw, heard, and did during this session!); I just DON'T believe in the 'Christian' concept of God.
For one thing; they say that 'their God' is the ONLY ONE; but they then regularly talk about the 'Hindu God', the 'Heathen Gods', etc..
So what is it; Is there just One God - or as many as you need to generate, in order to create the illusion of the 'other' - which you need to create in order to enable your desire HATE said OTHER?!?
I so confused!!!
Anyhoo....
Happy Day of The Unvanquished Sun!
If the fact that the Dragon that has been trying to swallow our Sun, had to spit it back out, isn't reason to Celebrate - what is?!?
Fairy Tales....all fairy tales; and way too much justification of Bigotry and Hatered for 'them' to deserve anything but A LUMP OF COAL in their stockings - you included, Bill O'Reilly!!!

Whatever happened to tolerance for other people's religious views? Isn't this a little bit of a double standard, to preach tolerance but have none for Christmas as a religious holiday? And I'm sure Christians are just as nauseated by Christmas displays in Banana Republic the second Halloween is over, if not earlier. Hardly a "religious" expression. Most public expressions of Christmas are totally secular anyway - Santa and Frosty, mistletoe and decorated trees and window displays. Nothing religous about any of it. Live and let live.

Urchin - I don't understand why asking a simple question is intolerant.

It just saddens men when I hear people say Merry Christmass in a way that really means F. Off non Christian. Or "I'll pray for you," instead of something mean in an argument, instead of the words genuine meaning.

I have plenty of tolerance--no, love!--for Christmas as a religious holiday (despite the fact that traditionally, in Christianity, it's a far inferior part of the church year to the Passion and Easter: it's Christ's death and resurrection, not his birth, that's key to the faith). It encourages wonder, and love, and I have great memories associated with its observance.

But as a commercial holiday, as the center of a ton of gross financial burdens and unrealistic emotional expectations, it's horrifying. Businesses from greeting cards to Hollywood bank on us trying to buy the miracles that we've been taught to expect on Christmas, and many families go into hock chasing them. What's more, for many individuals, when those miracles fail to appear because they don't have the money, the result is depression, despair, and (at rates much higher than the rest of the year) suicide.

So, yeah, I wage war on Christmas. I wage war on the Christmas that starts around Halloween, pushing sugar and expensive electronics. I wage war on the Christmas that distracts from the meaning of the faith I was raised in. I wage war on the Christmas that leaves hundreds of thousands feeling worse than they did before. But I keep Christmas in my passionately agnostic heart.

We only call it 'christmas' because it was those bigots who captured and tortured pagans who were celebrating Yule in the 3rd century. If you look up 'yule' at dictionary.com even they show that it was a pagan holiday celebrating the winter solstice, that is, they were celebrating the end of days getting colder with less and less sunlight and the beginning of days getting warmer with more sunlight. I guarantee you there wasn't an evergreen tree within 5000 miles of jebus...so why do we decorate evergreen trees for christmas? Well that was the practice of the 'godless pagans' celebrating Yule. Those people who called themselves 'christians' held pagans at knifepoint and said 'sure you can continue to celebrate your holiday, but call it christmas, not yule. we're stealing your holiday.'

Not to add to their fanatical bellicose fantasies but I have a suggestion to those who think there is some kind of "war" on Christmas. If Christians really want to de-secularize and de-commercialize it, why don't they just move "their" Christmas to a more appropriate time of year other than the arbitrary day they celebrate the birth of Jesus? The real day he was born is hotly debated but universally recognized by scholars as certainly not December 25.

I have no personal investment in Xmas as a religious holiday -no more than I have in anything else religious. But I LOVE the "Commercial" aspects of it.

If people were honest about it - especially the Christians among us - they would have to admit a similar of fondness for the non-religious nature of this time of year too. Come on, people: this is the time that commerce comes alive in our cities, towns and malls! It's fun! It's good for business and for most of us it brings back happy childhood memories better than anything else ever does.

I was raised Catholic but got over all that a long time ago. I never put up lights or a tree or send cards - none of that. But I do appreciate how so many people get in a happy festive mood that stretches out over two months time but I'm sure 99.9% aren't thinking holy thoughts till they get ready to fulfill their religious obligation for one hour on that one day. Once that's out of the way they go back to being total heathens and continue to have fun. There is nothing wrong with that. If you say it to me I'll say "Merry Christmas" right back at ya! I don't care.

Self-righteous hypocrites who invented the lie of a "War on Christmas" only get all bent out of shape over people who don't buy into their religion but still find joy in this highly commercial time of year. Christians don't own the season. I think they just feel guilty for enjoying the "commercialization" of it more than they enjoy whatever their religion has to do with it.

I honestly get annoyed at everyone who says "Merry Christmas" to me because they're assuming I'm a Christian. Then they get annoyed at me when I say "Happy Holidays" in response because I'm not a Christian.

In my house growing up, Christmas was equally about giving and receiving presents and celebrating Jesus' birth (my dad's a pastor). Today, I'm an agnostic who loves Christmas for the pagan aspects it contains: trees and presents, mainly.

Emperor Constantine combined Christian and pagan traditions for both Christmas and Easter to unite both factions and make Christianity the official religion of ancient Rome. Christian leaders later chose a day to celebrate Jesus' birthday because they didn't know the true date he was born.

Oh, yeah, and the figure we call "Santa Claus" was a real person once whom the Catholic Church immortalized as a saint, so he has religious roots as well as secular ones.

Personally, I love the new ads. Any chance to seeing them in more red states? Also, I want the design on a t-shirt!

I don't have the time or energy to worry about whether someone just said "Merry Christmas" or "Happy Holidays" or whatever else they say. There are far bigger issues to think about and, frankly, though I don't care for any of these holidays or the religions which claim them as their own, I'd rather someone say one of the phrases above versus, say, "f___ you." I just treat it as a seasonal way of saying "hello" and don't get worked up over it.

I say "Merry Christmas" too -- but I don't believe in Gawd.

Some people seem to think that humans can't be civil to one another, without some over-inflated father-figure holding the sword of "hell" over their heads. Notably, most people who think this way seem to be "conservatives," who have, um, their own problems with ethics and accountability.

They also seem to be largely religious -- which at first is a puzzle. Why would people who think humans are naturally evil, want a Gawd who frowns on that quality? Why don't they worship Satan instead? I can only conclude that, while they think evil is the natural state of humans, they don't WANT to be evil.

To that, I say: you are who you want to be. The process of personal growth is the process of becoming more of what you really are, at the bottom of your psyche; of ridding yourself of holds and contradictions, and bringing the real you out into your actual life.

"Evil" is simply the other side of "good" -- its negation; its absence. If you DID truly want to be evil, then the real you, the most basic self you hide deep inside, would not even know what good is -- except that it would tend to cramp your style. (Sounds a bit like Wall Street, doesn't it?) But if being evil actually BOTHERS you in some fashion (as in, you have a conscience) then your inner self/soul/essence is objecting to the not-good components and tendencies you may harbor. The real you is NOT evil, in that case.

Your process of growth, then, is a progressive rising-above the stumbling blocks that limit the expression and experience of your real self (yes, this is "humanism").

Humans evolved as a cooperative, if clannish, species. In our own local social group (and I include conservative humans in this) we DO trust each other, and we DO do right by one another -- by and large. It's when we view the person we are interacting with as a member of SOME OTHER GROUP, that we can start feeling okay about screwing them.

This all ties in strongly with the "secular religion" of America -- Corporatism. The "market" views us all as individual members of an atomized "economy" of competing interests. In this view, we have to screw other people first, because we "know" that's what they are planning to do to us. And as long as Corporatism rules our spirits, it's likely enough that other people ARE planning that, because there is no provision for cooperation in the market -- unless it's collusion to screw over some third party.

How sad, to think of people and culture this way. In this view, we are ALL strangers to one another. Perhaps we could still function as resource-sharing tribes at the individual family level (but perhaps not, as steeped as we are in "competitiveness"). But at ALL other levels of our society, we are conditioned to think of EVERYONE around us as rivals, competitors that must be conquered or outwitted, to make sure we can get even our most basic needs met.

Groups banding together in common cause are the natural enemy of Corporatism, and are thus discouraged and ridiculed. One of the telling moments of Sarah Palin's "campaign" (read: extended hateful diatribe) was when she made fun of Obama's (stellar, by all accounts) community organizing experience. Her sarcasm was priceless; why on earth would someone want to organize a community? As if the very idea of common cause was unutterably ridiculous to her.

But there is another way, as hard as it is for some Americans to think on it. Start thinking of everyone else as your partner in making the world go around, and the landscape changes. You become more forgiving of faults, mistakes, and foibles; both your own and those of people around you. You don't expect others to be saints, but see how everyone, by and large, is simply doing their best with what they have, and doing what they think they need to do. Sometimes those impulses are uninformed or incomplete, but that's human nature. Forgiveness emerges, as a lens through which to view your own actions, and those of the people around you. Judgement becomes less of an imperative, as you start trusting others to look after their own spiritual health; less need for outside imposition of morality.

After you make such a change in your thinking, there is much less need for a divine overlord, to keep people on the "straight and narrow." Sure, it would be "nice" if people could be perfect, but why try to MAKE them perfect, when they are continually working on themselves to be better anyway? There's no need to impose morality, outside of basic legal protections. People will naturally get as close to "perfection" as they are able; and they'll get there on their own schedule. No pushing will work in that regard anyhow; because people (like me!) dig in their heels, when pushed somewhere they are not ready to go.

Relax, we're all on the road together. It's perfectly all right with me, if you believe in Gawd. I would never try (or want) to change your beliefs. But it is EXTREMELY NOT ALRIGHT with me, when you try to force on me, either your beliefs, or behavioral standards based solely on those beliefs. If I believe as you do, I'll take care of my own behavior. If I don't believe as you do, I'll take care of my own behavior.

In either case, MY behavior is of NO CONCERN to you, unless you are actually hurt by it -- and religious hurt feelings don't count for that, by explicit provision of the Constitution.