Word: christian
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However, what some conservative Christians fail to realize when they advocate for the exclusion of non-Christians from the celebration of Christmas is that while Christmas may mean one thing to those who celebrate it in the religious sense, it means something else entirely to those others who are seen as trying to horn in and take holiday cheer that isn’t rightfully theirs. Thanks to the tendency of American society to pick up on cultural traditions and then disseminate them for public consumption, it’s almost inconceivable that any group could expect to keep anything...
...sure, there certainly are a number of strictly religious traditions that go along with the Christian observance of the holiday, such as attending church on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day or prayers of thanksgiving for God’s gift to the world in the form of Christ. However, these are not the traditions that secular and non-Christian individuals have taken up as their own for their celebrations, so it’s difficult to see where the problem with the widespread celebration of this holiday lies...
Ultimately, it shouldn’t really matter to anyone who is celebrating Christmas or why. The way and the reason that an individual and his or her family decides to observe the holiday season is something personal that does not affect anyone but themselves. For non-Christians, the secular celebration of Christmas is not a malicious attempt to dismantle the foundations of Western Christianity. Rather, it is an important expression of their American culture, centered around love for family and friends, spreading good cheer, and the spirit of giving, which some might even say are Christian ideals...
...fact that non-Christians celebrate Christmas does not take anything away from the religious beliefs that, for most, the holiday is based. Last I heard, no Christian ever suddenly stopped believing in Jesus because a Muslim person wished them "Merry Christmas" or decorated an evergreen tree in December. Rather than begrudging non-Christians their own celebrations of Christmas, it seems more productive and much kinder to simply be grateful for the positive effects that the holiday season has on everyone. After all, the more the merrier...
...twentieth century saw more than its fair share of both wicked men, and individuals who countered their iniquity with crusades of justice. Pinochet, I believe, was a bit of both, but for the most part one of the latter. Pinochet—a devout and caring Christian man with an understanding of the dangers of radical socialism—deserves the respect from democrats the world around for his fight for freedom from tyranny in South America...