MAMA SAID EAT YOUR VEGETABLES

There's been a big stink on the cable news the last couple days over the "secularization" of Christmas, of the "taking of Christ out of Christmas". I could probably write 10,000 words on all the ways I think this is bullshit, but this blog has a formula that I strictly adhere to, so here are two gripes:

• I submit to you that there are two Christmases, the Christian Christmas, and the Secular Christmas. If you're honest with yourself, you will acknowledge that the second is the bigger of the two. I saw a thing on TV where a bunch of hallelujahs from SC are boycotting stores that say Happy Holidays instead of Merry Christmas ... wow. Talk about crossing your wires on give unto Caesar what is Caesar's. Honestly, do you think Jesus gives a fuck about what the MALL is doing? And if you're really such a Christian, why are you in the mall in the first place? You should be out feeding the poor, etc. etc.
  
• Gripe the second -- I hate the fucking media. There shouldn't be 1 (one) story about this noise in the news media. The cable news should be doing 12 hours on Iraq, 8 on the economy, and 4 on sports. Maybe a half hour weather, give or take. But since there's nothing else "newsworthy" going on (and by that I mean that nobody has cut a baby out of a woman's stomach, kidnapped a little white girl, etc. in two whole days) this junk gets airtime. All it takes is 100 evangelicals somewhere to sneeze the wrong way and raise some bullshit issue (creationism???) and before you can say four more years it's getting heavy coverage.

Like I said, I have a lot to say about this. Religion can be a very dangerous thing. Religion should be a personal thing, not a civic thing. Religion and politics is a dangerous cocktail -- mix in runaway nationalism and you've got a critical mass. Once personal beliefs start interjecting themselves into the public sphere, democracy suffers. Religion can be dangerous because it promotes a common ideology and stifles dissent. Furthemore, people like to pick symbolic fights, and among the fervently religious, maintaining the proper symbolism is of extreme importance.

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