The War on Christmas Exists

I will begin by pointing out a few things Pro has said that are incorrect regarding the nature of this debate: 1) Pro claims I did not state one must contact me before accepting. What I said was "if you'd like to be Pro is this debate, please state your case in the comment section or message me". Pro did neither. 2) In the opening post I clarified that I would use my round 2 argument for my opening argument only, meaning I would not offer rebuttals to Pro's post until round 3 of this debate. Pro seems to have ignored my opening post on multiple levels and just went straight in to arguing what he felt was the point of this debate. The entire reason I asked to be contacted (and meant to have this debate impossible to accept) is to avoid someone trying to debate from a stand point that would lead to a pointless debate. I did offer a very brief argument in my 'opening arguments' round, but I was not going to waste a ton of time putting forth an argument that agrees with Pro on the majority of points. Pro tries to use a definition of defeat that is not a common use for the word. When someone says we are starting a war in order to stop or defeat you, who would focus only on the word defeat and then assume that it simply means to try to diminish the importance of something? Here are the top definitions of the word defeat: - to win a victory over (someone or something) in a war, contest, game, etc. - to cause (someone or something) to fail - to control or overcome (something) [1] I do not know where Pro got his definition of defeat, but it is not on any dictionary site that I looked into and Pro offered no source as to where he obtained his definition. The reason I gave Pro the option of forfeiting this debate or us getting it cancelled is because he opted to argue an obscure definition of the word defeat that results in us basically arguing the same thing in most cases. Having said that, if Pro wants me to carry on with this debate, I will do so in order to show why Pro's unwillingness to comply with the request I made in my opening round has resulted in a mess of a debate. Rebuttals: 1) I agree with Pro on this point. There are movements to push Christmas celebrations out of the public sphere. There is no reason that everyone in the world should be forced to celebrate a holiday in which only specific groups actually believe. Trying to diminish the importance and prevalence of a religious holiday is not a war on that holiday though. If Christians are allowed to post signs and nativity scenes regarding their specific beliefs, so are others. Moving Christmas out of the public sphere is not trying to defeat Christmas, nor is it trying to put an end to Christmas. It is an attempt to equalize things for everyone involved. The Christian community is massively privileged in North America. There are publicly funded Catholic schools in Canada [2][3]. Major Christian holidays are national holidays in both Canada and USA, while no other faith has a religious holiday recognized nationally [4][5]. In two countries that do not declare any one specific national faith (despite what many Christians might say) [6], the government has created national holidays based on Christian beliefs. As I stated in my brief opening argument in the first round: "a movement for equality is not a war on the privileged majority." In other words, trying to have the influence of Christmas be diminished is not an attempt to stop or defeat Christmas, it is a move to have Christmas treated like other religious holidays, rather than have it treated as something better than the rest. Points 1a-1g) These are all examples of people trying to diminish the role of Christmas in the public eye. No one, however, is trying to force people to stop believing in God or celebrating Christmas. Yes, groups are posting their beliefs on Christianity, the same way that Christian groups constantly try to convert others to their faith, or scare them into believing [7] [8]. Is this a war on atheism or secularism? No. The nature of religious beliefs (or lack there of) is to want other people to believe what you believe, but trying to convert non-believers of your faith is not waging a war on another faith, and this debate is not even about faith vs faith. This debate is about non-Christians not wanting to be forced into celebrating a holiday that has nothing to do with their faith. No large organization is trying to put an end to Christmas, as people will always be allowed to celebrate their religious holidays in the comfort of their own homes. Trying to diminish the importance of Christmas on a national level, to the extent that it is treated more on par with other religious holidays, is not a war on Christmas. 2) I already addressed much of what Pro argues in this section, but I do want to point out two things in particular: a) The blog post that Pro sites, regarding the ties between the War on Christmas and Pearl Harbour, makes many valid points in favour of my argument. Specifically, when it states that many people claim that Christmas (and Christianity) are the dominant culture of America, and because of that, we should just accept that Christmas is a cultural thing in America, not a religious one [9]. The author is not trying to say that Christmas is like Nazism. The author is pointing out the danger in a group trying to force their views on others, purely because those views are already held by the majority. Asking non-Christians to shun groups that push for the dominant Christian culture makes sense if you are not a Christian. Why would you want to be forced to practice something in which you do not believe? b) There is an article Pro posts that likens nativity scenes to a Star of David or Muslim Crescent [10]. In what world are those similar? Two of them are single symbols representing a faith and the other is an entire scene depicting the birth of their saviour. When schools start outlawing crosses (the equivalent of the star or crescent) or if those same schools allow depictions of scenes specific to another faith, then maybe one can start screaming for inequality. In conclusion for this round, I hope I have made my views on this more clear. The move to diminish the importance of Christmas in the public sphere is not a war on Christmas, it is a move towards equality. Christmas is held up on a pedestal above all other celebrations. This is a movement towards equality. Since it would be completely unreasonable to attempt to bring all other religious holidays up to the same level of prominence that Christmas continues to maintain, the only realistic option is to diminish the importance of Christmas so that it can be treated like the important holidays of every other faith... which would be that it is important to the people who follow that faith, but not forced down the throats of the millions who don't. The FFRF are aggressive about their views, but they are not focused on stopping the Christian practice of Christmas. They are merely moving to enforce the idea of separating Church and State. When a government endorses a specific holiday or religious celebration, it is showing favouritism to that specific faith. I haven't seen any articles showing that the FFRF are attacking churches or religious groups for promoting their faith. All examples provided by Pro are in reference to government organizations promoting Christian ideals. As I stated in my brief opening argument, a movement for equality is not a war on the privileged majority. This point was left alone by Pro. I also likened the move to diminish the importance of Christmas to Women's Rights or Civil Rights movements. Would Pro be willing to argue that the Women's Rights movement was a war on men, or the Civil Rights movement was a war on white people? This is the most important part of my argument and I hope that Pro will address this. I, unlike Pro, will not attempt to assume what my opponent is going to argue though. I will wait to see what he has to say first. The reason I claimed that this debate was pointless, and the reason I urged Pro to forfeit, is because Pro ignored my request in the opening round and started debating me on a topic that we both technically agree on. We both agree that there is a movement to diminish the importance of Christmas in the public sphere. If Pro had contacted me prior to this debate as I requested, we would not be having this debate right now. The only point of contention here is whether a move to diminish the importance of Christmas should be constituted as a war. If Pro insists on having this debate, the points about groups trying to diminish the importance of Christmas are irrelevant, since we both agree that it is happening. The BOP is on Pro to show that this is in fact a war. My argument is that it is not a war, it is merely a push for religious equality. [1] http://www.merriam-webster.com... [2] http://www.thestar.com... [3] http://news.nationalpost.com... [4] http://en.wikipedia.org... [5] http://en.wikipedia.org... [6] https://www.au.org... [7] http://wp.patheos.com.s3.amazonaws.com... [8] http://wp.patheos.com.s3.amazonaws.com... [9] http://scienceblogs.com... [10] http://www.csmonitor.com...