Merry Christmas vs. Happy Holidays

Many thanks to my opponent for beginning this debate. Rebuttal -- I'll begin by citing my opponent's claim, "Many have successfully argued that the term should be changed to 'Happy Holidays' because such a statement expresses a religiously neutral perspective and is an inclusive term." I negate. Saying "Happy holidays" to someone insinuates that they are celebrating one of three holidays: Christmas, Hanukkah or Kwanzaa. Christmas and Hanukkah are both religious holidays, while Kwanzaa is an African cultural holiday [1]. Now because Kwanzaa is an African tradition, we can assume that it is mostly black people who celebrate Kwanzaa, and black people make up 12.8% of the population [2]. Atheism is the 3rd largest religious belief group in the world [3] and slightly more than 20% (so more than 1 out of 5) do not believe in God in the United States [4]. Therefore, if you say "Happy Holidays" to someone - especially a white person - you are implying that they are celebrating a religious holiday. So I ask - why is it considered rude by the government, businesses, etc. to say "Merry Christmas" to someone? The answer is that it implies that they believe in Jesus/God. However, saying "Happy Holidays" to someone implies that they are celebrating a religious holiday... i.e. that they believe in Jesus/God, so wouldn't that be considered equally as rude? Also, if they say it to a black person implying that they celebrate Kwanzaa, this too assumes that black people are celebrating something from the African culture which can be seen as biased as most black people here consider themselves American - not African. So back to my opponent's two points, he first says that saying "Happy holidays" includes all religion and faiths. This is wrong. As I've already mentioned, it does not include the faith in no God (atheism). Furthermore, after Christianity, the most popular religions in order are Islam (then agnosticism/atheism), Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, etc. [5]. In fact, Judaism is 12th on that list. Therefore, the phrase "Happy holidays" implies that everyone is either Christian or Jewish when the reality is that there are a dozen more beliefs in between. In other words, the term "happy holidays" does not apply to those who are religious but not Christian/Jewish because that time of the year is generally non celebrated in other faiths. In conclusion, when Con notes, "A non-Christian that receives the message 'Merry Christmas' could certainly feel their faith is being excluded or just under-considered," he is forgetting that saying "Happy Holidays" does the exact same thing to people. In other words, it is no better to say "Happy holidays" than "Merry Christmas" because both terms can be considered offensive or exclusive. Furthermore, Con is is ignoring people's right to free speech. There is nothing immoral, dangerous or even explicitly rude about saying "Merry Christmas." If one chooses to take offense to it, then that is their prerogative. That's all for now - Back to Con, and good luck. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org... [2] http://quickfacts.census.gov... [3] http://atheistempire.com... [4] http://northstatescience.blogspot.com... [5] http://www.adherents.com...