Facebook Affirmations, Vol. IV

In my news feed on Facebook I will be served a daily dose of Christian affirmations from friends.  In this series of posts, which I call “Facebook Affirmations™,” I will post and discuss some of these gems. Here’s the affirmation for today:

Just so everyone knows, I have a CHRISTMAS TREE in my living room (not a holiday tree), my kids are getting CHRISTMAS PRESENTS (not holiday gifts) and we will eat CHRISTMAS DINNER (not a holiday meal), and I will attend a CHRISTMAS PARTY (not a holiday party). I will also very cheerfully wish you a MERRY CHRISTMAS! (not… happy holidays). By the way, if you want to have a Happy Hanukah , by all means do, I respect that. If you want to have a Blessed Kwanzaa, I also respect that. I want to have a Merry Christmas, so I ask YOU to respect that! Repost if you agree!!yes i agree with every words this message has to say. so hear go for all my friends and family. MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL.

Oh, the “War” on Christmas!  Where do I begin?

First of all, as usual, this post is riddled with grammatical and spelling errors.  At this point it doesn’t surprise me but it still really annoys me.  If you cannot properly spell Hanukkah then it’s perfectly clear you haven’t put in even the tiniest effort to “respect” it.  Honestly, even looking up the proper spelling wouldn’t have taken more than ten seconds out of your day.  Your capitalization, punctuation, and sentence structure are a travesty.  By the way, it’s spelled “h-e-r-e.”  You’re welcome.

Second, African-Americans who celebrate Kwanzaa don’t say, “Blessed Kwanzaa.”  The traditional greeting is, “Joyous Kwanzaa.”  Do you want to know how I know this?  I spent 15 seconds looking it up.  You could have looked it up too.

Third, putting things IN ALL CAPS doesn’t make it look any less crazy, OK?  It’s perfectly reasonable to think that you can drive a solid point home in proper case.  Yelling doesn’t make you more correct, it makes you more abrasive.  We understand that you want to have a Merry Christmas and I seriously doubt that any of us will disparage you that.  Put up your tree, buy your presents, cook your turkey, and have your party.  Seriously, knock yourself out!  We’ll all be doing the same, we just won’t be doing it because we think there’s a magic man in the sky who rose from the dead and will be coming back to Earth to destroy it and throw a demon into a bottomless pit.  We’ll be doing it because we value family and friends and time away from work to enjoy the simple pleasures in life.

Fourth, if you can say, “Merry Christmas” to people of other faiths and expect them to respect that you’re saying it out of good intentions then you’re nothing short of a massive hypocrite for being offended if someone says, “Happy Holidays” or, “Happy Hanukkah” to you.  What you’re proposing is not mutual respect.  You’re proposing that everyone respect your religion exclusively while conceding to you the right to disrespect theirs!  If you can’t see that’s the case then you’ve got a serious mental defect.  You have the right to say, “Merry Christmas” to other people and expect them not to get offended.  In exchange for that right, other people have the right to say, “Happy Hanukkah” or, “Joyous Kwanzaa” or, “Go Screw Yourself” and expect you not to get offended.  See how that works?  Of course not.

Last, as with any other religious message on Facebook there’s the call to re-post, share, and forward this steaming heap of literary feces.  How else would I see these things unless the flock of sheep did as they were told and tried to make a difference by spreading a message of intolerance, exclusion, and arrogance all over the Internet?  It baffles me that someone would see a message like this and think, “Wow, this is a really good example of how Jesus Christ would want me to behave so I’m going to forward it to everyone to show them how loving and caring I am as a humble Christian who longs for world peace?”  Anybody?  Anybody?  Bueller?

So, of course, some of my religious Facebook friends shared it on their wall.  It makes me sad, but here’s what these things end up looking like:

Ummm, actually, yes you could have.  I know you and you can actually spell.  Tagging a disgusting re-post with an endorsement like that is nothing short of insulting your own intelligence.  Why not even try to say it better?  While you’re at it, why not try to say it more humbly and compassionately?  I suppose there’s strength in numbers and even when those numbers are being stupid it helps to at least know that you’re in good company.

These posts don’t always devolve into a long chain of comments, but I find that when I do comment on these things I get a lot of holier-than-thou, snappy retorts like this one:

Excuse me, ma’am.  You just commented.  You didn’t refrain at all.  In fact, by telling me that you’re not going to comment you leave the door open for me to interpret your intent however I want!  It’s clear by the way you chose your words that you were going with the, “If you don’t have something nice to say, don’t say anything at all” rule so I’d just have to assume that what you would have said wouldn’t have been very nice.  Congrats on letting everyone know, in not so many words, how much of a spiteful bitch you can be if you didn’t have a deity holding you back.

Let me point you to James 1:26.

If anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his heart, this person’s religion is worthless.

Congrats on your worthless religion.  I hope you have the merriest of Christmases, and try not to fall off of that pedestal after you’ve had some egg nog.

As usual, if you’re religious and you’re reading this I’d love to hear your rebuttals.  If you’re irreligious and you’ve seen some gems and would like to pass them along, please send them to me and I’ll discuss them in future installments.  Until next time, this has been Facebook Affirmations™!