“Merry Christmas” is, by definition, an all inclusive phrase*

*in America (or any other nation where it’s a national holiday).

Got this response on a Facebook comment after I told this guy “Merry Christmas”. He’s a militant atheist, and puts that ahead of making sense. Here’s his reply:

Telling people who don’t believe in Jesus or celebrate the holiday “Merry Christmas” is, by definition, EXCLUSIVE because the term only applies to a single holiday whereas “Happy Holidays” applies to all of the various celebrations.

“Merry Christmas” shifts the emphasis onto the exclusively religious aspects of the holidays. Since lights, trees, mistletoe, holly wreaths and yule logs, Santa, etc. all have non-Christian origins, it makes no sense to exclude non-Jesus freaks with your language.

Not everyone in America believes in Jesus, or wishes to celebrate a pagan holiday that was stolen by Christians.

My full response:

Telling people who are living in or visiting a nation “Happy [NATIONal holiday]” is by definition INCLUSIVE.

The national holiday of Christmas is celebrated many ways. I’d explain that to you, except you’re not 5, so I know you already know that and thus are lying to justify your baseless exclusion in the name of doing the reverse.

I didn’t ask and don’t care about your preference for the phrase “happy holidays”, so it’s a red herring to argue its superiority when the topic at hand is your factually baseless disdain for the inclusive term “Merry Christmas”. Keep saying HH if you like it, but don’t lie about the definitional inclusiveness of MC. thats all.

Not everyone has to believe all our presidents are worth honoring for Presidents day to apply to them and not everyone has to be thankful for anything for a happy Thanksgiving to apply to them. This is such elementary logic that it’s silly for me to have to explain.

If you approached issues with less bigotry and an open mind that is willing to put facts ahead of ideological dogma, you wouldn’t be in the jerky position of rejecting a pleasant greeting and the fail position of attempting to justify it with anything other than emotion.