The fucking arrogance of these religious boneheads
knows no bounds.

My wife works at a bank and had a few people become irate at the fact that she didn't automatically wish them a merry Christmas. She's not Christian.

As a Christian, you should know that Christ's "birthday" was decided in 325 AD at the Council of Nicaea, so as to better curry favour with the followers of the pagan god Mithras, who was "born" on Dec 25. As a Christian, you might want to spend more time brushing up on your own mythology, and less time castigating secular publications.

Christ's birthday is in September, I think. I dunno what this guy's got his knickers in a twist about.

Yes, LA Times, may this man's make-believe fantasy of a God forgive you for not wishing a happy birthday to Jesus. Sheesh. You know, maybe they were just being polite and trying NOT to bring up his birthday because he'd be so damn old now it would be embarrassing for him.

They should've gone further and pointed out how Christmas and Easter are both just appropriated and repackaged holidays from older religions.

Aw, fuck, @6, the entire religion is appropriated and re-packaged from other religions.

@6 All religion is appropriated from other religions. In fact, the Roman Emperors spread rumors that they, themselves, healed the sick and gave sight to the blind, as "witnessed by others" to convince people they were gods. And many religions before Christianity had virgin births and human and god couplings that produced gods to worship.

I am mortally offended that some public dinners offered by the City do not automatically have spaghetti and meatballs, as His Noodliness commanded.

Also, what's up with the lack of Pirates?

Granted, I am old. And I came from literally the middle of nowhere. But I can't remember people being so self-righteous about Christianity when I was growing up.

Maybe it was because almost everyone was Christian (although we did have a synagogue). Maybe it was because letters like this, and in those pre-internet days they were letters, were just discarded by whoever opened them.

Granted, the paper in town did put a huge "Merry Christmas" across the top of the front page, and the rest of the front page was always a saccharine depression-era "Christmas memory" article, usually written by my Uncle Harry Vel-DuRay (which always irritated his brother - Papa Vel-DuRay - because the "memories" were both totally fictional, and made the family out to be just one step above living in Hooverville. When he and Mother Vel-DuRay did their day-after-Christmas mall walking, their friends would always tease them about it. Uncle didn't live there anymore, so he didn't care.)

But honestly - church in those days was just church. People were more known by where they worked, or what lodge they belonged to. God just didn't come up that much in conversation.

@10: I read an interesting article about what happened when sheltered small-town kids moved to exurbs and started brushing up against folks who weren't just like them. They became alienated and angry, right quick, especially after listening to a lot of right-wing radio. If this letter writer had just stayed in Slumberville instead of moving to Riverside County, he could have seen "Merry Christmas" on the front page of the Slumberville Post (now defunct) insteading of being disappointed at its absence on the front page of a metropolitan daily.

If I were Jesus -- and I'm not saying I'm not -- I'd be pretty nonplussed that people treated the day of my baby shower like it was the first coming.

Jesus.

i also happen to know that our lord is sick and tired of not getting any cake on his birfday.
oh ..and red velvet is his favorite.

If Jesus were alive today he'd punch that guy right in the face!

poor persecuted majority religion! only 40% of the total american population believes in the literal truth of the opening chapter of your 2000 year old book! what a world, what a world...

Validate my beliefs on the front page or I will write an angry letter!

i asked them to print a giant photo of my anus too and they wouln't. any anus would do

Riz Dear, when I was a wee one, my Mother used to buy a "baby Jesus birthday cake" every year: White cake with white frosting, and she'd put "Happy Birthday Jesus" on it, with a single candle. We'd have it for dessert at our Christmas dinner.

Of course, Jesus never got to eat any of it, but it's the thought that counts, isn't it?

@18: Jesus needs to watch his figure else he's liable to slide right off them nails.

Dear Times: I am writing to express my profound indignation at your failure to publish the customary yuletide image of Ygdrassil, the World Tree, from which great Odin hung for nine days, pierced by a spear, in order to obtain the sacred Runes. This omission is a disgrace not just to your publication, but to all mortals who dwell here in Midgard.

@ 18 cat..see ?.. your moms ?.. she's got the the gift..and
@19.. * tee hee ...snicker...snort*.....

@3 the date for the celebration of the Christ's birthday has more to do with an older tradition related the Solstice and Saturn (later Sol Invictus) than specifically Mithras.

Nicaea was more to define the divinity and pre-existence of Christ (Arianism), not to cater to Mithraic cults. The date of the celebration had already been around for hundreds of years before that. Being a Christian doesn't make you blind to history and immediately intolerant and ignorant.

"As a 1st century Christian, I ask that Jesus' Dad forgive Disney & Co. for their egregious opportunism on the occasion of Jesus Christ's birth celebration." -- Charles Y. Farley

In other words, "Fuck you, Eisner."

He threw a bunch of people like Eisner out of the temple for doing what Disney & Co. does best: separating people from their hard-earned dollars and returning nothing to them.

@23, Michael Eisner hasn't worked for Disney for more than five years.

Your avatar, and your habit of quoting yourself in the third person, makes me wonder if you're maybe a good buddy of our own Will in Seattle? You sound like him, kind of; only less mature. I'm guessing fourteen?

@22 "Being a Christian doesn't make you blind to history and immediately intolerant and ignorant."

I'd beg to differ. Perhaps, you, like albino squirrels, are the exception to the rule.