Merry Christmas, God Bless Us Everyone!

Hope you had a great Christmas.
There are those who think a great Christmas is when sales tax receipts for cities, towns and municipalities increase at 10% or more.
Nope. It's about the belief in a woman who was told she would bear the Son of God. A young Jewish girl who believed. Later, probably in March or April, but we celebrate it in December around the beginning of Winter, the birth of Noel and God became flesh.
There are those that remind us that Jesus was merely the son of a carpenter, an upstart who explained his Father in Heaven wanted people to live differently.
Before Jesus, and in some religions since, religion was based on fear. You should be scared to death and suffer. Everything you have had happen to you is because of a vengeful God.
But Jesus, a Jew, said love one another be happy. The commandments said that, but there was so many "Thou Shall Not's" that people forgot about the good things.
Others criticize Jesus and Christians because they don't believe the Jews should have the land that God gave them. To be fair, someone sleeping on a rock and dreaming that God said this was your land would be pretty sweet.
I had a dream that some guy's Ferrari was really mine, but I don't think he's going to let me take it home.
That's really the heart of the battles that have plagued the middle east for 5 centuries or more.
Then there are those who believe that God is God, and God can't become man.
They say that those who believe that God's Son was born not only is blasphemous, they say that those who believe that way are multi-theistic, like the Greeks or Romans.
Does it matter what others say? No, what matters is allowing everyone their rights to believe what they believe just as long as they don't hurt others who believe differently. Religious tolerance is the key to democracy and religious freedom.
United we stand, divided we fall. If we take our faith personally, and reject those who attempt to force their religion on us----those who boast it's their way or the highway----then we win. If we let those who believe we are wrong because we believe a certain way---everyone loses, especially religious freedom.