Although it’s much less profound than the writing here, I have to say that I appreciate the Miss Manners take on “Happy Holidays”: “‘Happy holidays’” is the general greeting because [not everyone is] Christian, but all do get legal holidays for Christmas and New Year’s Day.”
It’s quite unfortunate that more and more employees now have to work on these days, (though we’d hardly want all our ambulance drivers and firefighters to take the the day off) but the sentiment of a simple, shared public holiday is a helpful one.

I thought of this not only because I’m partial to clear-cut answers on burning etiquette questions, but also because questioning value systems more broadly raises a lot more questions about our shared life- in our own community and globally. Religion has long been wrapped up in forming our value systems, but we now can point to nearly universally held truth claims that aren’t exclusive to one religion, or to religion more broadly. If we say *any* truth claim is an act of violence, what do we do with truth claims like “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights”? Perhaps there are times when we need to make some arrogant claims about truth- which I think the conversationalists would agree to!

And if we have some shared values, and even shared values across religions, its fascinating to think of what makes religions different- why do we follow the path we’ve chosen? And can we claim that our religion is true without claiming another one (or refusing to claim one) is false?

I think this could be the first article in a series- thanks for these thoughts and sparking more.