Sab
On one of your other posts you said 'flipping' as well as in 'flipping heck' so just assumed you were a Brit. My apologies (although they may not be needed )
OGD. Very good post. I 'celebrate' christmas but enjoy all the various cultural influences going back thousands of years that links you to the past.
I would be surprised if you would find any sane non-believer that wanted to change a believer unless they thought that belief was causing genuine harm or the believer was trying to force their views onto them. I think on a personal level most believers and non-believers get on great. The problems arise when society has to make decisions on how to function. How do we educate our children? Gay marriage? Abortion? Euthanasia? I think most non-believers are socially liberal even if they are economically conservative and if we feel an individuals' right to do as they please is threatened by people saying that god wants the world to be a certain way it just gets on our goat. Most of the time we all get on just fine really and are accepting. Accepting someone's belief is the easy part. Letting them decide how you or anyone else is allowed to live their life is the difficult bit. In this regard I don't think that non-believers through or because of their non-belief try to tell other people how to live their lives. Or force it into law.