and a merry christmas to you

i'm going to try really hard to not get into the whole arguement of whether or not we should say "merry christmas" or "happy holidays" or take down the trees or hang every symbol we can find. i was raised in a household where christmas meant a tree with tinsel and a turkey, and that was about it. i don't even remember ever believing in santa, disappointing as it sounds. so i'm one of those people who's not going to be offended either way. at the same time, i'm aware that other people do have strong beliefs when it comes to things like that, and my judgement of their "overreaction" is about as useful as the overreaction itself. but here's the thing:

i see this article in the new york times this morning. basically a teen didn't like the fact that his teacher was "preaching" in class, and tape recorded eight different classes, and in one of them the teacher said:

“If you reject his gift of salvation, then you know where you belong,” Mr. Paszkiewicz was recorded saying of Jesus. “He did everything in his power to make sure that you could go to heaven, so much so that he took your sins on his own body, suffered your pains for you, and he’s saying, ‘Please, accept me, believe.’ If you reject that, you belong in hell.”

to a classroom of students, mind you. and i'm gonna have to go out on a limb here and say not all of those students are christians, in whatever form their teacher thinks they should be. which sucks if you ask me. and right now it appears as though everyone's mad at the student if i were a high school kid and my teacher told me i was going to hell in the middle of class, i probably would have broken down in tears, especially coming from an authority figure like that. i mean, really? this from a man who's supposed to be teaching a class about the constitution, of all things. nice one, mr. paszkiewicz.