Dec 10, 2009 By Herald Standard Staff 4 min read

Letters to the Editor In reference to Brandon Szuminsky’s commentary on Nov. 27 concerning a “war on Christmas,” I’d like to say on behalf of Christians that Christmas is not an adopted pagan holiday. We hold this day holy, not like the pagans who celebrated the birth of the sun, but because of the one who created the sun. Christmas (Christ-mass) is the day set aside for the celebration of the birth of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

He is the Prince of Peace, the hope of the world. If only we celebrated his birthday in the way it was intended, the spirit of giving and the attention of all believers would focus on Christ and what a wonderful season it would be.

An atmosphere of peace and goodwill would be created that would affect everyone, believers and pagans alike.

There would be no more mad rush, no more frazzled nerves, no more credit card blues, and maybe those who stubbornly refuse to say “Merry Christmas” might actually have a change of heart.

Rosemary Fike

Uniontown

Legacy of debt

Believe it or not, we have by far surpassed two light years of debt.

By that I mean our present debt in dollar bills has surpassed the amount of miles light travels in two years. As most of you know, light travels 186,000 miles per second or 11.74 trillion miles in two years. Our debt at the end of December of 2009 will stand at 12.1 trillion dollars; or $12,100,000,000,000.

If you’re having difficulty grasping such an amount, try looking at it like this. That much in dollar bills placed end to end would reach the moon and back 2,338 times. That much in dollar bills would stretch around the earth 46,769 times. With that much money you could give every resident of Pennsylvania $1 million. You could give everyone in the world today $1,832.

About 1.05 billion seconds ago we celebrated our bicentennial; 3.6 billion seconds ago, the 20th century began; and 16.7 billion seconds ago, Christ still walked the Earth.

We know the economic cataclysm this is bound to lead to, logic dictates it. It doesn’t take an imagination to see the United States defaulting; and when that happens, our children and grand children will wash their hands of us and rightfully so, for leaving them with the legacy of debt.

Randy Warnick

Smock

Obama criticized I am disappointed

by our President’s sending 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan. It will have a devastating effect. The increase of the troop levels will mean more casualties on the battlefield of our young men and women who are there in harm’s way and their beloved families who bear the burden of fear and grief. The casualties will

not only be those who are killed in action, but those who suffer the worst injuries – the wounds that eventually lead to suicide. We are achieving nothing by sending 30,000 more troops.

Economically we are in a precarious situation, and this surge will mean an additional $30 billion dollars. To me this is absolutely insane. How is this in keeping with the Nobel Peace Prize? My prayers are always

with our President.

Watching him did not inspire me regarding his qualifications as commander-in-chief. It saddened me to see the faces of our young men and women who are part of this deployment. In the end, it is nothing else but what we experienced during the last eight years.

There must be a better way to respond to terrorism. What our President offered is definitely not the answer. We will just make more enemies and sow seeds for the next conflict. I urge other religious leaders of our nation to join me in this call to end the war in Afghanistan.

Johann Christoph Arnold,

Senior Minister of Church Communities International