Theodore Roosevelt hated Christmas trees. As a famous and robust outdoorsman he hated the idea that a living, rooted tree was being cut down for the sake of a few weeks’ time in a bowl of water in someone’s home. He had never allowed a Christmas tree in his home or in the White House.
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"