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Originally Posted by sclitheroe
Maybe you are overlooking the fact that giving gifts in the month of December is a very ummm...CHRISTIAN tradition?
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Well actually no, it predates Christianity by quite a bit. Celebrating Jesus' birthday on December 25th was done specifically so that Romans who had feasts celebrating the god of agriculture and could switch to Christianity without loosing their feasts and time of celebration.
Celebrating in December far predates Christianity.
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So - more to my point, is that all altruistic actions imply a faith and belief in _something_ (that or they aren't altruistic, if you just do it to make yourself feel better, you've missed the point in the first place), so really, all of these programs can be described as being "religious" in a broader sense.
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That's silly, there are many altruistic deeds and organizations that have no religious factor in them. Altruism can exist perfectly fine without faith.
That said, as long as they are up front with what they are doing then I have no problem with it, though I don't really agree with it (meaning if I was setting up a charity to give gifts to needy children, I wouldn't try to use that to spread my personal beliefs, it seems distasteful to me).
People can then decide if they want to support the program, or choose another program that doesn't use their aid packages to try to convert people.