Atheist X-mas

I tend to attribute people with more common sense and intelligence than they actually have. I assume that most people are aware of the real origins of Christmas traditions. I just guess that they know, but they celebrate each tradition in the spirit of the holiday, it’s the thought that counts, doesn’t matter how it started, this is how it is now, blah blah.

I mean, everybody knows that all this christmas stuff isn’t Christian, right? They’re just good at denial and sugar-coating and brainwashing, so everybody thinks it is. Right?

Early Christians didn’t have the hordes of following sheep and twitchy zealots that we see everywhere today. No, they couldn’t make demands, confident that the size of their flock would ensure that they would be pandered to. Indeed, the voting and spending habits of the sheep are an extremely important factor for anyone who has, or wishes to have, power.

So, these early Christians made some compromises, like:

“This Bible thing doesn’t really say a specific date for the birthday. We really don’t like how you pagans insist on celebrating Saturnalia – it’s a pretty raucous party sometimes, guys – but how about if we all decide to celebrate the birth of Christ on the day the Saturnalia ends! See, you still get your party, singing in the streets, drinking, lots of sex, all that stuff. And then on that last day, we’ll teach you some different songs and you can see a nice play with a baby in it and we’ll have cookies and punch after. k?”

In the 4^th century CE, Christianity imported the Saturnalia festival hoping to take the pagan masses in with it.  Christian leaders succeeded in converting to Christianity large numbers of pagans by promising them that they could continue to celebrate the Saturnalia as Christians.(1)

It totally worked, too.

(Because of its known pagan origin, Christmas was banned by the Puritans and its observance was illegal in Massachusetts between 1659 and 1681. Hey, if the Puritans banned it, sounds like a good party to me!)

So…christmas isn’t a christian holiday, it isn’t a ‘white’ holiday, it doesn’t belong to anybody! The Winter Solstice is the Reason for the Season, people!

Modern Christmas customs include: gift-giving and merrymaking from Roman Saturnalia; greenery, lights, and charity from the Roman New Year; and Yule logs and various foods from Germanic feasts.^[50] Pagan Scandinavia celebrated a winter festival called Yule, held in the late December to early January period.(2)

That’s just a smidgen. Mistletoe was sacred to the Druids, who believed it to effect fertility – hence, the kissing. Caroling was part of Saturnalia, but it was done in the nude. Didja know, the Santa we all think of, with the bright red suit, was a sales tool of the Coca Cola company. (they just changed the suit color.)

I know that most people don’t have the inclination and won’t take the time to learn any of this stuff. A whole lotta people are too brainwashed to even listen to it. Can’t help them. But the facts are always good to know. I know that I can celebrate Christmas any way I damn well want to and still be 100% atheist. (totally not going caroling naked. it’s cold out there!)

1- (http://www.simpletoremember.com/vitals/Christmas_TheRealStory.htm)

2- (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas#cite_note-49)

Atheist Christmas

I think there are a million ways that atheists deal with the holidays. Depends on how you grew up, how you came to atheism, how sappy you happen to be. I grew up Christian, Mormon, so I’m used to a traditional Nativity-full Christmas. I learned to play the piano on Christmas songs. I can’t help it if the most beautiful songs are about a fictional baby. They are still beautiful. I would no more deny that, than I’d deny the fact that Michelangelo’s works are miraculous. The ceiling of the Sistine Chapel is not made uglier by the fact that it is a religious building or it’s art is composed of religious subjects. We can view artworks of Native Americans, African and Australian aborigines, cave paintings in France, with an artistic and secular eye, why not Christian Christmas stuff?

I love Christmas. I love the decorations, the lights, the songs, the cards, the goodwill, the celebrations. I know that most holiday traditions are adopted from Pagan ritual, that there is only a veneer of Christianity on the whole holiday. Mistletoe, the tree, the wreath, the gifts, are all pagan in origin. Still religious, but easier for an atheist to deal with because we’re not surrounded by and shit upon by pagans.

more to come…

Crazy Christian Email #1

Yay! A response to one of a gajillion forwardies going around that make me wanna gnaw on lead pipes full of asbestos. I’ve gotten all of them, at least once each from my 3 best friends and twice each from my dad.

Crazy Christian Chain Emails

How is it that a 15 year old child can see what Adults are missing?

WRITTEN
BY A 15 yr. Old SCHOOL KID IN ARIZONA
:

New Pledge of Allegiance (TOTALLY AWESOME) !
Since the Pledge of Allegiance
And The Lord’s Prayer
Are not allowed in most Public schools anymore
Because the word ‘God’ is mentioned….
A kid in Arizona wrote this

NEW School prayer :
Now I sit me down in school
Where praying is against the rule
For this great nation under God
Finds mention of Him very odd.
If Scripture now the class recites,
It violates the Bill of Rights.
And anytime my head I bow
Becomes a Federal matter now.
Our hair can be purple, orange or green,
That’s no offense; it’s a freedom scene.
The law is specific, the law is precise.
Prayers spoken aloud are a serious vice.
For praying in a public hall
Might offend someone with no faith at all.
In silence alone we must meditate,
God’s name is prohibited by the state.
We’re allowed to cuss and dress like freaks,
And pierce our noses, tongues and cheeks..
They’ve outlawed guns, but FIRST the Bible.
To quote the Good Book makes me liable.
We can elect a pregnant Senior Queen,
And the ‘unwed daddy,’ our Senior King.
It’s ‘inappropriate’ to teach right from wrong,
We’re taught that such ‘judgments’ do not belong.
We can get our condoms and birth controls,
Study witchcraft, vampires and totem poles.
But the Ten Commandments are not allowed,
No word of God must reach this crowd.
It’s scary here I must confess,
When chaos reigns the school’s a mess.
So, Lord, this silent plea I make:
Should I be shot; My soul please take!
Amen
If you aren’t ashamed to do this,
Please pass this on.
Jesus said, ‘If you are ashamed of me,
I will be ashamed of you before my Father.’

Not ashamed.

Joseph calls this email “…a complaint about Christians not being allowed to nag other people for their body piercings and other important matters.” Spot on, dude. I’d say it reveals the massive sense of entitlement a lot of Christians have from having been the favored group for so long. They’re spoiled, and like most spoiled people throwing their asses in the air about having to share for once, they can be very childish. Let’s look at this thing, shall we?

WRITTEN
BY A 15 yr. Old SCHOOL KID IN ARIZONA

First off, I’m calling bullshit on this one. If a teenager really wrote this, they either had tons of “help” from an adult or are the lamest teenager ever. The word choice is not that of a young person. At least, not one from this century.

New Pledge of Allegiance (TOTALLY AWESOME) !

Nuh-uh.

Now I sit me down in school
Where praying is against the rule

No it’s not. Really.

If Scripture now the class recites,
It violates the Bill of Rights.

Now? The Bill of Rights was written over 200 years ago, and mandatory prayer/scripture recitation in public school always been a violation of the establishment clause. It just hasn’t been enforced as such until relatively recently.

And anytime my head I bow
Becomes a Federal matter now.

No it doesn’t. If your school makes you, then it is. If you want to pray on your own or with a group of friends outside of class time, that’s totally legal and, as long as you’re not disrupting others, they can’t stop you. You know, freedom scene and all that.

Our hair can be purple, orange or green,
That’s no offense; it’s a freedom scene.

Actually, some schools have had dress codes prohibiting hair dyed unnatural colors. I don’t have any stats off-hand to back that up, but if my high school tried to do it in the 90s, there had to have been others doing the same thing. Totally off-topic, but our administration’s reasoning was that hair dyed colors like green and blue was associated with gang activity. Because our rural Kansas town had such a big gang problem. Student Council went to the school board and got the rule changed, so the one person who had been suspended because of the rule (who was an Alternative guy, not in a gang) could come back to school with his hair green.

For praying in a public hall
Might offend someone with no faith at all.

And heaven forbid (pun intended) we should try to be respectful of others at school. I mean, if someone wants to dress up in a Klan outfit and chase around their African-American classmates with a noose, they totally could, right? Freedom scene, no? No? Okay, then. Adolescence is hard enough without being singled out on a daily basis for not believing the same thing as most of the people around you.

We’re allowed to cuss and dress like freaks,
And pierce our noses, tongues and cheeks..

Again, dress codes. And in what high school are students allowed to just swear any old time? Shit, my high school was pretty lenient (open lunch, no hall passes, off-campus classes and work release that meant there were usually people coming and going in their vehicles and wandering around the school at all times) and we still had that rule. Plus, anyone who would write this is not someone I’d trust to discern what “dress[ing] like freaks” means.

They’ve outlawed guns, but FIRST the Bible.

Wait. The writer is saying it’s a bad thing that teenagers in high school can’t go around carrying guns on their persons like vigilantes? The Old West wasn’t that much fun, and I’ll bet Laura Ingalls never let her students come into the one-room schoolhouse armed with revolvers. And again, the Bible isn’t banned.

We can elect a pregnant Senior Queen,
And the ‘unwed daddy,’ our Senior King.

Please. Everybody knows the popular kids get abortions.

We can get our condoms and birth controls,

Birth controls? And if these schools are just giving out contraceptives, why do we have pregnant Senior Queens? Use that shit, kids!

Study witchcraft, vampires and totem poles.

I think the writer has mistaken learning about something for being taught to accept that thing as a religious belief. Totem poles are a legitimate part of any comprehensive (North) American history class, and there are any number of books, plays, and short stories about vampires and witchcraft that could be included in an English course. For that matter, the Bible can be taught about (as long as it’s not being preached) in a literature or history class. Again, just learning about something doesn’t mean it has to become an integral part of one’s belief system. Also, vampires are imaginary.

It’s scary here I must confess,
When chaos reigns the school’s a mess.

Actually, schools seem to be less lenient these days than they used to be.

So, Lord, this silent plea I make:
Should I be shot; My soul please take!

Two things:
1- I thought you said they’d banned guns.
2- If I get shot, what I’d really like is to be taken to a hospital and be operated on and/or sewn up and survive, not for “the Lord my soul to take.” It’s entirely possible to survive being shot; ask 50 Cent.

If you aren’t ashamed to do this,
Please pass this on.

That again.

Jesus said,
‘If you are ashamed of me,
I will be ashamed of you before my Father.’

Yep, that too.

Not
ashamed.

Okay. We get it. Stop.

Okay, how many times have I had to say this, and in how many ways? When you are asked to respect others’ beliefs/practices/hairdos/whatever, that doesn’t mean that you’re being discriminated against. Having to give up your unearned privilege does not mean you’re being picked on; it means you’re playing by the same rules as everyone else for once. Put yourself in someone else’s shoes, blah blah blah. Score, people:

Untrue/unprovable/just plain dodgy statements presented as fact
Seriously, learn the fucking law pertaining to the First Amendment. If you need help, the ACLU will be glad to let you know all about the issue.
Out of the Mouths of Babes
If this was actually written by a fifteen-year-old, I’ll eat my non-existent hat.
Pass This Along- If You Aren’t Ashamed
Over and over.

More to come, because it makes me feel better.