Atheism & Christmas

[Tinkerbell]

Here's something I was thinking about at work earlier. Christmas seems to be the only really religious holiday celebrated by atheists. Even if they don't celebrate it in a religious sense, it's still an event. Why is that? Are there any atheists on the board that celebrate Christmas? If so, how and why?

It just peaked my curiosity. You don't see people who aren't Jewish celebrating Hanukkah (sp?) for the most part. This really seems to be specific to Christmas. I don't know.. Anyone care to take a stab at it?

[RogueIce]

Don't most people also have a big Thanksgiving Day dinner (in the US at least)? Is that still more of a religious thing or a general holiday?

[Civil War Man]

Here's something I was thinking about at work earlier. Christmas seems to be the only really religious holiday celebrated by atheists. Even if they don't celebrate it in a religious sense, it's still an event. Why is that? Are there any atheists on the board that celebrate Christmas? If so, how and why?

It just peaked my curiosity. You don't see people who aren't Jewish celebrating Hanukkah (sp?) for the most part. This really seems to be specific to Christmas. I don't know.. Anyone care to take a stab at it?

To channel Lewis Black: The Christians did a better job marketing their holidays. Of course, as he put it, they created a monster.

I think one of the biggest things Christmas has over something like Hannukah is that the Christians borrowed a lot of ideas from other religions that something like Hannukah didn't. Letting the pagans continue with their soltice festivals as normal, only making them call it "Christmas" instead, helps add to the appeal.

Plus, who doesn't like to get a ton of presents? Who cares if it's a guy's birthday or a God's?

Also, Hannukah isn't exactly one of the High Holy Days. Nowhere near the importance of Yom Kippur or Rosh Hashan (probably spelled that last one wrong). Only reason it's widely known is that it falls next to Christmas.

[Tinkerbell]

Don't most people also have a big Thanksgiving Day dinner (in the US at least)? Is that still more of a religious thing or a general holiday?

Unless I've been grossly, grossly misled, Thanksgiving doesn't really have any religious roots.

[Civil War Man]

Unless I've been grossly, grossly misled, Thanksgiving doesn't really have any religious roots.

The holiday doesn't really have religious roots, since it was started by Lincoln during the Civil War to temporarily take people's minds off the horrible self-destructive war that was going on.

The legend associated with Thanksgiving might, in the sense that it was a bunch of Puritans going "Thanks for not killing us all off, God!"

But of course the Puritans outlawed Christmas. Evil liberal commie bastards.

[Plekhanov]

Here's something I was thinking about at work earlier. Christmas seems to be the only really religious holiday celebrated by atheists. Even if they don't celebrate it in a religious sense, it's still an event. Why is that? Are there any atheists on the board that celebrate Christmas? If so, how and why?

Christmas as we know it is the result of Christians hijacking the traditional pagan midwinter festivals that existed long before Christianity did throughout Europe. For example santa, misteltow, pine trees, robins, yule logs & so forth are the symbols have nothing to do with Christianity whatsover but are all sybols of Christmas. Most civilations have periodic celebrations to mark the seasons of the year the midwinter ones tend to be big as thats when people feel most in need of cheering up.

Over the last few centuries Christmas has grown massively & developed in ways largely shaped by commercialisation & popular culture with Christianity barely featured (which is why at this time of the year we always get this tiresome "Christmas has lost it's true meaning" bs from Christian talking heads).

So basically Christmas doesn't have Christian origins nor are most of it's modern day features anything to do with Christianity consequently even the most scrupilously misanthropic athiest has little problem taking part in it.

The history of the thing aside Christmas pretty much takes over our society every December it's kind of hard to avoid so you may as well take part, especially as not doing so would really upset all my friends & relatives.

As for how I celebrate it (the none fundie fun half of) my extended family from all ends of the UK converge on my parents house for a few days & we have a very hectic, crowed, fun & apart from the 2 church goers completely secular family celebration.

It just peaked my curiosity. You don't see people who aren't Jewish celebrating Hanukkah (sp?) for the most part. This really seems to be specific to Christmas. I don't know.. Anyone care to take a stab at it?

If Jews made up a supermajority in western civilisation maybe we everyone would be celebrating Hanuka as it happens they're a small minority so we don't.

[Pick]

I do it simply because there aren't (shock!) atheist holidays, so I'll take the cloest thing possible --the secular Christmas, complete with reindeer, tinsel, and gluttony.


Minor whiny PS- "piqued" interest.

[PrinceofLowLight]

Like Plekhanov said, Christ was kind of tacked onto the existing cross-cultural tradition of a mid-winter feast and gift-giving holiday. Calling Saturnalia Christmas really doesn't change anything.

Generosity, comraderie and family are all very much secular humanist values, and that's what the season is really about. All the religious stuff, regardless of what it's called, is just extra for the people who want it.

[mr friendly guy]

I celebrate it as a secular holiday, ie an excuse to buy gifts for others and myself. In any event, if I were to be rostered on Christmas, I wouldn't really care either. Its not that big a deal to me.

[Shadow WarChief]

I celebrate Christmas mostly because while I may be atheist, the rest of my family is still Christian, and I'm not about to extricate myself from family activities that I've enjoyed since childhood because of it.

[Captain tycho]

Heck, I'm an atheist, and I would celebrate christmas even if the rest of my family didn't. Nothing says fun like getting tons of loot and then eating until you barf.

[Zaia]

Christmas in my family has always been more about showing people you love them through giving gifts than about religion, and I like excuses to show people I care.

I think this belongs more in SLAM, too, so, off it goes.

[Lord Poe]

Like Plekhanov said, Christ was kind of tacked onto the existing cross-cultural tradition of a mid-winter feast and gift-giving holiday.

He was also tacked onto a big wooden cross.

[Jawawithagun]

Like Plekhanov said, Christ was kind of tacked onto the existing cross-cultural tradition of a mid-winter feast and gift-giving holiday.

He was also tacked onto a big wooden cross.

It's all a great big tacky thing.

But beside Christmas I also celebrate the festival of the Great egg-laying Hare - a good secularised Easter.

[Darth Wong]

I ranted somewhere else on the forum about how commercialism is actually necessary to keep Christmas alive. It's much more of a secular holiday than a religious one, and if it was a mainly religious holiday as the Christ-wankers want it to be, then nobody would give a shit about it.

[Frank Hipper]

I ranted somewhere else on the forum about how commercialism is actually necessary to keep Christmas alive. It's much more of a secular holiday than a religious one, and if it was a mainly religious holiday as the Christ-wankers want it to be, then nobody would give a shit about it.

You should find that post and save it, it was one of your finer moments.

Nothing goes so far to prove that particular nugget of insight as the number of Mega Churches closed on Christmas this year.

[speaker-to-trolls]

Christmas is just something (almost) everybody celebrates, there need not be anything religious about a particular occasion for showing you care for other people and generally having a good time.

I think of all the gods who have been associated with Christmas over the centuries as a bit like corporations who sponsor major sporting events:
"This solstice festival is brought to you by Jesus Christ, the ONLY way to save your soul!"

[SCRawl]

I guess in my case Christmas is something my family always celebrated, even though we never went near a church. Now that we have a baby, I expect we'll do the same thing. Old habits die hard.

[Utsanomiko]

I celebrate it because it's a modern comercial holiday, it's a big part of American culture and it's all about giving and family and watching Rankin-Bass specials and eating Dolly Madison cakes...

[Braedley]

I still consider myself a Christian (although that may change in the future), and my family goes to the Christmas Eve services, but outside of that, almost no emphasis is put into the religiousness of the holiday. Being around friends and family is more important, as well as getting (and giving) great gifts.

I s'pose the religious significance is lost on me because Jesus probably wans't even born in December (IIRC, May was the most likely), or in Bethleham (sp), but rather Nazerath (again, sp).

[salm]

Christmas for me is an excuse to get drunk with the guys.

Neither me nor my family does the tree and decoration thing, the singing the presents and so on. Only the eating.

We´re all heathens.

[Rye]

Here's something I was thinking about at work earlier. Christmas seems to be the only really religious holiday celebrated by atheists. Even if they don't celebrate it in a religious sense, it's still an event. Why is that?

The long and the short of it is it's a cultural holiday. Often, if an atheist was brought up in a puritan home, like a Nazarene sect that doesn't celebrate xmas, they won't celebrate it after deconverting.

Are there any atheists on the board that celebrate Christmas? If so, how and why?

Yep, buy presents for family, tinsel, lights, big gaudy tree, big meal, see the relatives, champagne, potentially watch the science lectures on TV, because it's just what the family does.

It just peaked my curiosity. You don't see people who aren't Jewish celebrating Hanukkah (sp?) for the most part. This really seems to be specific to Christmas. I don't know.. Anyone care to take a stab at it?

Well, I take the fun and tradition to be entertaining in their own right, and don't really care about the source mythology it supposedly came from, it's not like it really affects me, is it? This country celebrates it, like it celebrates november the 5th, and i'd probably join in that, even if I were a catholic anarchist or something.

[TimothyC]

I know this has a religious slant that will offend a lot of people here. but here is an arcticle by a christian, against christmas.

Enjoy!


Originally Published in "On The Way"

16 November, 1996 (Number 91)

By Christopher C. Geer

"No Objection to a Little Winter Festivity"

That's right, I really don't have an objection to a little winter festivity.

In the northern Hemisphere, from mid-November to late December, the days get noticeably shorter and shorter, and the cold weather seems to settle in more and more seriously. It also sees that people may let their moral flag just a bit more easily from time to time.

Thoughts of spring flowers seem to be both far off and at the same time tantalizing to many people. The more avid gardeners begin to plan gardens, pouring over plot plans and seed brochures.

Winter sports enthusiasts buoy their spirits with skies, snowmobiles, skates, ice-fishing tackle and the likes. If the weather has not cooperated yet, then they lick their lips in anticipation.

But, all in all, having a time to get together with loved ones, having a reason to crack open winter foods stored away and cook up a feast, having an opportunity to express love and affection when darkness and cold set in seems like a good idea. Why not institute a feast, a holiday, a reason for a little winter celebratory break, a bit of a winter festivity?

Why, that would be a great idea! People could have something to anticipate. People could displace cold and darkness with kindness. People could combat the increasing darkness with festivity-filled thoughts. People could even decorate their homes - inside and out, if they wanted - with winter motifs, lending life and joy to the winter cold and darkness.

So far it sounds like a good idea. So far, I have no objections. But could it stop there? Nope!

How about if the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ were to be mysteriously plopped in the middle of the proposed winter festivity? Sure it really has nothing to do with the proposed winter festivity, but why let anything as basic as that stand n the way of developing a winter festivity?

How about making the winter festivity just a bit more solid by enforcing the gift-giving idea with a little emotional blackmail? It could even be a two-way piece of emotional blackmail, too. Perhaps that could be worked out.


Maybe something could be tried like making up a story about an old miser who would not give gifts at the winter festivity. He could be visited by a covey of devil spirits purporting to be well-meaning beings who were setting about to educate the mean-souled fellow. That way if someone would try and call foul about plopping the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ into the winter festivity, then no argument would need to be given; that person could just be tagged with the name of this mean-souled old miser.

Ok, that will take care of one side of the two-way emotional blackmail. How about the other side?

Perhaps the idea of giving gifts could be subverted and it could be replaced with the idea that gifts are really wages. Not Bad! That would be something that could be used to undermine understanding important parts of God's Word too. That would couple quite nicely with the idea of devil spirits bring valuable education. But there is still a little something missing.

How about the idea of an all-seeing, all-benevolent overseer! That could be a solution. W could clad him in corporate garb (why not Coca-Cola?) and give him a global mission to judge the moral conduct of mankind. Why get bothered that this is Biblically attributed to the Lord Jesus Christ? Why get bothered that this fellow supplants God? Why get bothered that the understanding of a gift is being eroded - it is all in the name of a worthy cause, a little winter festivity. Why get all concerned that God, His Word, and the Lord Jesus Christ are all maligned - it to is all in the name of a worthy cause, a winter festivity.

What if a frenzy could be whipped up to such a feverish extent that the run-up to the winter festivity could be transformed from simply being a way to dispel dark and cold - which was supplemented with the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ to Give it a little added verve and a spiritual raison d'être despite the fact that it has nothing to do with the case, tra-la - into a major Marketing force witch could be unstoppable.



No, I have not objection to a little winter festivity. But, does it need to be at the expense of God, His Word and the Lord Jesus Christ - not to mention the reason, sanity and dispelling cold dark days with love and a little winter festivity?

[OrneryRooster]

Even though I'm the only athiest in my family, it's still fun to give and receive presents during Christmas. It's all about the family.

Getting a 4 day weekend off from work also helps to make Christmas a fun time.

[PrinceofLowLight]

Like Plekhanov said, Christ was kind of tacked onto the existing cross-cultural tradition of a mid-winter feast and gift-giving holiday.

He was also tacked onto a big wooden cross.

*Ba-dum-ching!*