Xmas or not
From Bellybuttonporn
Okay Atheists, now's the time for the big question: Christmas or not?
First, let me dispel one silly notion often propagated during the holiday season. Folks, there is no "War on Christmas". There just isn't. There's no big Atheist conspiracy trying to remove your holiday from you and stamp out the good times like a heathen, hellbound, Scroogy, Adolf Grinchler.
The fact is, Christmas gets bigger and bigger every year. More and more spending is done every season to placate the consumerist fallacy that presents = love. When was the last time you saw thanksgiving decorations? Yeah, exactly.
Christmas ceased being about December 25th and now takes up a good 2/12ths of our calendar, with no signs of abating. Hy Vee started staging their christmas candy and other seasonal items a week or so before Halloween, and I'm sure they're no exception. The silliness grows.
So, what are we, dyed in the black-sheep wool atheists, to do? On the one hand we hate God, Jesus, sunny days, and kittens. On the other hand, our families might be a little upset if we don't participate in their consumer-driven pagan-borrowed not-actually-religious traditions.
The standard atheist screed against Christmas goes as such:
We shouldn't participate in Christmas because it's a Christian holiday. Christians constantly try to force it into the public square by many means. Some of them are innocent enough; wishing everyone "Merry Christmas" regardless of their beliefs. Some are an insidious co-optation of public funds for sectarian purposes; public displays of blatantly Christian nativity scenes. Most are in-between; the over-abundance of Christmas decoration in our neighborhoods, work, and commercial areas. At the very least, Christians beat their religious holiday into everyone at every turn.
So there's plenty to be mad about. So this war on Christmas business? Still, not happening. Arguing that you should tone it the hell down isn't the same as trying to take your holiday away. We just wish you'd simmah dahn nah.
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Merry Christmas
With that introduction out of the way, let's get this War on Christmas started in earnest, shall we?
Why do we fault Christians for saying "Merry Christmas"? I don't understand it. It's their holiday, and they have freedom of speech. Why get huffy about it, and why only about Christmas? If a Christian says "God bless you!" when you sneeze, do you get bent out of shape? No? Why not?
Now, suppose a Muslim says "God is great!", do we fault him for not saying "God is great, Jesus is great too, and no god at all is also great!" Obviously we don't fault the religious for expressing an honest thought they have. So why isn't "Merry Christmas" the same?
It sure as hell should be. If a Christian tells me "Merry Christmas" it's because she wants me to have a merry Christmas. Nothing more or less. That's not so bad at all. People can say what they want.
There's something to be said about being exclusionary. "Merry Christmas" excludes non-christians. Well, you might have a point that I can't readily address right now. However, as I was getting at in the previous few paragraphs, people say religious things all the time without us taking them as exclusionary. If "Praise be to Allah!" isn't exclusionary (I don't think it is), then why is "Merry Christmas!"? I don't see it, the mere phrase used as a season's greeting, as exclusionary.
Finally, and I think this might just be an aesthetic thing, I'm offended at these ridiculous multi-phrased "inclusive" cards. I find them more exclusive than anything. When someone sends a card that says "Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Joyous Kwanzaa, and Happy Solstice!" it doesn't mean that they actually want you to have a merry Christmas, happy Hanukkah, joyous Kwanzaa, and a happy solstice all at once.
That'd be patently ridiculous! Only if you were a Jewish Christian African (I really have no idea wtf Kwanzaa is) secularist/wiccan would you truly have all those at once. What they really mean is "Merry Christmas! Also, stop whining you fucking whiners!"
Why can't people just have different religions and admit that? Christians want you to have a merry Christmas. Jews want you to have a happy Hanukkah (not really, since it's not a happy holiday, but whatever), and Atheists want you to have a happy Tuesday.
Overt Religiosity Sucks
So here's a bit of the normal argument against public celebration of Christmas:
Christmas is a religious holiday. As such, it shouldn't be propped up by our government. It shouldn't be paid for by non-Christians. And by all means, Christians shouldn't be forcing the rest of us to participate in their sectarian celebration.
Certainly governmental support is right out; public lands, money, or effort (paid for by all and representing all of us) shouldn't be used for religious displays such as nativity scenes. The argument is sometimes extended to things like Christmas Trees. I disagree with that, but I'll explain more about that later. I think since you're reading my weblog we can pretty much agree on that one core point: Public money/land/etc should never go for private religious practice.
But what about stores? What about private people expressing their beliefs? Well, it's not very cool to try to force your beliefs on others, right? Suppose a bunch of Muslims started pushing you around, trying to get you to pray 5 times a day and not eat for a whole month? That'd be ridiculous. Sure, Christmas isn't that bad, but there are still some pretty deep social pressures that you might not experience living within the Christian viewpoint.
When everyone around you is talking about Christmas, and everywhere is decorated for Christmas, it makes anyone who doesn't celebrate that holiday or isn't Christian an outsider. The things a community chooses to do together help define it; Boone has Pufferbilly days, Pella has a tulip festival, Chicago dyes the whole damn river green for St. Patrick's day, etc.
The United States celebrates Christmas. If you're not down with Christmas, get the fuck out!
It's Commercialized Anyhow
Besides, our learned Atheist friends remind us, Christmas isn't really a religious holiday anyhow. So you shouldn't get all worked up celebrating it. It's a pagan ritual to begin with, you shouldn't take my bah-humbuggery as a direct affront to your lord and savior, lord baby lord jesus laying peacefully in the manger, lord, amen.
This is true, for two reasons.
First, Christmas is really an amalgam of pre-Christian rituals and marketing. The tree is from pagan fertility rituals. A common practice for religions trying to gain converts is to take over or coopt the local holidays to make the new religion seem more familiar to the converts. To be fair, this isn't just an "ooooh you sneaky Christians!" thing: Pretty much all religions do it. But anyhow, there's almost no chance that Jesus was born on December 25th. No pregnant woman would be walking around at that time of the year, and likewise no herdsman worth a damn would have animals out to pasture in the winter like that; the story doesn't add up. Still, being infinitely generous, there's a 1/365 chance Jesus was born on Christmas. Wouldn't that suck anyhow? You're going to be crucified in 33 years and every year you get screwed out of gifts. "This frankincense is for your birthday and Christmas!"
Santa Claus is a newly-improved and updated version of Sinterklaas and didn't even wear a red suit until Coca Cola started using him for an advertising campaign. Why red? To match their corporate logo, of course! I'd go on, but you're a big kid and perfectly capable of reading that wikipedia article yourself.
Now, look what Christmas has become (been all along?): It's brazenly used as a general-purpose advertising platform by any retailer with half a brain. They don't even hide the fact; retailers calculate how much they're likely to make in the upcoming holiday season and then plan on that income. They carefully consider advertising campaigns to divorce consumers (that's us...everyone) from their dollars, and Christmas is the lever they use for that. Every possible consumable item from baby clothes on up to Lexuses are touted as the "perfect" christmas gift for your loved one! They can't all be perfect gifts. Well, this one is, but that's about it. From the plain view of what all this means, there's nothing religious in how we (as Americans) celebrate Christmas.
At its very heart and origins (as we now know the ritual) Christmas is a blatant power-grab designed to fool natives into joining Christendom, festooned in great swaths of corporate branding. What room is there for something as humble as the Son of God in all that unabashed cynical manipulation to liberate pagans from their pantheon and consumers from their cash?
So doesn't it make sense to just do away with it?
Wait, back up
No, it doesn't make sense. Let's put it all together.
A. Christmas is a religious holiday and thus shouldn't receive the attention it gets in the public square.
B. Christmas as celebrated today by the vast majority is completely commercial and secular, so Christians shouldn't be personally upset if a few people sit it out.
Can you see the contradiction there?
The argument simply doesn't hold water as a general-purpose indictment of Christmas. I think the second argument can be switched around to be used in favor of public celebration of Christmas; that it's a secular holiday (much the same as Thanksgiving) and thus is a-ok for public celebration.
Just because this line of argumentation doesn't work to bah-humbug Christmas as a whole doesn't mean that everything overzealous Christian merrymakers do is kosher. While I don't have a problem with christmas trees (secular) we still have the problem of them trying to shoe-horn nativity scenes into public lands (sectarian). That's still bad. Officially recognizing christmas as a holiday? That's fine, but couching it in religious language isn't cool.
Just because the event itself is secular (the purchase and exchange of gifts near a pine tree) doesn't mean that everything you do during that event is secular. It's obviously possible to inject sectarian nonsense into any secular activity; witness any kid praying before a math test in public school. So long as we take a reasonable and pragmatic approach to it, I see no problem with the public celebration of Christmas. Not just "Happy Holidays", but honest-to-whatever Christmas.
So instead of fretting over what you, a fine updating Atheist brimming with moral character, should do, rather, enjoy the fruits of the season. If you really want to celebrate Christmas go right ahead. If you'd rather not, then that's fine too. After all, that's what we're really after, right? The freedom to do and believe what we want?
And this atheist wants the freedom to get a fat bag of loot on the morning of the 25th.
