The Immoral Heart of Christmas

If I robbed a bank and you forgave me, would the court let me off the hook? If my father was a child abuser and my uncle forgave him for it, would that make me feel better? If your wife cheated on you and her sister took the blame, would you feel better?

On Christmas Day it seems appropriate to contemplate the meaning of Christianity. Not Christmas, all the cheer and sharing and such – that's all good stuff. I'm talking about Christianity itself.

Even though most Christians are very moral people, and even though Christianity has many redeeming features, ultimately we can't ignore the fact that the message at the very heart of the story of Christmas is ... well, just plain wrong. Flawed. Immoral.

What is that idea? That we humans are deeply and incurably immoral. That we're depraved and sinful. And that we are born in that depraved state. Christianity teaches that from the very first breath we take, we already are in need of forgiveness and redemption. Christmas is about a savior who supposedly fixes all that. (Isn't that a wonderful meme? "You're in bad shape, but we have the cure!")

This is such a twisted, sick way to look at life and love that it's no wonder we have so many problems in the world. But it gets worse. On top of the idea of "original sin" you add the fact that someone besides your victim can forgive you. Who on Earth decided that one person could take the blame for another person's sins, and that would make it OK? That's just a plainly wrong philosophy. The only person who can take the blame for your sins is you. (Actually we know who invented this idea, and it wasn't Jesus.)

Hey, maybe that's why the

Merry Co-opted Pagan Winter Celebration!

First, I'd like to thank all of the people who purchased the Kindle edition of The Religion Virus on Christmas day! There is a certain delicious irony to this, and the day isn't over yet. (I love Kindle – I get up-to-the-minute reports on my sales!)

I was contemplating a complaint about how the pagan Winter Harvest/Solstice celebration has been co-opted by Christmas and Hanukkah. But wait ... I'm not even a pagan. How can I whine about that? So I guess there's not much to do but to go along with the spirit of it! And in spite of my frequent criticisms of the bad that comes from blind religious faith, I do admire the spirit of Christmas.

My favorite Christmas movie is It's a Wonderful Life. But it's ironic: even though it's supposedly about Christmas, there is almost no religion in it. It does have one religious icon, the hapless, somewhat comedic angel named Clarence who escorts the young suicidal banker George Bailey (Jimmie Stewart) into a bleak George-less future. But the core message of Wonderful Life, the part I love the most, is that it shows how each person's life here on this Earth does matter. It shows us that being good and kind to one another is the highest ethic of all.

It doesn't matter whether you are Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, Hindu, Jain or anything else, we can all appreciate this message. We may feel that the world is too huge, and each of us is too insignificant to make any meaningful difference. Recessions, wars, crime, natural disasters ... sometimes it seems like no matter how hard we try, it will all be for nothing. Why bother?

But we do bother, because it does matter.

A million years from today nobody will know who we were. Our existence will have been

Bill Maher on Christmas and Global Citizenship

Other duties call today, so I'll just leave you faithful readers with this. It's Bill Maher from ten years ago, yet it's a perfect message for today. Whatever you celebrate, be it Christmas, Hanukkah, Winter Solstice, the new year or nothing at all, I hope you'll take this message to heart.

Like it or not, we're all global citizens first.

Santa Cruz: My Home Town Displays "Reason Greetings" Banner in Parade!

My home town is making me proud! From the MercuryNews.com:

SANTA CRUZ -- When this year's holiday parade kicks off Saturday morning in downtown, one of the newest additions will be the Atheists of Santa Cruz and Monterey counties, whose members will march down Pacific Avenue with a banner bearing the words "Reason's Greetings."

Other groups sponsoring the banner include Santa Cruz Brights, UCSC Secular Student Alliance and Secular Humanists of Santa Cruz County, a coalition of like-minded individuals who have banded together to publicly express their "non-theist" ideology.

Santa Cruz, for those of you who don't know, is a beautiful little town on California's north coast, about 80 miles south of San Francisco. We've had our share of notariety – a couple mass murders, a mention in a Beach Boys song (Surfin' USA), the home of the University of California Santa Cruz, and as a town that banned nuclear weapons! The town was also severly damaged in the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake.

Santa Cruz is an odd mixture of far-right conservatives and far-left liberals. Back in the 1950s and 1960s,

Did Sex Create the Christmas Bomber?

Did Islam's unnatural and unhealthy teachings about sex turn a normal young Nigerian into a murderer and terrorist? Did a healthy young man's lust get twisted into self revulsion and hate?

NPR is doing a fascinating three-day in-depth biography of Farouk Abdulmutallab, the "Christmas Bomber" who hid bomb ingredients in his underwear and tried to blow up an airplane. And once again, I was struck by how truly perverse some religious beliefs are, especially regarding sex.

"I think this loneliness leads me to other problems. As I get lonely, the natural sex drive awakens and I struggle to control it – sometimes leading to minor sinful activities, like not lowering the gaze [around unveiled women]. ... This problem makes me want to get married to avoid getting aroused. The Prophet advised young men to fast if they can't get married, but it has not been helping me much..." – Farouk Abdulmutallab

What do Indian Grave Robbers and Atheists have in Common?

What does the atheist Dan Barker (head of the Freedom from Religion Foundation) have in common with two American Indian grave robbers who dug up a white person's body? More than you might guess!

Dan and FFRF are in the news again. They're well known for their hard-line stance on the separation of church and state in America. For example, last year the FFRF caused a ruckus when they responded to a Christian display at the Washington State Capitol building with a an atheist sign that closed with, "Religion is but myth and superstition that hardens hearts and enslaves minds." They did it again this year, prompting a lawsuit from an enraged Christian.

What does this have to do with grave robbing? Well, a few years back there was a darkly funny story about two young American Indian men who snuck into a graveyard and dug up a white woman's body, just to show whites how the Indians feel when whites dig up the Indians' ancestors. If whites can dig up Indian bones, why shouldn't Indians be allowed to dig up white people's bones?

This is so obvious it shouldn't have to be stated, yet even today Indian remains are not treated with the dignity that the American Indians' culture requires. Those two young men felt compelled to turn the tables on whites, and actually rob a grave. And quite predictably, there was outrage. But I hope their act of civil disobedience gave at least a few people a new perspective on what it means to desecrate the bodies of American Indians.

And that's exactly what Dan Barker and the FFRF are trying to do with religion in government. All Americans have a right to access their government, without any hint of religious bias. Christians in America are particularly insensitive to how their religion can give offense. Their purportedly innocent nativity scenes look cute and beautiful to a Christian, but to everyone else these displays are shouting, "You're going to HELL to burn FOREVER because you don't believe this cute little baby, who is actually God!"

The "winter solstice" display that the FFRF places alongside the Christian displays is deliberately designed to be edgy, to be slightly offensive. If atheists, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Jains and Buddhists can't walk into their state capitol buildings without passing a "You're going to HELL" display, it's only fair that Christians should be treated to an equal amount of unpleasant rhetoric.

"How do YOU like it when we treat you the same as you treat us?" That's the message that both the FFRF and those two Indians were sending, and I hope both messages sink in. Government and religion should be separate, and it's impossible to mix the two in any way without offending citizens.

(P.S. If anyone can find a link to the news articles about those two American Indians, or correct my memory, please send it along. I googled it a bit but couldn't find that particular story among the thousands of others about whites digging up Indian graves. It was probably ten or twenty years ago.)

Foul Language

When you write a blog, it's there for all the world to see ... friends, enemies, strangers ... and family. And sometimes you discover your readers unexpectedly, like when over Christmas dinner your Mom gives you grief about using strong language!

She reminded me (and of course, she's right) that any time you want to use a word that some might find objectionable or course, there's almost alway a better, and even more powerful, way to express the same thing. So from now on, I'm going to endeavour to do so.

So Joe Lieberman, I'm sorry I called you a bad name. I should have been more clear: you're an arrogant, ignorant, insensitive jerk who should retire from politics.

Why an Atheist Hates Christmas

I don't hate Christmas for the usual reasons. There's plenty that's wrong about Christmas, for sure. Christians stole the Winter Solstice holiday, which sucks. I'll bet a pagan holiday, celebrating fertility and stuff, and doing dances in the sunrise to encourage the sun to come back up in the sky, would be a lot more interesting than worshipping a little baby whose mother didn't even have sex first. Besides which, Jesus as we know him probably didn't actually exist. But that's another story.

No, the reason I hate Christmas is the same as the reason I hate weddings. The best thing you can hope for at a wedding or at Christmas is to just barely meet expectations. And 90% of the time, you won't, and someone will be pissed off about something.

I actually like the Christmas "spirit" sentiment, of gathering with family, sharing, forgiving ... that's really good stuff. Christians didn't invent it, but they've really developed it into something extravagant.

But expectations are too high. We expect a joyous time, where everyone gathers in peace and harmony, Santa brings exactly what the kids wanted, dinner is perfect, you get Christmas cards from all the relatives and friends you care about and none from the folks you'd rather forget, and there's just enough snow to be pretty but not enough to get stuck.

With expectations like that, you're lucky if you barely make it, and nobody is pissed off. But chances are, one or more expectations won't be met, and someone will be disappointed. Maybe Uncle George and Aunt Georgine are late and dinner is a little cold, or Johnny gets the wrong Lego set, or cousins Geraldine and Maybelle renew that fight they started last Christmas.

So now I boycott Christmas. I have no expectations, because to me, Christmas is just another day. I tell my kids and family that it would be wonderful to get together at the end of the year some time, just to celebrate the year gone by and look toward the new year. But we do it one a day when it's convenient for everyone, and we have a nice simple dinner. We get out our instruments and play a few songs, play charades or fictionary, and have a great time. We have no big expectations, and every year, we manage to exceed those expectations and go home happy.

Christmas in Washington: The Great Land Rush of 2008

Dear Governor Gregoire,

I have a solution to your problem! I'm referring, of course, to the hysterical circus that ensued when you allowed a Christmas display on your state capitol grounds (as I learned from the great commentaries by my fellow bloggers PZ Myers and Atheist Revolution). It seems everybody wants in on the act! Every religion or non-religion wants to be sure THEIR message is displayed your lawn! I can understand how this must upset you.

But there's a simple answer: Governor, just appoint a date and time, when people of all faiths, religions, or no faith, can line up outside your gate with their wagons, loaded with nativity scenes, those nasty atheist signs, Hanukkah menorahs, heaps of flying spaghetti, maybe some trees or something for those druids... Whatever they think their God wants them to display to lure or threaten their fellow citizens into believing their particular brand of superstition.

Then, at the appointed hour, Governor, you can raise your starter's pistol into the air, and BANG! Off they go, racing to claim their 6x12' plot on your front lawn, fighting for the prime real estate. First come, first served! Stake your claim now!

I know it's a nuisance trying to decide who has a legitimate religion and who is just being cranky, Governor, but this will take the problem out of your hands, and put it where it belongs: Back to the pioneering spirit of America! Yes, I know your front lawn might get a bit cluttered, but at least nobody will blame you any more for letting those damned Atheists and Spaghettists put up their signs. It will be out of your hands, just the American Way!

Yours Truly,
A Helpful Citizen

Tags: washington, governor, gregoire, nativity, atheist, atheism, christmas

Peace and Goodwill?

Ah, the Christmas season! The time of peace, goodwill, and love! And it's so nice to open the newspaper and see the headlines, how people really take this message to heart...

• Mumbai terror rage ends after 60 hours, 195 dead
• Bases brace for surge in stress-related disorders
• Death toll over 300 in Nigerian sectarian violence
• US Jewish, meditation groups' members die in India
• Witnesses: Fatal shooting followed toy store brawl
• Iran court upholds stoning death sentence
• Death sentences for men who bombed Iranian mosque
• Iranian court sentences man to be blinded by acid

It's so nice to know that religion helps us all get along!

Tags: christmas peace goodwill christian atheist atheism