Our War on Christmas
We atheists have been caught in our ongoing devious strategem for destroying Christmas. The NY Times first expresses some surprise that fervent atheists celebrate Christmas, but then the writer begins to catch on.
“Presumably your reason for asking me is that “The God Delusion” is an atheistic book, and you still think of Christmas as a religious festival,” Mr. Dawkins wrote, in a reply printed here in its entirety. “But of course it has long since ceased to be a religious festival. I participate for family reasons, with a reluctance that owes more to aesthetics than atheistics. I detest Jingle Bells, White Christmas, Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, and the obscene spending bonanza that nowadays seems to occupy not just December, but November and much of October, too.”
He added: “So divorced has Christmas become from religion that I find no necessity to bother with euphemisms such as happy holiday season. In the same way as many of my friends call themselves Jewish atheists, I acknowledge that I come from Christian cultural roots. I am a post-Christian atheist. So, understanding full well that the phrase retains zero religious significance, I unhesitatingly wish everyone a Merry Christmas.”
Why, yes. My personal war on Christmas is fought in a way the Bill O’Reillys of the world don’t even recognize: I blithely wish people a Merry Christmas without so much as a germ of religious reverence anywhere in my body. I take this holiday and turn it into a purely secular event, with family and friends and food and presents. I celebrate the season without thought of Jesus or any of the other myths so precious to the pious idiots who get upset when a Walmart gives them a cheery “Happy Holidays!”.
For now, they have to pretend that this myth of the dour atheist, the sour old Scrooge sitting home alone because he refuses to bend his knee to Jesus, is actually true. Someday, though, they might just notice that there are an awful lot of secular folk having a good time in late December and early January. Maybe we need to get a children’s book or a Christmas television special made…
And the Priest, with his priest-feet ice-cold in the snow,
Stood puzzling and puzzling: “How could it be so?
It came without Jesus! It came without gods!
“It came without reverends, ministers or frauds!”
And he puzzled three hours, `till his puzzler was sore.
Then the Priest thought of something he hadn’t before!
“Maybe Christmas,” he thought, “doesn’t come from a church.
“Maybe Christmas…perhaps…needs a bit more research!
And what happened then…?
Well…in Doubt-ville they say
That the Priest’s small brain
Grew three sizes that day!
And the minute his brain didn’t feel quite so tight,
He whizzed with his load through the bright morning light
And he brought back the books! And the logic and reason!
And he…
…HE HIMSELF…!
The Priest skipped church for the season!
December 17th, 2006 at 8:43 am
Our War on Christmas…
We atheists have been caught in our ongoing devious strategem for destroying Christmas. The NY Times first expresses some surprise that fervent atheists celebrate Christmas, but then the writer begins to catch on. “Presumably your reason for asking me…
December 17th, 2006 at 10:36 am
Delicious! I’d agree that there’s very little Christ in the modern celebration of Christmas - not that I really care one way or the other. And as much as I’ve always hated the overt commericialization of the holiday, the Hot house Outrage from the likes of O’Reilly and Hannity is even more insufferable.
A lump of coal for the lot of ‘em!
December 24th, 2006 at 10:41 pm
The war on Christmas (Rudolph! Get your snowbombs !)
T’was the truce before Christmas
and in all of the front.
The humanists were plotting
to confound and confront.
The fundamentalists’ drive
to victory on high
To drive all the infidels
from the earth, sea and sky !
Evangelicals were mad as a hatter
To hear these words, just made them much sadder!
Happy Holidays! Season Greetings !
A good year to all!
To Fundees, those are the words to their new fighting call !
With Jews, Muslims, Sikhs,
Hindus and Buddhists alike
Taking solace in a holiday
that is a Christian rite.
That, to the Fundee, was just to much to bear.
Every Kwanzaa wish they heard, they heard as a jeer!
Everything they see, everything they hear
Everywhere they turn the evidence is clear
A war is on Christmas,
a war raging strong !
Nothing of Christmas would be left for long.
There were menorahs and lions
and Gays holding hands
There were single parents with children
hearing Holiday bands.
And scientists curing diseases once
shunned through all the lands.
And geologists finding fossils
digging deep in the sands
The Fundamentalists will soon set things right
and bring the Christmas spirit back by this night!
Say Merry Christmas, NOW! If you know what is good.
Take down those Kwanzaa signs, you know that you should!
With threats and boycotts, they couldn’t be clearer
It’s Jesus’s love, they hold so much the dearer.
They’ll run through the streets
and knock all in a daze.
Who say, “Seasons Greetings”!
or wish Happy Holidays!
They’ll rout out Gay couples
sitting quietly at home.
and force them to listen
to the entire, old testament tome.
And how they will burn and whither and die.
It’ll be enough to make grown men cry!
They’ll ban science and reason and teaching evolution
Creationism, they’ll say, is God’s only solution
They will plot and plan and fester and fuss.
Nothing will be spared to save the Christmas.
And when they are done, and had set it all right
and sent seculists down to their personal Hells.
Then they’ll retire for a good night
and listen contently to ol’ Jingo-Bells !
- theoldman