by mr dan
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So you survived Christmas.  If not, I celebrate your ability to enjoy this blog from beyond the grave.  You might want to creep on over to the nearest university science department and announce your amazing discovery.

But for those of you with pulses, Christmas came once again like it always does. Like it always will.  Nothing can stop it.  Not even Bill O’Really and the American Family Association’s imagined “War on Christmas.”

In the past the Ice Cold War has focused mainly advertisers not saying “Merry Christmas,” and Christians insisting that they have a first amendment right to walk into any department store from Halloween to New Year’s and see a gargantuan sign telling them that they were born into the right religion.  This year much of the attention was focused on American Atheists’ controversial billboard claiming that the story of Jesus’ birth is a myth.

But some kept their eyes on the prize: never tiring in their struggle to make America’s one true church — the shopping mall — a place for Christians only.

The American Family Association, one of those despicable “Jews and Queers control the media” organizations, puts out a Naughty and Nice list every year, keeping good Christians up to date on which stores it’s okay to shop at, and which ones they have to cross themselves as they walk past.  If you can think of a company, AFA has probably organized a boycott against it, either because the company themselves is scandalously non-Christian, or because they’ve run an advertisement during a television program the with a gay character or something.

Basically, you get on the naughty list by not saying “Christmas” enough.  This year, the Nice list — which includes Target, Walmart, Sears and Rite Aid — is more than three times longer than the Naughty list — featuring Barnes & Noble, Foot Locker and Victoria’s Secret.  The AFA regards this ratio as a victory, but truthfully there is mixed information about whether their boycotts actually work.

A few things pop out at me when I look at these lists.  For one thing, who the hell does their Christmas shopping at Rite Aid?  And what about Victoria’s Secret?  According to the AFA, good proper virtuous Christians aren’t permitted to browse the aisles at America’s most popular lingerie shop because they don’t honor Jesus by constantly mentioning that it’s his birthday.  I mean, what Christian was planning to buy a pair of tiger-print Bare Ultimate Hiphugger panties from the Body by Victoria collection for his wife?  Or his mistress….or himself — okay, bad example.

Clothing retailer Gap was back on the naughty list this year after being tagged last year as not Christmas-friendly.  Let’s take a look at one of last year’s television spots, part of the campaign known as “Go Ho Ho.”  Like most Gap ads, this one features dancers dressed in tacky clothes performing some rather impressive moves.  And it features a cheer, which by definition makes it a little annoying.  But if you listen to what they’re saying, it actually makes a lot of sense.

Two, four, six, eight
‘Tis the time to liberate.

Go Christmas, go Hanukkah
Go Kwanzaa, go Solstice
Go classic tree, go plastic tree
Go plant a tree, go without a tree

You eighty-six the rules
You do what just feels right
Happy Dowhateveryouwannukkah
And to all a cheery night.

Yes, the AFA boycotted the company for being inclusive.  Gap later released an Old Navy ad featuring those awful mannequins that used both “Happy Holidays” and “Merry Christmas,” and so they were taken off the list, but made it on again this year.

To tell you the truth, I rather like the “Go Ho Ho” ad.  It recognizes the fact that many people are celebrating one holiday or another this time of year, one that often includes gift exchange, and also the freedom we all have to do whatever we want.  Not like other retailers who insist that the only way to be a good person is to stuff so many presents under the tree that it actually lifts it off the ground, and when you open them the tree falls on your aunt Mildred.  And how many women fall prey to the jewelers’ ads saying that if your boyfriend doesn’t propose to you this Christmas then he doesn’t really love you?

Advertisers are almost as devious as religions, and they use almost the same tactics.  Don’t fall for their manipulation that promises you love and group acceptance in exchange for your money and you passing on their trendy artificial-feel-good messages to others.  Just think for yourself.

My sincere wish for you and yours during the Christmakwanzukkah season is the same that is for you and yours every day of the year.  I hope you did exactly what you wanted to do.  I hope you didn’t hurt anyone, or go out of your way to offend people, or focus on how much better you are than people who believe different things.  I hope you met your responsibilities and found the time to enjoy yourself too.  I hope that, if you wanted to, you got to see your family and friends, and they all got along.  I hope there was good food, but I hope you didn’t eat too much, and I especially hope you didn’t drink too much, and if you did, for the love of godzilla I hope you didn’t drive anywhere.    I hope you were happy and safe and that you continue to be.  I wish this for you on December 25th, and on March 3rd, and August 19th and Septober 39th.

Happy Dowhateveryouwannukkah.  I wish I’d come up with that.

mr dan is vice president of CVA. The views expressed in this post are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of Connecticut Valley Atheists or its individual members.

by mr dan
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Atheists don’t have a lot of holidays.  Sure, Darwin’s birthday — but there’s not really a whole lot on the atheist calendar.  So it’s especially frustrating when people tell us that we shouldn’t stop to recognize the Winter Solstice.  Doing so is a crime for which atheists are routinely excoriated, due to the colossal ignorance the public has about atheists and the solstice.

People like holidays.  It’s one of the reasons religion is so popular.  Sprinkled throughout the calendar are random days on which you can eat a feast, share presents, sing songs, play games, and be with the people you love.  Sometimes these festivals also include not eating, or eating really disgusting things because it’s a tradition, giving up stuff you like, reading boring and ignorant books, singing outside in stupidly cold temperatures, and praying to nonexistent magical people in the sky.

So, given this obvious fact that holidays are, well, fun but fictitious, why would atheists mark the winter solstice?

Well, there are a few reasons.  The first is that Christmas is a gift-giving holiday, and in my experience, “Sorry, I don’t believe in the magical sky daddy” never seems to placate anybody — they still want their presents. Some atheists feel pressured to participate in holiday gift-giving by their friends and families, while others genuinely enjoy sharing presents and spending time with people we care about.  I fall into both categories, and it’s just a lot more rewarding to me to buy a Solstice card or present rather than have my gift be a tacit endorsement of Magic Baby Day.

But the second reason has to do with history and science, and the modern world’s proud ignorance of each.  For all people will point out to me — incessantly — that the Solstice is a Pagan holiday, I have to constantly remind them that it isn’t. That’s right, the solstice is not a Pagan holiday.  It isn’t even a religious holiday.  It isn’t even a holiday.  It isn’t even a day.  It’s an astronomical event that lasts only an instant around which Greeks, Romans, Jews, Christians, Zoroastrians, Hindus, Druids, Norse, Wiccans and many others have fixed their religious holidays.

People noticed that the sun was going away, and they wanted it to come back.  They made an observation, which is the basis of science.  But the primitive cultures who made this first step didn’t know how to take the next —  to figure out why the sun was going away.  So they did the same thing any lousy parent does when their child asks a question to which they don’t know the answer — they just made stuff up.

People commonly believed that for the last half a year, dark forces had been conquering light, and the winter Solstice was the day that light began to kick the dark’s ass.

To the Slavs, the solstice is the day that the sun god Hors is resurrected as Koleda after being defeated by the evil Black God.  Though this happens every year at the same time, Hors for some reason never hears the Black God coming.

Norse pagans recognize the longest night as the time when Frigg gave birth to the Light, also known as her sun Baldr.  He would later become invincible to everything except mistletoe, a tradition that continues with nerds at holiday parties to this day.

To the early Germans, the solstice symbolized the coming of Hertha, the goddess of light and domesticity, who would slit your belly open if you ate anything but fish and gruel that night. How very domestic.

The Shinto of Japan thought that the sun goddess Amaterasu had been hiding in a cave, and brought light back to the world when the other gods lured her out with loud noises and a mirror.

The Inca believed that Inti, the sun god, was running away, and so they built a huge stone column in Machu Picchu to tie him to, which every solstice they pretended to do.

The Maori of New Zealand believe that the winter solstice was the day that the sun got sick of living with his wife in the north, and left to go stay with his other wife in the south.  Imagine how different our weather would be if his northern wife just had a pull-out sofa he could sleep on when they fought.

Christians don’t really have a theological/climatological reason why winter is different from summer, but they do roughly fix the solstice as the day their Messiah was born fatherless in a barn and visited by a trio of wise guys in celebration of the fact that he would later grow up to be the world’s most successful illusionist and salesman-of-the-month at Slippery Gabe’s Snake Oil Emporium before being betrayed, pleading the fifth, and suffering the gruesome but utterly unspectacular death of a common enemy of the state all so that we could be forgiven for slightly exceeding the speed limit and masturbating.

It’s no coincidence that December 25th, which Christians decided about three hundred years after he died would be Jesus’ birthday, falls only a few days after the Solstice.  All other religions were busy this time of year celebrating rebirth and the return of light, so it made sense to celebrate the resurrected “way and the light” at this time.

These stories are myths, invented to explain what was unexplainable in the absence of a scientific understanding of astronomy.  The winter solstice is an important time in all religions solely because of the scientific ignorance that created and perpetuated those beliefs.  What better time, then, to celebrate the scientific advancements and understanding that freed us from those theological bonds?

On the winter solstice, we celebrate not the apparent movement of the sun, but our ability to understand the way the sun appears to move across our sky each day.  This year, on December 21st at 11:38 pm UTC (or whenever you get around to reading this), take a moment to remember all the primitive ignorant cultures who got it so wrong, some of whom persist in their ignorance to this day, and the heroic men and women of science who dared to say to the various churches and governments that oppressed the people with nonsense, “No, you are wrong! The earth goes around the sun, it is angled at 23.44 degrees, and rabbits, no matter how giant or anthropomorphic, do not lay colored eggs.”

mr dan is vice president of CVA. The views expressed in this post are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of Connecticut Valley Atheists or its individual members.

by mr dan.
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All the Christians in Christ-town found Christmas quite fair,
But the non-Christians, who made up two-thirds of the world’s population, didn’t care.
Now they didn’t hate Christmas at all — au contraire
They just wanted the Christians to stay out of their hair.

They wanted to know if there was any sane reason
Why Christians got mad at the words “holiday season,”
And why, outside Christ-town, every town square and green
Was besmirched with the birth of the old Nazarene.

So the non-Christian leaders asked the Christians politely
Whether Christian contraband could be stationed more rightly
In their houses, their yards, their churches and ministries,
Rather than tax-payer funded vicinities.

Instead of a reasoned and left-brained response
Their reaction was angry and mad all at once.
“They don’t celebrate Christmas!” they cried with a sneer
“They have no joviality, no pep, and no cheer!

Perhaps they’re just cold, or they worship false idols!
Or weren’t beaten severely enough with their Bibles!
But we know that the most likely reason of all
Must be that their hearts are two sizes too small!”

Now the non-Christians heard this and stifled a snigger.
For their hearts, and all parts, were as big if not bigger.
Most were prone to charity and kindness and love,
A few even without fear of fire from above.

But the Christians tried hard to make everyone join in
Their boisterous festivities and unbounded toiling.
Christmas could not be a season for some
If the Christians were ever to have any fun.

They set out to desecularize what once had been free
and make this land a Noel-ocracy,
To make sure the government supported their cause
And chose Santa instead of the Establishment Clause.

No one could be seen not enjoying the holiday
or not watching a poorly-acted Dickensian teleplay.
Every store was required to play Christmas songs
Which were musically vapid and ran far too long.

The tintinnabulation of bells was ceaseless,
And you couldn’t have a parade without a shout-out to Jesus.
Some Christmas fanatics were even so ambitious
That they’d kick you in the chestnuts if you didn’t say, “Merry Christmas.”

And outside their homes they competed collectively
To see who could use up the most electricity,
With flashers and beepers and blinkers and strobes
To inculcate Christmas in our frontal lobes.

And once it was established that this time of year
Owed everything to Jesus and Santa’s reindeer,
and not, for example, to axial tilt,
Then came the time to pour on the guilt.

“We need a way,” thought the good Christian leaders,
“to slander those unAmerican unbelievers
Those scoundrels, those fools who hath said in their hearts
that there is no God, just science and the arts.

Something that will make them seem stupid and lit’ler
And, if possible, even link them with Hitler.
To smear these worshippers of Galapagan finches
We’ll brand them all as Scrooges and Grinches!

Yes, Grinches, my friends, for they hate Christmas cheer
They hate the most wonderful time of the year.
Taking literary characters out of context is what we’ll do,
Just like we did to Horton Hears a Who.”

“Wait just a minute,” said one kindly Protestant.
“Isn’t that drastic, deceptive and incompetent?
I mean, the Grinch wasn’t simply not a believer.
He waged war on all the good Christmas Eve-ers.

“His hatred of joy and singing and laughter
had nothing to do with his views on Hereafter.
He was just mean and nasty, his heart was too small.
That doesn’t describe these non-Christians at all.”

And that kindly old Protestant who’d never been hated
Found himself promptly defenestrated.
“Any other objections?” asked the good Christian leaders.
“Nah, we’re cool,” said the pious believers.

And so the tintinnabulators went forth
With slander and calumny from south to the north.
Now instead of just being different from the majority
Non-Christians had to deal with being thought of horribly.

But the so-called Grinches continued to be kind
And generous and loving as they were inclined,
For what could the non-Christians do in this crisis?
Just hope the Christians’ hearts would eventually grow fifteen sizes.

So remember, I’ve got no problem with your Christmas tree
(Even though it’s tacky) — I’m just glad we’re all free
To live in a land where we may worship, or not,
A magic baby, a stack of turtles or a floating tea pot.

And if I may just preempt those about to object:
To the great Dr Seuss I mean no disrespect.
But there’s one stand from which I will not budge one inch.
Whatever you do, don’t call me a Grinch.

by mr dan
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Holy cow — the atheists are proselytizing!  Surely you’ve caught the kerfuffle over American Atheists’ billboard outside the Lincoln Tunnel proclaiming “You Know it’s a Myth — This Season, Celebrate Reason!” I’m glad to see that people are publicly challenging the privileged status Christianity receives in America, especially because we in Connecticut Valley Atheists are well familiar with this sort of battle.

For years, the town of Vernon, CT, has allowed a crèche — that is, a nativity scene depicting a notably old and considerably Aryan baby Jesus in a manger with his mother and, ahem, father — on the town green.

Vernon resident and State Director of American Atheists Dennis Paul Himes complained in 2007 that the presence of the nativity scene violated the Constitution.  The government essentially gives a thumbs-up to Christianity and its traditions, and uses tax money to advertise the religion, while disregarding all of Vernon’s non-Christian residents and stating that Vernon is a Christian city.  The mayor at the time, Ellen Marmer, reportedly agreed with Himes, but as one of the town’s non-Christian residents herself, she feared that her Republican opponents in the upcoming election would smear her as anti-Christian if she did not allow the crèche.  So she reached somewhat of a compromise; any group who applied and paid a $25 fee could erect an appropriate display in 10 foot by 10 foot square during the month of December.

This compromise was still unfair because it allowed further violations of the separation of church and state rather than putting a stop to the ones that already existed.  Any encroachment of religion into government or government into religion (except where the public good is concerned) threatens the everyone’s liberty.  So potentially allowing Jews, Muslims, Satanists, Scientologists and even atheists to violate the Constitution in the same way the Christians had been doing was far from ideal.  Government should never be in the business of endorsing religion or nonreligion. There really should be no religious displays at all on town, state or federal property, but if we could use the opportunity show people that such a violation is wrong, then it would be wise not to pass it up. Despite the compromise, Marmer lost her bid for reelection, and when Republican Jason McCoy took office, one of his first headaches was this: “Imagine No Religion,” erected by Connecticut Valley Atheists, a group that Himes had formed and become president of earlier in the year.

Some degree of outrage ensued, with citizens, organizations and the media calling it “offensive,” “intolerant,” “insulting,” “hateful,” and a whole slew of other unwholesome adjectives. Some said that our message was too “political”, but Himes replied that “The original question was whether Vernon would have a nativity scene on church property or town property. The difference between those two is a political difference.”

The Christian crèche is political too because it seeks through government action to convert people and to imply that belief is more American than nonbelief, especially when Christians defend their use of public property to proselytize by saying that America is a Christian nation (it isn’t) built on Christian values (it really isn’t).

Others were supportive, and many atheists and believers alike wrote to us to say that we were right to fight the violation.  Many said they’d never known there were atheists in their town — a revelation that pleased some and angered others. Reportedly several people and groups sought legal action to have the display removed.  While we would have welcomed that irony and the legal battle to follow, none of these attempts apparently got off the ground.  However, the mayor reacted in a laughably immature fashion.  Even though there already was a town-decorated Christmas tree in the park as well as a nativity scene, he ordered a second tree to be placed on the green — right in front of our display — and apparently didn’t provide them with a ladder.  And when told by a reporter that it obscured our message, he replied, “Oh, really? That’s unfortunate.”

The outrage continued the next two years, even as our messages got even less offensive.  “May Reason Prevail — Support Separation of Church and State” is, I would say, fairly innocuous.  I mean, it’s only promoting the logical and legal application of the US Constitution, a document far more sacred and worthy than any holy book.  I guess it wouldn’t matter if we had said “Merry Christmas from Connecticut Valley Atheists” or “Christianity is Super but Atheism’s Rather Neat Too.”  The point isn’t what we say, it’s that we exist to say it.  Even the mayor himself was reportedly personally offended by last year’s sign: “30 Million Americans Are Good Without God. Are You?”  Merely the suggestion that you don’t need religion to be a good person is an attack on their faith.

Every year our message has served to promote something positive about atheism: that Humanist beliefs do not motivate people to fly planes into buildings, that secular societies are better and more free than theocracies, and that millions of Americans have no problem being moral without dogma.  I can’t wait to see the townspeople go absolutely bananas as we unveil this year’s design: “Be Good For Goodness’ Sake.”

The message is that you shouldn’t need religion to tell you how to be moral.  Goodness is itself a virtue.  It’s always struck me as odd that the Christmas classic “Santa Claus is Coming to Town” encourages children to behave themselves because they are constantly being watched, and yet contains the line “be good for goodness’ sake.”  Haven Gillespie, who wrote the lyrics to the song, most likely added it as an alliterative play on the expression “for goodness’ sake” without considering the mixed message it sends.  But if the children behave themselves just to get lots of presents from Santa, are they really being good?  Have they really learned the difference between right and wrong, morality and corruption? Or are they just trying not to annoy their parents and Santa simply to get fun toys?

If you want to read between the lines — something Christians are fantastic at when looking for something to be offended about — the statement also equates God with the myth of Santa Claus.  One is a magical bearded man who lives on top of the world, watches everybody at once, and uses his supernatural powers to reward the good and punish the bad, and the other is Santa Claus.   Think about it.

This season we hope you’re all being good because, well, because it’s good to be good.  I have my principles and my morals, arrived at through logical analysis, and I stick to them because I think I’ll be a better person if I do.  Of course we can never be completely selfless; I try to treat people with respect because I hope they’ll return the favor to me and to others, but that makes the world a more enjoyable place for everyone to live.  It has nothing to do with what’s written in an ancient book or what I’m afraid will happen to me when I die.  And if I do end up in Hell or with coal in my stocking, at least I’ll have the satisfaction of knowing that I tried to be a decent person, and that I never followed any arbitrary nonsensical codes just to earn a heavenly reward.  At this and all seasons, think about what you can do to be good and to make the world a better place, and ask yourself whether charitable acts, kindness, respect and support to those who need it will have more effect on the world than prayers, psalms, and statues of freakish Aryan babies on government property.

mr dan is vice president of CVA. The views expressed in this post are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of Connecticut Valley Atheists or its individual members.