Every year around Christmas time, I notice an increase in the amount of religio-political chain letters that hit my inbox. Most of them from friends and family, and the majority being duplicates (or a slightly modified version of the original) from years before. Not all of them warrant a response, but some do. Yesterday, there was this one:

Only hope we find GOD again before it is too late ! !

The following was written by Ben Stein and recited by him on CBS Sunday Morning Commentary.

My confession:

I am a Jew, and every single one of my ancestors was Jewish. And it does not bother me even a little bit when people call those beautiful lit up, bejeweled trees, Christmas trees… I don’t feel threatened.. I don’t feel discriminated against.. That’s what they are, Christmas trees.

It doesn’t bother me a bit when people say, ‘Merry Christmas’ to me. I don’t think they are slighting me or getting ready to put me in a ghetto. In fact, I kind of like it. It shows that we are all brothers and sisters celebrating this happy time of year. It doesn’t bother me at all that there is a manger scene on display at a key intersection near my beach house in Malibu … If people want a creche, it’s just as fine with me as is the Menorah a few hundred yards away.

I don’t like getting pushed around for being a Jew, and I don’t think Christians like getting pushed around for being Christians. I think people who believe in God are sick and tired of getting pushed around, period. I have no idea where the concept came from, that America is an explicitly atheist country. I can’t find it in the Constitution and I don’t like it being shoved down my throat.

Or maybe I can put it another way: where did the idea come from that we should worship celebrities and we aren’t allowed to worship God as we understand Him? I guess that’s a sign that I’m getting old, too. But there are a lot of us who are wondering where these celebrities came from and where the America we knew went to.

In light of the many jokes we send to one another for a laugh, this is a little different: This is not intended to be a joke; it’s not funny, it’s intended to get you thinking.

Billy Graham’s daughter was interviewed on the Early Show and Jane Clayson asked her ‘How could God let something like this happen?’ (regarding Hurricane Katrina).. Anne Graham gave an extremely profound and insightful response.. She said, ‘I believe God is deeply saddened by this, just as we are, but for years we’ve been telling God to get out of our schools, to get out of our government and to get out of our lives. And being the gentleman He is, I believe He has calmly backed out. How can we expect God to give us His blessing and His protection if we demand He leave us alone?’

In light of recent events… terrorists attack, school shootings, etc.. I think it started when Madeleine Murray O’Hare (she was murdered, her body found a few years ago) complained she didn’t want prayer in our schools, and we said OK. Then someone said you better not read the Bible in school. The Bible says thou shalt not kill; thou shalt not steal, and love your neighbor as yourself. And we said OK.

Then Dr. Benjamin Spock said we shouldn’t spank our children when they misbehave, because their little personalities would be warped and we might damage their self-esteem (Dr. Spock’s son committed suicide). We said an expert should know what he’s talking about.. And we said okay..

Now we’re asking ourselves why our children have no conscience, why they don’t know right from wrong, and why it doesn’t bother them to kill strangers, their classmates, and themselves.

Probably, if we think about it long and hard enough, we can figure it out. I think it has a great deal to do with ‘WE REAP WHAT WE SOW.’

Funny how simple it is for people to trash God and then wonder why the world’s going to hell. Funny how we believe what the newspapers say, but question what the Bible says. Funny how you can send ‘jokes’ through e-mail and they spread like wildfire, but when you start sending messages regarding the Lord, people think twice about sharing. Funny how lewd, crude, vulgar and obscene articles pass freely through cyberspace, but public discussion of God is suppressed in the school and workplace.

Are you laughing yet?

Funny how when you forward this message, you will not send it to many on your address list because you’re not sure what they believe, or what they will think of you for sending it.

Funny how we can be more worried about what other people think of us than what God thinks of us.

Pass it on if you think it has merit.

If not, then just discard it… no one will know you did. But, if you discard this thought process, don’t sit back and complain about what bad shape the world is in.

It’s all pretty standard rhetoric and I hadn’t planned on typing a response to it until I left the room to grab a drink. On the way to the kitchen I passed our Christmas tree and realized that I had some explaining to do. So here it is (my response):

I also have a confession:

I’m an Atheist. Some members of my family are Atheists; some are Christians; other are Agnostic. Some of my friends are Atheists; some are Christians; some are Baha’i; some are Agnostic; I even have a few Buddhist and Muslim friends.

It also does not bother me in the slightest when people call those beautiful, lit up, bejeweled trees, “Christmas” trees. I also do not feel threatened (as this message implies I would), nor I do not feel discriminated against.

It doesn’t bother me when people say “Merry Christmas”, just as it does not bother me when people say “Happy Hanukkah”, “Lo, Saturnilia!”, “Happy Holidays!” or any other phrase marking the season. (Many of you have probably never heard of that third one, but I’ll get to that.)

I agree that when people say these greetings to one another, it carries with it a good intent. They do not mean me any harm when they greet me in this manner — even though I am not a Christian, I am not bothered in the slightest when someone tells me “Merry Christmas” because I know that their intentions are good.

I don’t like seeing people get pushed around because of their religion, nationality, creed, or gender. I don’t like seeing Jews, Christians, Baha’is, Buddhists, Muslims, Atheists, Agnostics, etc. being discriminated against because their beliefs differ. *I* don’t like being pushed around because my beliefs don’t match up with someone else’s.

I don’t see anything wrong with a manger scene (or any other religious iconography) being displayed on church or private property. In fact, I celebrate this diverse mix of cultures that we have in the United States — it’s what makes us unique. But I do see something wrong with this idea that Atheists somehow have a problem with this — we don’t. What we do have a problem with is government-endorsed religion. For example, when a courthouse or any other government organization displays religious symbols that are specific to any religion (e.g., the Ten Commandments, the Crucifix, Manger Scenes, Menorahs, etc.) I take issue with this for a few reasons: #1 It’s a direct violation of the Establishment Clause set forth in the First Amendment. #2 It has the effect of excluding anyone who does not belong to those religions on display; it’s like saying that we aren’t welcome in our own country. Just like Christians don’t want to be pushed around for their beliefs, they also shouldn’t work to push around others who don’t subscribe to their religion — even Atheists.

Nobody ever said that America was an Atheist country. Nobody. However the historic record is full of documentation of the fact that America is a Secular country. They’re not the same thing. Secular means that the government is barred from endorsing any specific religion. However lately, it’s become fashionable for many Christians to claim that America was founded on Christianity; when in fact, this is blatantly false. You don’t have to take my word for it; the Quartz Hill School of Theology has written an excellent article about this topic:

http://www.theology.edu/journal/volume2/ushistor.htm

But let me go back to my main point: Christmas. Every year around this time we start hearing so-called “conservatives” decry the “War on Christmas”. They claim that Christmas is under attack from Atheists. I find this claim especially offensive seeing as how I’m an Atheist who does in fact celebrate Christmas. (I’ll explain this later.) For the record, there is no “War on Christmas”. What these people call the “War on Christmas” is actually people — Atheists, Agnostics, and even some fairness-minded Christians — speaking up about the flagrant display of government-endorsed religion that occurs every single year around Christmas time. I can’t find anything about Christianity (or any other religion); any mention of Jesus, nor anything else regarding the legality of government-run institutions being allowed to endorse any specific religion, and I don’t like it being shoved down *my* throat.

I’ve heard many Christians claim that the world is going to hell and it’s all because the world has rejected God. They point to people like me and say “You are what’s wrong with America!” They say “You can’t be a good person if you don’t believe in God!” But they’re wrong on all three counts. You’ll always be able to find the bad things in life if you’re searching for them; just as you’ll be able to find the good things. But if you only focus on the bad, then it’s an easy conclusion to make that the world is in fact “going to hell”. Personally, I don’t think the world is going to hell. I think that as long as there are human beings, there will be a mix of good, bad, and in-between; what we choose to focus on is what will determine our outlook — how we see the world.

We can look at school shootings, terrorists attacks, natural disasters and take the easy route of explanation by saying that it’s all some sort of divine retribution because we’ve rejected God. Or, we can actually investigate each instance and find the real reasons they happened. I’m not going to enumerate those reasons here, but the truth is rarely as simple as you want it to be.

With regard to religious instruction in public schools, I never understood why so many Christians are so adamant about pushing the Bible and prayer down everyone else’s throats while claiming that Atheists are pushing their agenda down the throats of Christians. I never understood how someone can read the Constitution; specifically, the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, and conclude that it does not explicitly ban public schools from endorsing religion. Again, public schools are government run institutions — I have no problem with private schools basing their curriculum on a religious premise. But requiring public schools to teach a specific religion simply is to discriminate against people who might not belong to that religion. Many Christians do not care about this — they’re ok with discriminating against people of other religions; however what happens if in the future, Christians are no longer the majority religion in the United States? What happens when, say, Muslims want to teach Islam in public schools? It’s easy to see that religion should stay in the churches, temples, mosques, etc. and out of public schools, lest we create a huge mess for ourselves.

Many of today’s Christians complain about being discriminated against, but every time I hear this, it always boils down to them just being upset because someone else doesn’t want them forcing their beliefs where they’re not welcome. You don’t see Atheists going door to door on the weekends urging people *not* to go to church; if you did, I promise you there’d be a riot. But somehow it’s ok for Christians to go door to door in an effort to push their beliefs. It doesn’t bother me at all when they come though; I just kindly thank them and decline their offer. I’m not rude nor offensive, even though I believe their assumption that they’re doing something good is a bit misplaced. But hey, that’s the price of living in a country where ALL people have the right to believe (or not believe) whatever they want. It’s a small price to pay in my opinion.

But back to Christmas. Why do I celebrate it? I think it’s mainly out of tradition, but I have thought long and hard about what Christmas means to me. In so doing, I’ve had to consider the origin of Christmas, it’s history, and past customs. What I’ve found is that Christmas has gone by many names; it’s older than Christianity (i.e., it’s been around for thousands of years) — in fact, Christians did not “invent” Christmas, and many of the customs we now associate with Christmas, actually come from many different religions that pre-dated Christianity. Even the word “Christmas” is fairly new, the Romans called it “Saturnilia”; Scandinavian and Germanic peoples called it “Yule”; and the Celts and Druids called it “Alban Arthuan”. The most prominent symbol of Christmas — the Christmas Tree, was borrowed from early pagans. My goal isn’t to “deconstruct” Christmas, however I would certainly recommend reading the following articles concerning Christmas, it’s origins and customs. I think you’ll be surprised:

http://www.simpletoremember.com/vitals/Christmas_TheRealStory.htm

http://www.lasttrumpetministries.org/tracts/tract3.html

http://www.hope-of-israel.org/cmas1.htm

But back to the question at hand: “Why do I, an Atheist, celebrate Christmas?” Because regardless of what Christmas was called in the past; regardless of how people celebrated it, and what it meant to them, I think that we all can agree that the modern day Christmas that we all celebrate is intended to remind us that we need to be better people; that we need to treat each other kindly, and celebrate that kindness by giving and sharing with others. It’s a time that we should all take a moment to think about a world where we all get along peacefully regardless of differing beliefs or politics — we have all year to disagree and argue with each other; this should be the one time during that year where we can take a break from all that and just enjoy each other’s company.

Thank you for reading this, and Merry Christmas!

-c