Atheists Love Too?

[MMI]

I think you'll find the true Christian attitude these days (not the attitude of hard-right American Churches that get rich selling tickets to heaven (acknowledgements to Mark Knopfler)) is, if you want to celebrate Hanukkah, go ahead. If you want to participate in Saturnalia, then pray do so.

If you want to celebrate Kwanzaa, then, how can we object ... some of our number might even join in! (Thank-you for, at last, finding a truly secular festivity to compare and contrast with Christmas.)

But what annoys Christians (so far as I can tell) is that atheists have not been celebrating a purely secular festival such as Kwanzaa, or even non-Christian festivities like Saturnalia, Samhain, or the Making of Pasta Dough Day, but Christmas instead. They refer to it as Christmas, they acknowledge it is a religious festival, they give religious icons, such as Christmas cards with holy scenes and biblical quotations to each other. They may even participate in religious ceremonies.

But a few of the more sour ones say, Look here. Celebrating Christmas is an infringement of my rights. I demand it be called Winterval to save my sensibilities from being offended. And drumming up an excuse that a few tax-payers' dollars are being spent to make everyone's life a little bit more cheerful strikes me as petty and mean.

Moving on: A recent court decision in England has held that it is unlawful to hold Prayers as the first part of local councils' proceedings http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-devon-16980025 . The case was brought by an an atheist organisation after a member of that council complained because he felt his rights were being trampled upon by forcing him to participate in something he objected to.

Any comments?

[Thorne]

But what annoys Christians (so far as I can tell) is that atheists have not been celebrating a purely secular festival such as Kwanzaa, or even non-Christian festivities like Saturnalia, Samhain, or the Making of Pasta Dough Day, but Christmas instead. They refer to it as Christmas, they acknowledge it is a religious festival, they give religious icons, such as Christmas cards with holy scenes and biblical quotations to each other. They may even participate in religious ceremonies.

I'm not sure which atheists you are referring to here. Are you talking about atheists, as they define themselves? Or atheists as defined by the Christians who hate them? As for referring to it as Christmas, what SHOULD we refer to it as? The calendar says Christmas. Many companies give their employees Christmas vacations and Christmas bonuses. Should we refuse to make reference to Wednesday because we don't believe in the god Wotan? Or boycott Saturdays because Saturn was an ancient god? Sure, we acknowledge that Christians celebrate a religious festival. No problem. Sending cards with holy scenes? Really? Perhaps to friends who might be religious, but to other atheists? Would you send a Christmas card to a devout Muslim? Or would a holiday card be more appropriate. And yes, there are even atheists who enjoy the pageantry of some religious ceremonies. So what?

But a few of the more sour ones say, Look here. Celebrating Christmas is an infringement of my rights. I demand it be called Winterval to save my sensibilities from being offended.

Yes, they would be sour indeed. I've never heard of such myself, but I wouldn't be surprised if there were people out there who claimed such. They would be wrong, but they would say it.

And drumming up an excuse that a few tax-payers' dollars are being spent to make everyone's life a little bit more cheerful strikes me as petty and mean.

It's not the money that's spent, it's the fact that it is spent to promote a specific religious belief! If they allow ALL religious beliefs to participate, and spend taxpayer money on those, and on atheist displays as well, there's no problem! The law simply forbids the government from promoting a religious belief, it does not suppress anyone's belief. Go ahead, put up that nativity scene on the town square! But when a Satanist group wants to place a display there for one of their holidays, you cannot legally deny them! Yet there would be riots in the streets if you permitted it. Therefore, the prudent route that most city governments take is to prohibit ALL religious displays in favor of generic, secular displays.

Moving on: A recent court decision in England has held that it is unlawful to hold Prayers as the first part of local councils' proceedings http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-devon-16980025 . The case was brought by an an atheist organisation after a member of that council complained because he felt his rights were being trampled upon by forcing him to participate in something he objected to.

Any comments?

I don't know which law in England this would come under, but in the US we have these kinds of lawsuits all the time. The Supreme Court has declared that it is a violation of the Constitution to begin a public, governmental meeting with a prayer. ANY kind of prayer. In THIS country, however, those prayers are almost always Christian, and are interpreted by the Supreme Court as promoting a religion, in violation of the law! So when town councils violate that law, people can, and do, sue. And they usually win.

The real problem is one of privilege, actually. The Christians in the US have had quite a long run controlling such things in this country. It was impossible, in the past, to fight back because more often than not you would be arrested, imprisoned, or killed for doing so. Now, however, they are losing this privilege, and people ARE fighting back. Some Christians don't like this, and they raise a mighty ruckus about it. They threaten, and do worse, because they are no longer allowed to run roughshod over the naysayers. But there are also many theists, not only atheists, who are fighting against religious privilege, because they can see that allowing the religious majority to have control is opening the door to a theocracy, which could wind up with even Christian groups being persecuted simply because the aren't the right KIND of Christians.

Contrary to the rantings of the Christian mouthpieces, atheists are not trying to destroy religious belief in this country. All we want is to keep it out of the governments. To allow ALL religions to worship freely, or not, as they see fit, within the bounds of the law. We want to see the Churches lose their privileged status and be treated like any other business or not-for-profit organization. Sounds evil, doesn't it?

[thir]

Moving on: A recent court decision in England has held that it is unlawful to hold Prayers as the first part of local councils' proceedings http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-devon-16980025 . The case was brought by an an atheist organisation after a member of that council complained because he felt his rights were being trampled upon by forcing him to participate in something he objected to.

Any comments?

Good news. The verdict, that you can hold prayers but not force anyone to join, is the only way as I see it.

[Thorne]

Good news. The verdict, that you can hold prayers but not force anyone to join, is the only way as I see it.

Not really. What do you then do about the bullying that the minority of students who do NOT join in will have to endure from the majority, and possibly from the teachers themselves? When you have a public school which is 80% or more Christian, any Jewish, Muslim or atheist students who do NOT participate, basically paint large targets upon themselves when they opt out.

And what about those schools which may be majority Christian, but have a Jewish teacher leading the class. Will he be able to lead the class in Jewish prayer? What about Muslims? No, the experience here in the US is that prayer in public schools, rather than being a uniting factor, actually divides those schools. It's a bad verdict, as I'm sure you'll eventually find out.