Non-Believer’s Christmas

I am not sure how to prepare for my first Christmas as a non-believer.  I know I love the trees and tinsel and lights.  I love Christmas carols and Christmas movies.  I will give gifts to family and loved ones, not because of the Magi but because atheists are good people.  I have hung lights all over the house.  I would pay to sing Messiah again.  But it occurs to me that all the superficial decorations, celebrations and gift giving are just that.  Superficial.  I will likely be extolled to remember the “reason for the season”.  We know it was a Roman compromise to celebrate Jesus’ birthday on what was already a “pagan” holiday and that Jesus, if he existed at all, was most likely born in March.  Doesn’t matter.  (Funny that we conclude anyone who believes in a deity different than our own favored deity is a pagan or an infidel.  So sad.)

Does it matter that I now know there never was a decree from Caesar Augustus to take a census anytime near the birth date of Jesus?  That was just made up.  Does it matter that I now know that Herod died 4 years before Jesus was born?  Does it matter that it is impossible for a heavenly body to hover over a specific city, and if it did planet earth would be toast?  A helicopter perhaps, but not a star.  Does it matter that believing Mary was a pregnant virgin is such a stretch, no pun intended, and that I simply cannot imagine insemination by a spirit?  Miracles, miracles, miracles.  All believable for simple folks with no knowledge of what lightning is or how to make stainless steel.  Most of the events in their lives were mysteries, if not miracles.  Does it matter that upon deep reflection it occurs to me there was really no reason for God to father a human child, though many other “gods” of that era did so.  Especially if the sole purpose of that son whom he supposedly loved was to grow up and die a terrible death.  Goodness.  What an awful thing to do to a son one claims to love.  But the answer is, yes it does matter.  I find it sad much as I found it sad when I learned Santa was a myth.  But it is all mythical.

But I am not bah humbug about the pageantry of Christmas.  I just view it as secular, the very thing I used to rage against.  Yes, I can sing “Away in the Manger” and know it is a myth just as I can sing “Rocky Raccoon” and “Santa Claus is Coming to Town,” and know the same.

OK, perhaps I will survive my first Christmas as a non-believer.  Just please don’t ask me to honor the reason for the season as I now believe we all really know it is for commercial, retail success. 

Happy Holidays!  Or, Merry Christmyth

Religious Folly: the Bible Museum, the Ark Encounter

The Hobby Lobby $500 million dollar Bible Museum is to open today in Washington DC.  This is the same company that fought all the way to the US Supreme Court arguing that based on the religious beliefs of the owners they should not be required to offer health insurance that included contraceptives for women employees.  They believe contraceptives are a sin.  Unbelievably the current conservative Supreme Court ruled in Hobby Lobby’s favor and exempted them from the federal law mandating such coverage as part of the Affordable Care Act.  Evidently, it is OK to discriminate if you are a certain flavor of Christian.  That is one of the most moronic and oxymoronic positions I have ever heard.  Why not fight providing drugs for HIV to single people?  Premarital sex is a sin.  Why not fight providing mental health coverage for divorcees?  Divorce is a sin.  Why not fight any mental health coverage because it is caused by the infestation of demons?  Nope, the only issue for Hobby Lobby was contraceptives, which are not even mentioned in the Bible. 

Once again, fundamentalists stake out turf that is pure lunacy. 

I remain flabbergasted that people take the Bible literally.  In what state of mind must one be to argue that if it is in the Bible it is true and believable?  First, those folks are clearly in denial of all the science we have discovered and developed since we started saying “AD”.  The earth is not the center of our solar system or the universe, it took billions of years for earth to evolve, dinosaurs and humans were never on the planet at the same time, there was no great flood and no ark could hold the 2 million species present 4,000 years ago, etc.  The Bible is not a science textbook.  The Bible was written by humans, not God.  The Bible wasn’t even “official” as we know it today until about 400 years AD.  On and on and on.  No way can a thinking person believe this book is somehow literally correct.  And, if one can simply say I know these passages are wrong but I follow these passages, then clearly this is not a holy work.  Can’t have it both ways.  I suggest that everyone who believes the Bible is a literal truth should give up all the other accoutrements science has provided since 400 AD:  cell phones, air conditioning, automobiles, microwaves, air travel, computers, and on and on.  To be in denial of science should require the forfeit of the fruits of science.

Meanwhile, opening a museum to outline the history of the Bible seems OK as long as we all understand this cannot be a holy book because of all the errors recorded between the covers.  Surely a god would not make so many mistakes.  (My favorite boo boo is God supposedly created all the animals, male and female, but when it came to humans He forgot to make a female until Adam asked for one.  Give me a break.  You must be ribbing me.)  So, it is a work of fiction, concocted by humans and handed down to establish the church as an authority and the threat of hell as a punishment. 

And the Ark Encounter in Tennessee is a fiasco.  Though it is run as an amusement park it seeks tax exempt status as though it was a church.  Why does God need to be tax exempt?  Meanwhile, the whole format is fiction, flying directly in the face of known science.  There was no flood.  There was no ark.  Both would be impossible.  And I find some comfort in knowing it is all allegory because it describes an incredibly mean and hostile deity willing to destroy his creation if humans do not do as he asks.  Pretty funny since he gave us free will in the first place.  Poppycock and balderdash.

Millions and millions of dollars have been spent by Zealots and Pharisees to enshrine their own particular religious beliefs even though they are clearly false.  We should stop protecting such entities and enterprises.  If we find a flaw in a textbook, we correct it.  Not so, evidently, with the Bible.  The flaws become sacred and are held in high regard by people who abandon their brains for the sake of their hearts.  And such beliefs will not help us solve the problems of this century and beyond but will continue to serve as divisive practices triggering conflict and war.

Please, just let it go.  Spend those millions of dollars on helping people, not extolling your own particular archaic, non-functional, non-fact-based belief system.  Abandon folly for reason.