Surprise, everybody, it’s The Holidays [I just victimized a buncha Fundamentalists right there, I sure did], which means that while the normal people of America are gearing up for some sort of The Holidays festivities [even Christmas!], wingnuts have reached the point in their liturgical calendar where they pause their usual whining and give thanks give to the poor simply stop yammering for five minutes to give the other 85% of the country a moment of respite ratchet up their whining about one particular fake issue: the liberals and atheists and gays and educated people who supposedly want to steal Christmas from them. Matt Barber decided to get a head start:
One conservative attorney says he has no sympathy for the atheists who have launched a holiday advertising campaign to promote their stance and attack Christians.
The billboard and newspaper ads that read “Bias Against Atheists is Naughty, Not Nice” are being placed in towns where atheists have made an effort to push religion out of the public arena.
“I have very little sympathy for atheists, the ones who are perpetrating anti-Christian bias,” admits Matt Barber of Liberty Counsel Action. “And when they receive a little push-back and people point out the reality that we are a Christian nation, they get in a huff.”
Let us break down his stupidity in three easy sentences:
1. Christians are a majority in this country, and atheists are simply making their voices heard. This is not, in and of itself, a crime against Christianity.
2. The billboards in question actually directly reference Christmas, which Matt Barber may be surprised to find out that many if not most atheists celebrate.
3. No, the United States is a secular nation which happens to be majority Christian, though those numbers are slipping every year. Only the willfully ignorant actually believe this is a “Christian nation.”
One more thing:
“It kind of falls on deaf ears when they start to play the victim card here, when atheist organizations across the United States like the ACLU and People for the American Way have religious liberty in their crosshairs,” the attorney contends.
Oh, those mean terrible atheists, who want to prevent Fundamentalist Christians from exercising rights that the Constitution never actually granted them in the first place. I mean, to backwards yokels like failed Allstate employee Matt Barber, it is a God-given [and therefore Constitutional, because they don't really understand how America works] right to freely discriminate against and exercise bigotry against anyone who is different from them, and that decidedly includes atheists.
Anyway, welcome to The Holidays, Truth Wins Out readers, and please be aware that by enjoying them, however you enjoy them, you are making wingnuts like Matt Barber burst out of their suspenders in rage-filled jealousy and bitterness, as they just aren’t very happy people.
When I was a child I never saw Christimas as a religious holiday, it was all about Santa, candy canes and presents. When christians tried to inject religion into it I saw that as a pathetic attempt to illegitimately take credit for something great – I used to think “Who are they trying to kid?”.
Personally, I’ve always loved Christmas – as long as I didn’t go to any retail outlets (seriously, that canned muzak makes me wanna run screaming into the parking lot) and I don’t care in the least that Christians consider December 25th a celebration of Christ’s birth… and any holiday that tries to promote peace and ‘goodwill to all’ gets a thumbs’ up in my book – but a closer look at the history of the holiday easily shows that ‘Christmas’ has as many Pagan roots as Halloween.
People who whine about us ‘evil’ non-Christians trying to ‘steal Christmas’ just ignore that we have just as much right to celebrate the holiday as we wish (or not celebrate it at all) – a right that we’ve been hard pressed to exercise in the past.
Does anyone still actually listen to this schmuck?
An interesting history of Christmas
http://www.truthwinsout.org/blog/2010/12/13781/
So, it is just as I thought all along – christians were trying to glom on to christmas and make it theirs when it never was in the first place.
Further to Ozymandias71′s comment:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yule
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturnalia
Just like Easter, and Xtians appropriating the spring fertility festival (rabbits & eggs) and melding the ideas of new growth and rebirth, so Yule and Saturnalia had the birth of Christ cack-handedly crowbarred in to them.
T’was initially the marking of the winter solstace, the year dying (shortest days) and then re-awakening as the days gradually start to get lighter…
“The earliest reference to Christmas being marked on Dec. 25 comes from the second century after Jesus’ birth. It is considered likely the first Christmas celebrations were in reaction to the Roman Saturnalia, a harvest festival that marked the winter solstice—the return of the sun—and honored Saturn, the god of sowing.” – The Buffalo News, Nov. 22, 1984
Oh, and Merry Christmas, one and all!
[...] pointed out earlier today that the first attempt to exploit Christmas already took place — by Liberty [...]
Every culture has their Winter Solstice celebration. It’s a very effective way to stave off Seasonal Affective Disorder and to look back and count your blessings.
Hell, even us Jews have our own festival of lights, and it annually falls on the 25th as well – the 25th of the Hebrew month of Kislev.
I believe Diwali, which developed thousands of miles away from Christianity, is a similar type of solstice festival.
It’s all about getting together, eating drinking and being merry, giving and getting gifts, and lighting up various types of lights (be it advent candles, outdoor string lights on your roof, a cremonial candlabra, or on a pine tree).
After years of studying comparative religion I’ve come to the conclusion that Jesus is NOT the “reason for the season.” Natural human need to feel community and warmth is.
Like I always say Emily, “A big party in the middle of winter is the reason for the season.”.
The Saturnalia was at this time of the year because Saturn is the planet which rules winter, cold, ice, darkness etc and is the farthest (visible) planet from the Sun. It also rules Capricorn and Aquarius, the first 2 signs of winter. (yes I’m an astrologer).
Some other interesting factoids for you are that the Feast of John the Baptist is at the Summer Solstice, just as Christmas is at the Winter Solstice and in the Scriptures, it has John the Baptist saying, ‘I must decrease so that He may increase’. This relates to the Sun’s decline in declination through the Summer and Fall and then the Sun (Christ) is (re)born at the Winter Solstice as it begins to come North again with the increase of Light and warmth.
I should contend we all celebrate Yule(Christmas) in closest to original format. Including the goat sacrifice(burning a wicker goat is acceptable substitute), the hunt of a boar for a hedonistic feast (holiday ham anyone?), go a wassailing(caroling) singing in traditional Germanic pagan song, and a roaring Yule log! Oh how they will scream with horror when we att- I mean revive the original which they “waged war” on so long ago.