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Atheists celebrating Christmas?

Mumei

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How do you feel about the celebration of Christmas by atheists?

I'm rather curious, because I'm an atheist, and yet I celebrate Christmas, sing Christmas carols, and quite enjoy the stories.

Sure, I think that it isn't true that Jesus is the Son of God, but I like any excuse to spend more time with my family, trade gifts, and listen to cheery music.
 

sekhemsahu

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I cannot stand Christmas music but I do love excuses to spend quality time with the people I love. While most of my family identifies as Christian, they do not really focus of the religious aspects of the holiday as much as stuffing ourselves silly with homecooked food and enjoying each other's company.

But that is just my family! :)
 
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Solidlyhere

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Atheists celebrating Christmas.

Maybe this is like people celebrating Thanksgiving. None of us are Pilgrims (or probably not Indians), yet we can have FUN.

But seriously, many non-Believers even attend Church.
There is NO law that says you have to Believe to go to Church.
So, I guess there's NO law about singing a Carol or 2.

A lot of Life is trying to do things which are FUN.
And, some of the REST of Life is trying to make all the things you do FUN.

For Christians, that Fun can include praying, praising, meditating.
The non-Believers can STILL perform random acts of kindness, enjoy doing a Good job, Love their family, and the FUN parts of Christmas.
 
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Eudaimonist

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Since we don't have thanksgiving Christmas is pretty much our time of year for families to come together, exchange gifts and hopefully enjoy a day at the beach. Hooray for Southern Hemisphere weather.

Initiating launch sequence... now! :ebil:
 
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Celticflower

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Well, I can't argue against anything that brings people (believers and non) together in love and spurs giving to charities to help others. If atheists want to get in on the love and fun I say the more the merrier. (besides, you never know may whose heart may be touched at this time of year)
 
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Jacey

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Since the holiday and the trappings of it aren't christian in nature, of course there's no problem celebrating xmas. I've even played Santa and run a Secret Santa gift-giving. The only christian part is the name, and in their desire to thrust religion in to the public square, they've succeeded in secularizing their holiday. How joyous

Hm, I still haven't watched A Christmas Story yet this year........
 
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Rick42

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This is OUTRAGOUS. A total insult to those who have made a decision for CHRIST.
Its CHRISTmas, after all. If your a Christian, please do what you can to make these authors know they are TOTALY full of it. Its FREEDOM OF RELIGION not FREEDOM FROM RELIGION. They even admit their “filthy” athiests!
Their just mad because they don’t have their own holidays, they have to ruin OURS.

LET THEM KNOW on this sites comments section. Its 236.com

A Festivus for the Rest of Us
Joseph Minton Amann and Tom Breuer | Bio

In one of those so-wonderfully-smart-[wash my mouth][wash my mouth][wash my mouth][wash my mouth][wash my mouth]-we-wish-we'd-thought-of-it moments, a Wisconsin man recently requested permission from the city of Green Bay to erect a Seinfeld Festivus pole at City Hall in response to the local government's inclusive religious display policy.
Of course, chances are the mayor and the city council thought they were being clever. By finding a backdoor for nativity displays on public property, the Christian soldiers in local government probably thought at the very worst they'd have to endure a papier-mâché menorah alongside their one true Messiah, and maybe a few scathing letters from Green Bay's Muslim community (a delightful young man in a blaze-orange ghutra named Jabir: you can't miss him).
Instead, they got a Wiccan pentacle wreath (which was promptly torn down by vandals) and the cheeky Festivus thing. Now they're no doubt hoping the whole thing blows over so they can get back to praising just one made-up deity instead of having to worry about dozens. (Indeed, in the latest development, the citys council and mayor voted to leave the nativity up and placed a moratorium on all other displays, no doubt responding to public pressure from such devotees of diversity as resident Tim Entringer, who proclaimed, "This is crazy. It's Christmas. I'm sad in my heart. There is only one God, and you've got to keep him up. The only way to get to God is through Jesus. It's the true religion. You have to do it.")
As card-carrying filthy disgusting heathen atheists, we find this whole thing hilarious. And since we live scant miles from Green Bay, in the beautiful Fox River Valley, we're naturally hoping this controversy drags out as long as possible so we can see something on the local news other than Kiwanis bake-sale coverage or morbidly obese Packer fans buying official team-sanctioned heart disease awareness caps.
Of course, unlike some intolerant Green Bay residents, we strongly support any citizen's right to practice any religion he or she chooses, no matter how crazy or stupid. So in the spirit of ecumenism, we hope 23/6 readers will waste both their and the government's time by flooding Green Bay City Hall with requests for religious displays that are even more asinine than the Christian one. We hope to see each of the nation's 300-plus recognized religions fully represented.
You can find Green Bay Mayor Jim Schmitt's contact info here.
(Note: We'd prefer you e-mail, but if you must call, make sure to throw in a "cripes" and a "jeez" or two, along with a few references to how your [wash my mouth][wash my mouth][wash my mouth][wash my mouth][wash my mouth][wash my mouth][wash my mouth]' knee ain't never been right since you slipped on the sidewalk down by the Pick 'n Save, so it sounds like you're local.)
Here are a few suggestions for alternative religious displays, or you can come up with one of your own:
1) Scientologists could display a festive holiday panorama showing how the evil Galactic Confederacy emperor Xenu brought people to Earth 75 million years ago in a spacecraft, blew them up around volcanoes, and turned them into harmful body thetans that attach to modern humans and cause them to foolishly destroy their once-promising career. As a nod to traditional holiday observances, the final scene could show the resurrected Christ jumping on Oprah's couch like a crazy God-man.
2) Since Bill O'Reilly is so fond of defending government-sponsored displays of the crèche as an homage to Jesus the philosopher (no [wash my mouth][wash my mouth][wash my mouth][wash my mouth], this is his argument), secular humanists should feel free to erect statues of the Baby Sartre, the Baby Nietzsche, the Baby Camus, and the Baby Bertrand Russell.

3) Hindus should demand the right to put up statues of any number of their thousands of gods. The more arms the better.
4) Neo-druids and neo-pagans: One word--Stonehenge.
5) Rastafarians? Hey, go nuts.
 
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Lynden1000

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This is OUTRAGOUS. A total insult to those who have made a decision for CHRIST.
Its CHRISTmas, after all. If your a Christian, please do what you can to make these authors know they are TOTALY full of it. Its FREEDOM OF RELIGION not FREEDOM FROM RELIGION. They even admit their “filthy” athiests!
Their just mad because they don’t have their own holidays, they have to ruin OURS.

LET THEM KNOW on this sites comments section. Its 236.com

A Festivus for the Rest of Us
Joseph Minton Amann and Tom Breuer | Bio

In one of those so-wonderfully-smart-[wash my mouth][wash my mouth][wash my mouth][wash my mouth][wash my mouth]-we-wish-we'd-thought-of-it moments, a Wisconsin man recently requested permission from the city of Green Bay to erect a Seinfeld Festivus pole at City Hall in response to the local government's inclusive religious display policy.
Of course, chances are the mayor and the city council thought they were being clever. By finding a backdoor for nativity displays on public property, the Christian soldiers in local government probably thought at the very worst they'd have to endure a papier-mâché menorah alongside their one true Messiah, and maybe a few scathing letters from Green Bay's Muslim community (a delightful young man in a blaze-orange ghutra named Jabir: you can't miss him).
Instead, they got a Wiccan pentacle wreath (which was promptly torn down by vandals) and the cheeky Festivus thing. Now they're no doubt hoping the whole thing blows over so they can get back to praising just one made-up deity instead of having to worry about dozens. (Indeed, in the latest development, the citys council and mayor voted to leave the nativity up and placed a moratorium on all other displays, no doubt responding to public pressure from such devotees of diversity as resident Tim Entringer, who proclaimed, "This is crazy. It's Christmas. I'm sad in my heart. There is only one God, and you've got to keep him up. The only way to get to God is through Jesus. It's the true religion. You have to do it.")
As card-carrying filthy disgusting heathen atheists, we find this whole thing hilarious. And since we live scant miles from Green Bay, in the beautiful Fox River Valley, we're naturally hoping this controversy drags out as long as possible so we can see something on the local news other than Kiwanis bake-sale coverage or morbidly obese Packer fans buying official team-sanctioned heart disease awareness caps.
Of course, unlike some intolerant Green Bay residents, we strongly support any citizen's right to practice any religion he or she chooses, no matter how crazy or stupid. So in the spirit of ecumenism, we hope 23/6 readers will waste both their and the government's time by flooding Green Bay City Hall with requests for religious displays that are even more asinine than the Christian one. We hope to see each of the nation's 300-plus recognized religions fully represented.
You can find Green Bay Mayor Jim Schmitt's contact info here.
(Note: We'd prefer you e-mail, but if you must call, make sure to throw in a "cripes" and a "jeez" or two, along with a few references to how your [wash my mouth][wash my mouth][wash my mouth][wash my mouth][wash my mouth][wash my mouth][wash my mouth]' knee ain't never been right since you slipped on the sidewalk down by the Pick 'n Save, so it sounds like you're local.)
Here are a few suggestions for alternative religious displays, or you can come up with one of your own:
1) Scientologists could display a festive holiday panorama showing how the evil Galactic Confederacy emperor Xenu brought people to Earth 75 million years ago in a spacecraft, blew them up around volcanoes, and turned them into harmful body thetans that attach to modern humans and cause them to foolishly destroy their once-promising career. As a nod to traditional holiday observances, the final scene could show the resurrected Christ jumping on Oprah's couch like a crazy God-man.
2) Since Bill O'Reilly is so fond of defending government-sponsored displays of the crèche as an homage to Jesus the philosopher (no [wash my mouth][wash my mouth][wash my mouth][wash my mouth], this is his argument), secular humanists should feel free to erect statues of the Baby Sartre, the Baby Nietzsche, the Baby Camus, and the Baby Bertrand Russell.

3) Hindus should demand the right to put up statues of any number of their thousands of gods. The more arms the better.
4) Neo-druids and neo-pagans: One word--Stonehenge.
5) Rastafarians? Hey, go nuts.

I think you're more likely to be full of it.
 
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Pogue

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I've got nothing against atheists celebrating Christmas. It does sound soppy (sorry!) but they contribute to the general Christmas spirit, which can't be a bad thing. Lots of people do view Christmas in purely secular terms, but this doesn't mean it can't have a deeper meaning- the importance of family, friends and being together is emphasised around this time, as is the importance of giving to charity.
 
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