Miscellanea Agnostica

This year’s edition of the “war on Christmas” trope continues. This time the complaint is about something that isn’t actually new and isn’t directly connected to Christmas. Rather, it’s about atheist billboards … you know, the ones that have been going up around the US and (in the form of bus advertising, in Europe) for the past few years? Another such campaign is running, and it’s irking Christian religionists, as mentioned in a story in the New York Times (with WebCite cached version):

An unusual holiday message began appearing this week in the nation’s capital on the sides of buses and trains.

“No god? … No problem!” reads the advertisement featuring the smiling faces of people wearing Santa Claus hats. “Be good for goodness’ sake.”

Apparently it’s not acceptable for these to go up around Christmas-time:

“It is the ultimate Grinch to suggest there is no God during a holiday where millions of people around the world celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ,” said Mathew D. Staver, founder and chairman of the Liberty Counsel, a conservative religious law firm, and dean of Liberty University School of Law in Lynchburg, Va. “It is insensitive and mean.”

What Staver wants, then, is to have personal, calendrical approval over atheist billboards; they can only go up at times of the year when Christians won’t perceive them as “mean.” Would he like … following the same line of reasoning … for atheist groups to have personal, calendrical approval over Christian signs? Somehow I doubt it.

Note the gratuitous — yet still fallacious — argumentum ad populum in his comments. “Millions of people celebrate Christmas,” he’s saying — and I paraphrase here — “so knock off the atheist billboards!” Sorry Mr Staver, but the wishes of “millions,” or even “billions,” of people, are not relevant here. They just aren’t. Millions, if not billions, of people through the ages also believed the earth was at the center of the universe — but that turned out not to be true.

What’s really going on here is that religionists have had their way for nearly all of human history. Now that they’re confronted by people who are not religious, who will not become religious, and who are openly expressing their lack of religion, these religionists just cannot handle it. They’re too immature to accept the existence — and openness — of the non-religious. Unfortunately for Mr Staver and the rest of his co-religionists, the time has come for them to finally grow up … perhaps for the first time in their lives.

It’s December 1, and already I’m up to 4 postings in the 2009 edition of the annual “war on Christmas” theme. This time, what’s in question is a “Merry Christmas” sign on a firehouse in North Andover, MA. WHDH-7 News out of Boston, tells the story:

Town officials in North Andover have put an end to some long-time holiday traditions causing some controversy among many local groups.

Some say it is sign of the times, but others are accusing the town of acting like Scrooge.

There used to be a Merry Christmas sign hanging on the North Andover Fire Department, but town officials told the firefighters to take it down ending the decades-long holiday custom.

The story of how this decades-long tradition came to an end, is a familiar one which has played out elsewhere, and usually with the same irrational results:

The controversy started when town selectmen told a local rabbi place he could not put a menorah on North Andover Town Common for all eight days of Hanukkah.

The town’s policy only allows displays to stay on the common for one day.

I say this is “irrational” because — well — it is! The town could easily have modified its “policy,” put the menorah up for the holiday and left the “Merry Christmas” in place … but no, that never occurred to them. Instead they chose to stir up the hornets’ nest of the annual “Christmas wars” by putting the kibosh on all such displays.

That said, I note that the only defense for this sign on the firehouse, is “tradition”:

“It’s just a part of the tradition,” said Chief William Martineau, of the North Andover Fire Department. “We have put that up there for many, many years. It has to be close to 40, 50 years.”

Sorry, but that something is “traditional” or has been done for “many, many years,” does not make it right. It was, for example, “traditional” — for thousands of years! — to believe the earth was at the center of the universe. Despite literally ages of “tradition” that told humanity this, we have found out that it’s not true. Appeals to tradition are fallacious.

… or maybe I should title this post “War on Christmas 2009, part 3.” I could also title it, “Fox News Brazenly Lies.”

There will be no holiday displays in the Washington state capitol this year. No Christmas tree, no menorah, nothing … at least, according to Fox News, which at the moment is alone in reporting this:

Washington State Bans Holiday Displays Inside Capitol

The new rules — set to take effect Dec. 1 — came after repeated protests from The Freedom From Religion Foundation, a Washington-based atheist group, over holiday décor inside Capitol campus buildings in Olympia.

The nativity crèche and the menorah are no longer welcome inside the Washington state Capitol after Gov. Chris Gregoire banned non-government displays, including religious ones, from inside the building.

Wow! Sounds pretty draconian, doesn’t it? The Washington state government has bent itself wholly to the will of one of those vile “atheist groups.” Right?

Well, no. Fox goes on to explain this isn’t quite what they just said it was (emphasis mine):

The rules, which were officially signed into order by Washington’s Department of General Administration on Oct. 30, still allow the annual state-sponsored holiday tree inside the Capitol rotunda.

In case you didn’t catch the importance of this, I will repeat it: Contrary to the content of the headline and lede of this story, there will still be a Christmas tree in the capitol rotunda in Olympia.

That’s right, folks … this means Fox News lied, and was brazen enough about their lie, to include the evidence of their lie in the body of their story! But to add to the brazenness of this lie, the story picks up again at the presumption that there will be no holiday displays in the capitol, as though the sentence I just quoted had not been there:

“The state government caved to a select few Scrooges or atheists, where 95 percent of U.S. citizens celebrate Christmas,” said Ron Wesselius, a resident of Olympia, Wash., who has previously displayed his nativity scene inside the Capitol and who challenged the state in court over the new rules.

Let me help you a little, Mr Wesselius: the “95% of citizens” in Washington state, actually have their state Christmas tree! Why are you denying this?

When I said I assumed I’d have several “war on Christmas” blog entries in 2009, I hadn’t expected to have three of them already before the end of November! This promises to be a contentious holiday season, folks. They’re even weaving lies in order to propagate their “war.” How very nice — and Christian — of them to do so. This also places the staff of Fox News in my “lying liars for Jesus” club.

I indicated in my blog entry on this matter a week ago, that I expected additional installments on “the War on Christmas 2009″ … and here you are, yet more bellyaching from religionists over the holiday whose history and nature they do not even understand themselves — yet nevertheless they are furious over. The latest mêlée involves the Gap’s “Happy Dowhateveryouwannukah” campaign. The Chicago Sun-Times ran a column condemning this (to me) amusing send-up of the annual sanctimonious rancor:

Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not one of those paranoid religious folks who believes that there is an organized effort to take the Christ out of Christmas orchestrated by a clandestine cabal of secular humanist movie moguls, feminists and vegetarians who plot their nefarious attack on family values …

I am no proponent of the alleged “War on Christmas.” …

But this year’s Gap “holiday” ad campaign just rubs me the wrong way.

In its effort, I would surmise, to be inclusive and inoffensive, the Gap has made the mortal advertising (and cultural) error of being twee. Not to mention spiritually facile.

Coumnist Cathleen Falsani continues not to get the humorous point of the campaign. In fact — and contrary to her original position that she’s no “warrior for Christmas” — she proceeds to spell out reasons why Christmas is oh-so-much-more-important than every other winter-solstice-time holiday:

Christmas celebrates the miraculous birth of a savior come to redeem the world. Hannukah, while also commemorating a miracle (a one-day supply of oil for a lamp in the temple lasted eight days) and the victory of the Jewish rebellion over the Hellenistic rulers of Jerusalem, it is a minor holiday, not to be compared to the High Holidays of Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur or the major festivals, Sukkot and Passover.

Kwanzaa is a nonreligious festival, begun in 1966 and celebrated nearly exclusively in the United States, which celebrates African-American culture and values. Winter Solstice marks the shortest day of the year and the longest night of the year and is for many pagans and neo-pagans the symbolic and spiritual rebirth of the year.

While each of these holidays, for lack of a more universally applicable term, is significant to different groups of believers (and nonbelievers, for that matter) they are not spiritual equivalents.

Her argument, then, amounts to something like this: Christmas, to Christians, means much more to them, than Hannukah does to Jews, or Kwanzaa to African-Americans, or the Solstice does to Neopagans/New Agers/Whatever … so this means that all those other people need to shut up, go away, and let those Christians abscond with the solstice-time, because they have subjectively and unilaterally determined that their need to celebrate Christmas exclusively, trumps everyone else.

I concede that Falsani does, near the end of her screed, point out that the chief army of the Forces of Christmas, the American Family Association, is factually incorrect in its claims about this Gap campaign — but at the same time she feels the need to add to her sniveling whine:

The “Dowhateveryouwannukah” spots have made me think twice about where I’ll purchase any last-minute stocking stuffers this year. But not for the same reason as that of the perennial saber-rattling “pro-family” organization the American Family Association, which, it brags, has been for 32 years “on the frontlines of the American culture war.”

Earlier this month the association called for a two-month boycott of the Gap because of its “censorship of the word ‘Christmas’ ” in its ads.

Oops!

The Gap ad campaign (which began running a few days after the association’s clarion call for a boycott) says “Christmas” repeatedly, and that’s precisely my problem with it. The use of the word “Christmas” — and “Hannukah,” “Kwanzaa” and “Solstice” for that matter — is so flippant and false that the cheerbots might as well be shouting “Go Hippopotamus!” instead of “Go Christmas!”

Let me help you out a little, Ms Falsani; despite your claim to be no “Christmas warrior,” you do in fact have too much sanctimonious outrage to see the basic truth here, which is that the Gap’s “Dowhateveryouwannukah” is … (drumroll please!) … a joke. Yes, a joke. If you cannot accept that, it’s because you’re too wound up in it to understand the humor.

And in that case, Ms Falsani, the loss is yours — not mine, and not the Gap’s.

P.S. to Ms Falsani: Your observation that Hannukah doesn’t compare in scope within Judaism to the “High Holidays,” just makes it all the more remarkable that you do not, yourself, seem to know that Christmas just happens not to be the most important Christian holiday. That distinction goes to Easter! (What religion columnist in the US would fail to know that?)

Quick note at the start: I’m titling this post “part one” because I assume there will be more new on this topic over the next several weeks, not because I already have additional entries planned.

This year’s installment of the perennial “War on Christmas” has been underway for a few weeks now. The most serious controversy underway at the moment, is going on in Kentucky. Governor Steve Bashear sinned by referring to a Yuletide evergreeen display as “a holiday tree,” as reported by WKRC-TV in Cincinnati:

Gov. Steve Beshear has angered some Christians with his yuletide terminology. A giant evergreen that will brighten the Capitol lawn this winter won’t be called a Christmas tree. Instead, the Beshear administration has dubbed it a “holiday tree.”

The Rev. Jeff Fugate, pastor of Clays Mill Baptist Church in Lexington, said Christians find the change troubling.*

Wah wah wah. Christmas is a holiday, so the tree is — most assuredly! — a “‘holiday’ tree,” in addition to being a “Christmas tree.” Denying this is not only foolish but semantically invalid; this name is neither wrong nor misleading.

Nevertheless, Gov. Beshear promptly caved in to the uproar, as reported in the Morehead (KY) News:

Officials from Gov. Steve Beshear’s office have issued a statement saying that the tree on the capital grounds shall be referred to as a Christmas tree.

There’s nothing like a good old-fashioned, sanctimonious Right-wing furor to make the Democratic governor in a Bible-belt state quiver and fall like a house of cards. Their anger, of course, is based on a delusion, one that’s the product of their Christian persecution complex.

American Christians, especially of the Religious Right variety, believe a lot of things about Christmas that just are not true. I will go over those in another post — or perhaps a dedicated blog page — in an effort to debunk these myths … so stay tuned!

Update: I’ve added this page to the blog, it’s called Myths About Christmas In The U.S. Enjoy!

* Observation: WKRC referred to the Christmas holiday period as “yuletide.” Yule, of course, was a very-pagan, pre-Christian, Germanic holiday. I wonder if any of the pastors they quoted would dare decry the TV station’s use of this pagan label to describe Christ’s natal observance? Hmm. Seems to me they ought to.