Taking the Christ out of Christmas!

        Everyone loves Christmas. It’s celebrated in over 160 countries worldwide. Think about that. Christmas is a National Holiday in something close to 90% of the countries in the world.  It’s a testament to the hard work of centuries of Christian missionaries. Dozens of the “Christmas-countries” are in the southern hemisphere where December is in mid-summer. In my travels I have seen Santas in African malls and on Brazilian beaches. As far as holidays go, Christmas is king.

         So it’s no surprise that many Atheists also love Christmas. How could they not? Atheists have warm-fuzzy feelings too, you know. But is it ok to be Atheists and still love Jesus’ birthday? Or is Christmas reserved for the Christians?

         Despite the name: Christmas- the holiday has little to do with Jesus. I think it’s fair to say that many of the customs are religious in nature, but it turns out that it is an entirely different religion.

         In fact, it’s the Druids who get to claim Christmas as their own.  Before Christmas was called Christmas, Winter Solstice (the shortest day of the year) was a time to honor Pagan gods. The priests would decorate trees with astronomical objects and hang small gifts on the branches. These presents were offerings to the Yule tree.

         For the next twelve days they would burn the Yule log, sing songs, and collect mistletoe. Yes, even our Christmas songs are populated with Pagan imagery. The Santa story may even have Druid roots. Druids called little forest people who lived in nature elves and they also associated reindeer with the Horned God.

        

But even if we take trees, presents, songs, mistletoe and Santa away, the Christians still have Jesus, don’t they? After all, it is his birthday. Actually, not really. The Bible tells us that on the night Christ was born, there were Shepherds watching their flocks by night. This is something that would only occur in summer or early fall (Certainly, no later than September).

So why did early Christians choose to celebrate their lord’s birth on December 25^th? Simple convenience. There was already a celebration for a deity on that day. The Romans celebrated the birth of Sol Invictus, their sun god (who was born of a virgin). The Sol Invictus story predates the Jesus story, historically, but it was a popular holiday at the time, so the Christians incorporated it. Even the virgin birth bit is widely seen as a biblical mistranslation. The Christians simply took the holiday from the Romans and changed the name to… Christ-mass.

But even if the Baby Jesus stuff hadn’t been stolen, it would still be kind of weird. A virgin birth is kind of a heavy topic for young children. For children to understand why it was a miracle, parents would first have to explain the details about how normal babies are conceived. Then parents would have to explain why the “Holy Spirit” was feeling so frisky that night. The Baby Jesus stuff is probably the least interesting thing about Christmas and the least liked.

         The real reason why we celebrate Christmas, or Hanukkah, or Sol Invictus probably has little to do with horny gods or virgin births. It probably has more to do with the fact that the Winter Solstice is the dead middle of winter. Dozens of ancient cultures celebrated the Solstice. It is the shortest day of the year and it marks the start of a New Year. The sun starts to wake up from his winter slumber and mankind can look forward to Spring.

I think Christmas is best summed up by the great television show Doctor Who:

“On every world, wherever people are, in the deepest part of the winter, at the exact mid-point, everybody stops and turns and hugs. As if to say, “Well done. Well done, everyone! We're halfway out of the dark.”

So this Christmas, if you are a skeptic and don't believe in all that Jesus-stuff, remember that Christmas is not just for the Christians. It is something for the generations. It is something for all of us!

Teaching Science: A personal narrative about how to teach science to people with religious beliefs and why it is good for them.

When I teach Science in school, I start off the year making a list of things that are supported by science and things that are not supported by science. This is essential because some 10-year-olds simply aren’t sure the difference between reality and fiction. 

Question: Are unicorns real?              Answer: Can you see unicorns at a zoo?
Question: Did dragons exist?             Answer: Can you see dragons in a museum?
Question: Is Santa real?                     Answer: What do you think?

Now most 10-year-olds know that dragons and unicorns and Santa Clause is not real, but they aren’t sure about ghosts or angels or gods. Adults sometimes have these same problem.

Good to teach in Science Class?

The problem Science teachers have is that they have to teach Science even if it disproves religious stories such as creation myths. 

What do you tell a student when they say that evolution goes against his belief in the Hindu creation story about Rama growing out of a flower? I simply tell him that Science, which is based on evidence, suggests that the Earth was created by gathering space dust, and not a flower. We can see this by looking through telescopes.

 

Good to teach in Science Class?

A Mormon student will say “My family doesn’t believe in Evolution, but my family does believe you get your own planet when you die,”

I will have to respond “That’s great but according to Science the nearest planet is four light-years away, so how are you going to get there? And furthermore, how do you know you get your own planet. Do you have evidence?”

This is why I have to put religions and gods over in the “not-science” section of my chart, because without ignoring religious beliefs and superstitions, I wouldn’t be able to teach anything in my science class. I then proceed to play the song “Science is Real” by “They Might Be Giants” to drive my point home.



So is it worth it? Is teaching children science in school worth suspending their religious beliefs for forty-five minutes a day? Well let’s examine some of the things that science has given us…

-Modern Agriculture
-Electricity
-Modern Medicine
-Internal Combustible Engine (Cars)
-Satellites

It’s a short list, but these five items probably impact every second of your life. Let’s examine one -modern medicine-and see if we could have got there without science.

We all know that babies get vaccinations when they are born so that they won’t catch a deadly disease. And other people get flu shots. But scientists have to change the vaccinations, every time the bacteria or viruses evolve. Therefore, it is dangerous for us to deny that microorganisms evolve.

Good to teach in Science Class?

Similarly, farmers are going to have to accept global warming if they are going to have to factor-in global warming. They are going to plan for future crop planting. They can’t just pretend that global warming is going to go away. Governments are going to have to regulate emissions if we are going to slow or stop the impact of pollution on our environment.

At one point in history, people thought the Earth was flat. Through discovery and education we found out that it is round. We had to discard flat-earth myths, even when they appeared in holy-books such as the Quran.


My point is that some times we need to disregard unscientific beliefs to advance our culture. Unscientific beliefs, furthermore, can be harmful to us.

There are non-religious ones such as belief in the unluckiness of black cats or fear of the number 13 These beliefs are almost harmless, but can sometimes be disrupting.

There are religious ones including head covering of women, genital mutation, prejudice against gays and lesbians, and indoctrination of children that are most certainly harmful.

Now let’s finish with addressing the indoctrination of children. Isn’t teaching Science in school just another brainwashing method?

While it is true that students can learn misinformation in school (I once caught a

 teacher telling students myths about daddy-longlegs), teaching students reality is not indoctrination. 2 + 2 = 4 is not indoctrination. Teaching students the same information that you would find at a zoo or a museum or at an Academy of Physics is not indoctrination. Teaching students to experiment, question, and discover is not indoctrination.

There is truth in this world, but it isn’t found in holy books that were written thousands of years ago. It is found in constant exploration and testing and learning. This is a fascinating and miraculous and beautiful world. Teaching students that they were molded from dirt doesn’t work anymore.

Where do we get our Morals?

 

In a big debate with a theist the other night this question came up. So I thought I’d comment on it.

One of the biggest arguments against Atheism is that we don’t have any morals. Morals, after all, come from the Bible. Well, the problem is that is that no one should get morality from the Bible. If you actually have read The Bible, there is some pretty brutal stuff. Slavery, for example:

 However, you may purchase male or female slaves from among the foreigners who live among you.  You may also purchase the children of such resident foreigners, including those who have been born in your land.  You may treat them as your property, passing them on to your children as a permanent inheritance.  You may treat your slaves like this, but the people of Israel, your relatives, must never be treated this way.  (Leviticus 25:44-46 NLT)

And here’s one from the New Testament

Slaves, obey your earthly masters with deep respect and fear. Serve them sincerely as you would serve Christ. (Ephesians 6:5 NLT)

 

There also isn’t much in the way of woman’s rights in The Bible:

    If a man is caught in the act of raping a young woman who is not engaged, he must pay fifty pieces of silver to her father.  Then he must marry the young woman because he violated her, and he will never be allowed to divorce her.  (Deuteronomy 22:28-29 NLT)

Nor much in the way of mercy:

But Moses was furious with all the military commanders who had returned from the battle.  "Why have you let all the women live?" he demanded.  "These are the very ones who followed Balaam's advice and caused the people of Israel to rebel against the LORD at Mount Peor.  They are the ones who caused the plague to strike the LORD's people.  Now kill all the boys and all the women who have slept with a man.  Only the young girls who are virgins may live; you may keep them for yourselves. (Numbers 31:7-18 NLT)

What about World Peace? Once in Sunday school I mentioned praying for World Peace and the Preacher was shocked. World Peace what a terrible thing to pray for…

“Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.” (Matthew 10:34)

 

Obviously people pick and choose the good stuff from The Bible and throw out the things they don’t like. No one can follow every rule in The Bible. Just read My Year of Living Biblically by A.J. Jacobs. He went through The Bible and found over 700 rules, including “You should not lie on a bed where a menstruating woman has lain, and you can't sit on a chair where she has sat (Leviticus 15:20).  Are there any theists out there following this one?

So if we do not get morality from the bible where do we get our morals? Well, that’s for everyone to decide for themselves. In fact, many Atheists have strived to write their own “10 Commandments”. Richard Dawkins cites the following rules in his book:

1. Do not do to others what you would not want them to do to you. (See Golden Rule.)

2. In all things, strive to cause no harm.

3. Treat your fellow human beings, your fellow living things, and the world in general with love, honesty, faithfulness and respect.

4. Do not overlook evil or shrink from administering justice, but always be ready to forgive wrongdoing freely admitted and honestly regretted.

5. Live life with a sense of joy and wonder.

6. Always seek to be learning something new.

7. Test all things; always check your ideas against the facts, and be ready to discard even a cherished belief if it does not conform to them.

8. Never seek to censor or cut yourself off from dissent; always respect the right of others to disagree with you.

9. Form independent opinions on the basis of your own reason and experience; do not allow yourself to be led blindly by others.

10. Question everything.

 

Atheists, (or at least most of them) are also humanists. They care about what is happening on Earth right now. They aren’t looking ahead to some promised afterlife.

If there is one thing that is true about humans and morals it is that morals change with time. But as society grows, morals grow too. The future is bright. Proof of this fact can be seen when we look one-hundred-fifty years into the past at one of the most liberal minds at the time:

“I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in anyway the social and political equality of the white and black races – that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race. I say upon this occasion I do not perceive that because the white man is to have the superior position the negro should be denied everything.” ~Abraham Lincoln