Every year it’s the same old crap with some Christian groups crying persecution because many of us choose to celebrate the winter season in different ways which are not anything to do with Christianity. Some get their panties in a knot when others want to say “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas”, when we don’t want religious displays on public property and government buildings. Christians boo-hoo that atheists and secular humanists are trying to take their Jesus away along with one of their supposedly holiest holidays when we succeed in upholding separation of church and state. But in actuality, for the most part, how holy is Christmas?

A growing number of Christians are upset with the materialistic side of Christmas that is promoted by corporate America. But is it really the fault of the corporations that people have grown to be so materialistic? The fault really lies with the comsumer and those who bury themselves in debt year after year in order to buy their little Christian offspring and other family members and friends all the trinkets and baubles they can squeeze from their credit limits.

A person doesn’t need to be a Christian to be sick of the materialism and greed that this season brings. And this commercial side of Christmas is not a new thing. Kids have eagerly waited for Santa Claus to bring them gifts for centuries. But as the years have passed, the commercialism has grown more and more out of control. The “reason for the season” has evolved into spending marathons. The religious aspect of the holiday is less and less important to more and more folks as the years go by, and the holy is being replaced with the material.

On one hand, for the atheists this is good news. Christianity is fading fast and at the doing of the Christians themselves. We just have to sit back and watch it all happen. We will get the blame, of course while no god comes to stop the greed and madness. Few Christians want to stop buying the toys, and all the goodies for their children, family and friends.

Christian Group Launches New Attack on Christmas Commercialism

. . .to a growing group of Christians, this focus on the commercial aspect of Christmas is itself the greatest threat to one of Christianity’s holiest days. “It’s the shopping, the going into debt, the worrying that if I don’t spend enough money, someone will think I don’t love them,” says Portland pastor Rick McKinley.

Where does this idea actually come from, though? Don’t church leaders themselves teach this idea that the more money you give their imaginary friend the more good that will come their way in return? On one hand they teach that “money is the root of all evil”, but at the same time they preach “send God your money” and “remember to tithe as the Bible instructs us to do”. Send by check, money order and credit card. They don’t care where the money comes from. God needs it. The focus in churches usually is about money. God does not provide. The “Almighty Dollar” does.

Don’t blame us atheists, god believers. Blame yourselves and your money-centered religion. Money makes the world go round, and your churches cannot operate without it. You have to have the big buildings, the fancy pews, and all that goes into your social clubs you call churches while there are people in the world starving and living in poverty. You just look the other way and “pray” to relieve your guilt. It is no surprise that money and material things have become more important to you than your religious beliefs. Praise the almighty dollar from whom everything flows.

The Religious Right has spent decades casting secular culture as the enemy. And yet instead of critiquing the values of the consumer marketplace, many conservative Christians have embraced it as the battleground they seek to reclaim.

Here’s the trailer: [LINK]

What’s with California and all the religious nutters? Here is yet another story from today’s news:

A Tea Party Christmas

A Tea Party activist and substitute teacher, Merry Hyatt, is trying to get an initiative on next year’s California ballot to require schools to play Christmas music. “It’s our right to have freedom of worship,” Hyatt said. Rob Boston of Americans United for Separation of Church and State said he had “two words” for Hyatt’s proposal: “blatantly unconstitutional.” Is it wrong to have kids sing Christmas songs in school?

Stupid question, of course it’s wrong to try to force kids to sing religious songs in public school. It is in blatant violation of separation of church and state.

Christians can’t force their beliefs on others: “It’s not the government’s job to provide you a place to worship,” says Ed Brayton in Science Blogs. That’s what churches are for. It’s mind boggling that Tea Partiers, who say they favor limited government, would want the government to “force non-Christians to take part” in their religious festivities.

That’s right, Christians have no right to force their beliefs on others. And it is not the government’s job to turn our public schools into extended religious facilities.

Just wondering what you all think about this.

Obama defends US wars as he accepts peace prize

Just nine days after ordering 30,000 more U.S. troops into battle in Afghanistan, Obama delivered a Nobel acceptance speech that he saw as a treatise on war’s use and prevention. He crafted much of the address himself and the scholarly remarks — at about 4,000 words — were nearly twice as long as his inaugural address.

In them, Obama refused to renounce war for his nation or under his leadership, saying defiantly that “I face the world as it is” and that he is obliged to protect and defend the United States.

“A nonviolent movement could not have halted Hitler’s armies. Negotiations cannot convince al-Qaida’s leaders to lay down their arms,” Obama said. “To say that force is sometimes necessary is not a call to cynicism, it is a recognition of history.”

The president laid out the circumstances where war is justified — in self-defense, to come to the aid of an invaded nation and on humanitarian grounds, such as when civilians are slaughtered by their own government or a civil war threatens to engulf an entire region.

“The belief that peace is desirable is rarely enough to achieve it,” he said.

His winning the peace prize while at the same time ordering more troops to Afghanistan has riled anti-war activists:

The president’s motorcade arrived at Oslo’s high-rise government complex for Obama’s meeting with Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg as a few dozen anti-war protesters gathered behind wire fences nearby. Dressed in black hoods and waving banners, the demonstrators banged drums and chanted anti-war slogans. “The Afghan people are paying the price,” some shouted.

Greenpeace and anti-war activists planned larger demonstrations later that were expected to draw several thousand people. Protesters have plastered posters around the city, featuring an Obama campaign poster altered with skepticism to say, “Change?”

The debate at home over his Afghanistan decision also followed the president here. He told reporters that that the July 2011 date he set for the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan to begin will not slip — but that the pace of the full drawdown will be gradual and conditions-based.

I don’t like to see more of our young men go to war. But at the same time we must not sit back and let terrorists build their forces and plot and plan to murder mass numbers of innocent people either. War is sometimes necessary for peace.

An article on atheists at Christmastime? Things are really beginning to change for us. People are finally starting to recognize that we atheists exist!

This story from Minneapolis was posted at Yahoo News via the Associated Press:

Atheists at Christmas: Eat, drink and be wary

MINNEAPOLIS – Angie O’Neill recently moved into a new apartment complex for seniors and she’s trying to make new friends. But Christmas is a tough time of year for an atheist.

“All the planned activities at this time of year revolve around the church,” said O’Neill, a retiree and an atheist for decades.

O’Neill sought an escape this week, joining a group of her fellow nonbelievers for a weekly “Atheist Happy Hour” at a suburban Mexican restaurant. The group, Atheists for Human Rights, is active year-round but takes it up a notch this time of year with a Winter Solstice party, a charity drive and good attendance for the weekly gathering at Ol’ Mexico.

For one thing, it’s a chance to share coping techniques during this most religious time of year. They range from the simple, like warning about certain stores that blare religious Christmas songs, to tougher tasks like how to avoid certain topics with certain family members. These atheists describe adjusting some customs to make them their own, like Nancy Ruhland, a pharmacist who sends out Christmas cards to friends and loved ones — but makes sure to find ones without a Christian message or subtext.

Even as they chafe at the omnipresence of Christmas, many of the atheists here are quick to stress their belief in the pagan roots of a yearly celebration near the winter solstice. Before Christianity and other organized religions, many cultures would mark the point where days started getting longer again with a “festival of light” that included parties, gift exchanges, even placing trees in homes. Some of those rituals were religious, but usually in a polytheistic way.

“What we’re celebrating this year is the promise of the sun returning. That’s S-U-N, not S-O-N,” said Bill Weir, a retired marketing executive from Plymouth.

“Then the Christians stole it,” added Marie Alena Castle of Minneapolis, the 82-year-old founder of Atheists for Human Rights and an atheist activist for two decades.

While I have not been a fan of joining any support groups for atheists, or atheist “churches” or any of that kind of stuff, on the other hand it is a good sign that atheists are coming together instead of keeping to themselves and silently enduring these holidays that have been hijacked by Christian Mythology.

Many Bible literalists aren’t so keen on banning divorce as they are in favor of banning gay marriage. However, it appears that many devout Christians both Protestant and Catholic DO want divorce banned, so John Marcotte’s satirical efforts to make a statement about Proposition 8 and the gay marriage ban in California may backfire in a big way.

The effort is meant to be a satirical statement after California voters outlawed gay marriage in 2008, largely on the argument that a ban is needed to protect the sanctity of traditional marriage.

However, it seems as if the movement has gone past the joke phase and many people are seriously supporting this proposal.

“Since California has decided to protect traditional marriage, I think it would be hypocritical of us not to sacrifice some of our own rights to protect traditional marriage even more,” the 38-year-old married father of two said.

Marcotte said he has collected dozens of signatures, including one from his wife of seven years. The initiative’s Facebook fans have swelled to more than 11,000. Volunteers that include gay activists and members of a local comedy troupe have signed on to help.

Marcotte is looking into whether he can gather signatures online, as proponents are doing for another proposed 2010 initiative to repeal the gay marriage ban. But the odds are stacked against a campaign funded primarily by the sale of $12 T-shirts featuring bride and groom stick figures chained at the wrists.

Marcotte needs 694,354 valid signatures by March 22, a high hurdle in a state where the typical petition drive costs millions of dollars. Even if his proposed constitutional amendment made next year’s ballot, it’s not clear how voters would react.

Nationwide, about half of all marriages end in divorce.

2010 California Marriage Protection Act: http://www.rescuemarriage.org

One commenter, Jenn has expressed my same thoughts about this movement:

I read about this site in a story that referred to it as SATIRE. A response to the prop 8 debacle last year. When i first read about it I thought it was hilarious and that i would have to back it just to go along with the joke. However, the more comments I read the more I believe it may have moved past the joke phase. Unless the vast majority of the comments and discussions on this site are osted as sarcasm, jokes, satire, or any other statement supposed to show the hypocrosy and blind sheep-like mentality of the supporters of prop 8, the joke has fizzled.

As another person has commented, strong Christians will not see this as funny and vote for it. The joke may backfire in a bad way for the citizens of California.

CNN’s Connecter of the Day: Richard Dawkins (11-24-09)

“Speaking to CNN on the 150th anniversary of the publication of Darwin’s seminal work “On the Origin of Species,” Dawkins said the evidence to support the theory that life on earth came about through natural selection, and not design by God, was “now massively buttressed by molecular evidence.”

And referring to U.S.-based evangelist Ray Comfort, who argues that the universe and life is the result of an intelligent creator, Dawkins said: “There is no refutation of Darwinian evolution in existence. If a refutation ever were to come about, it would come from a scientist, and not an idiot.”

Hi everyone! I’m back from vacation and though it was good to see relatives again, the magical incantations before mealtime, especially public displays start getting to me after awhile. After visiting our daughter for a few days, we drove south to visit with my aunt and uncle in N.C. and then over to Louisville to visit with my husband’s brother and family.

My aunt and uncle are of the Baptist variety of Christianity. The ones who feel they must exhibit their beliefs blatantly and aggressively out in the open. They thank their imaginary sky boss for every morsel they put into their mouths — out loud, even at restaurants. These prayers are more for indirect witnessing purposes to the “unsaved” at the dining table, as well as others within hearing distance. They bow their heads and close their eyes and thank their imaginary friend for our visiting them, that we made it safely, for the food “to the nourishment of our bodies” yadda, yadda, yadda. We sat there very politely and didn’t say a word though it was getting pretty old after the first couple of meals. It wasn’t just the mealtime prayers that were so ridiculous and redundant, but the ignorant statements made about science, the age of the Earth, evolution and other little comments that were made while we were there. If we had started discussing it, we would have been leaving much sooner than we did. So we were “tolerant” and put up with the ignorance and superstition all for the sake of peace, because they are family and despite what they think and believe, we do love them.

Our Louisville relatives are of the Anglican faith. However, the magical oogie boogie blessing time is similar. Only they like to be more touchy-feely, making everyone at the table hold hands as they say the blessing. My husband didn’t want to hold hands with his brother and joked around about it as he so often does. We sat there holding hands while the mumbo-jumbo prayer was said and we all dug in as soon as it was over and the imaginary sky being was forgotten about. At least my husband’s brother and his wife value education. He has a PhD and was an English professor at a big state university, and his wife has a Masters in Library Science and Education and they are the kind of god believers who have managed to reconcile religion and science.

I keep saying that I am not going to get sucked into these things prayer rituals anymore, but I do. Because the relatives are very kind to have us for guests. They offer us their hospitality, sharing their food and are very nice to us while we are there. So I tell myself that sitting through some hocus pocus mealtime ritual isn’t that big of a deal. However, we will find out next time they all visit us just how big of a deal it is when we refuse to acknowledge prayer in our own home. They are welcome to say their prayers to themselves, but we aren’t going to make a group thing of it.

Ok, now that I have vented about that, let’s move on to some idiotic thing that the pastor at my aunt’s church is telling their congregation. She repeated an example their pastor gave one Sunday about the Big Bang theory that left us at a loss for words because it was too stupid to even respond to. He told the congregation that the Big Bang was like having a junk yard with stuff everywhere and then blowing it all up and when all the pieces came down they all formed a nice, shiny, new 747 jet plane. We didn’t even have the desire to even attempt to explain the Big Bang theory to my aunt and uncle because we knew they were too sucked into this creationism baloney to even try to understand anything we would say. (The billboard in the photo above is real. They are scattered here and there in the southern U.S. It says “Big Bang Theory: You’ve Got to be Kidding.”) I would dare say that all the people making this kind of statement don’t even know what a scientific theory is and have no idea what the Big Bang theory actually is, either. And they don’t want to know. That’s the really sad part.

Then I see a couple of my fundie cousins on Facebook making fun of the Big Bang theory. Saying it was hilarious. One cousin posted a serious video about the Big Bang and said it was the funniest thing she had ever seen. This woman has three children in public school. I feel sorry for their science teachers. There is no wonder in my mind why kids here in the U.S. A. score so low in the math and sciences. Superstition is placed above reality, religion and faith above science and reason. And if this ignorance keeps on growing, what will become of the U.S. of A? Oh yeah…it’s because of us evil atheists. It’s all our fault that the education system sucks and the country is going to hell.