Merry Christmas or Happy holidays?

Merry Christmas or Happy holidays? This is debate that flairs up every November-December in America.

On the side of “Happy Holidays” you have people and businesses who are trying to appeal to the greatest number of customers. On the side of those who take offense to “Happy holidays” and prefer “Merry Christmas”, you have Christians who feel that “Happy Holidays” is an attack on their beliefs. Some on the “Merry Christmas” side have even gone so far as to call for a boycott of businesses that say “Happy Holidays” as opposed to “Merry Christmas.” I’m not sure about your locale, but you can often find people driving around with the following “Keep Christ in Christmas” car magnets.

It should come as no surprise that I feel that the “Merry Christmas” crowd is acting like a bunch of angry children. Let’s examine the rationale behind why a person might say “Happy holidays” or “Merry Christmas” :

The idea behind “Happy holidays” is simple. There are several holidays celebrated  in the month of December. Since it is not easy to tell just by looking at someone what their religion is, it is a polite way of saying “I wish you well in whichever of the several holidays you will be observing.” It’s nice, it covers everybody, and doesn’t discriminate.

Now, for the “Merry Christmas” people who take offense to “Happy Holidays” their reasoning is some flavor of the following reasons:

I celebrate Christmas, therefore my holiday is the only holiday that really matters.

This is my country, founded on my religion, and everyone else should bow down to the superiority of MY holiday.

You can have your little Hanukkah, or Solstice, or whatever, but normal people like ME celebrate CHRISTmas!

To say “Happy Holidays” is to spit in the face of that majority’s cultural tradition! It’s an attack on my religious freedom [read as: freedom to oppress, marginalize, and belittle those of different faiths]!”

Now someone who takes offense to “Happy Holidays”  might not hold every aspect of the above self-righteous rage, but their reasoning ultimately stems from one of the above mentioned examples.

When someone takes offense to “Happy Holidays” or any other attempt to include others of differing viewpoints in the seasonal celebrations, they truly are acting like a spoiled child throwing a temper-tantrum. I’m sorry if you feel uncomfortable by the existence of people with differing views. I’m sorry if you can’t stand the thought that your holiday might not be superior to, and deserving deference from, all the other holidays going on during this season.

Grow up.

Secular: What it is and is not

So a little while ago we put up atheist billboards in Columbia, South Carolina. You can see the list of ugly responses we got in the post preceding this one, and the list of supportive responses over at the Ashley F. Miller blog. One of the ugly comments stood out in particular:

To all you atheist and “agnostics”. Believe or dont believe in God, but the day you die, you WILL come face to face with GOD and you’ll have to explain to God why you didnt believe in him. You are saved by God’s grace..not Walmart’s, Target or the Almighty Dollar. There is NO such thing as “evolution” either. If things have changed, it’s God’s will..not a happen so. So go ahead and do what you all do, but as said, you will find out the day you die. Good luck on that.

Walmart, Target, and the Almighty Dollar…that got me thinking, there seems to be a big misunderstanding when it comes to what “secular” means. I can understand why the religious think secular means what they think it means. From their point of view, you either have a god to give you purpose in life, or you have nothing. If you have nothing, then you try to fill it with material possessions. Therefore, if “secular” means without god, then it must mean that you try to fill the hole in your life with money. As understandable of a train a thought as this is, it is still horribly misguided.

Lets look at the actual definition of secular:

Adj: Denoting attitudes, activities, or other things that have no religious or spiritual basis

That’s it. Secularism is not about filling your life with material things. It is simply freedom from religion. It is not consumerism:

Noun:The preoccupation of society with the acquisition of consumer goods

As hard as this might be to understand for some people, it is possible to live a fulfilling and meaningful life without a god and without obsessing over material possessions. Secular is good, especially when it comes to laws. As much as any one religious person might like the laws to be based on what their religion says is true, there are plenty more people from differing religions with the same agenda. The last thing you’d want is someone from a religion you feel is false to be dictating your life. Secular removes this problem by taking religion out of the equation. So as this holiday season approaches, think twice before denouncing secularism as consumerism.

Infringing on religious freedom of speech

Paying attention to religious news lately has made me aware of an unsettling notion some people have about free speech when it comes to religion. There seem to be some people in this country who believe that since America was founded by fundamentalist christians (according to them and not actual history), christianity is the default setting for government and thus it is only natural to have christian monuments and symbols on government property and christian language in laws. Ergo, any attempt to prevent them from putting their religious symbols and language on government property or into laws is a violation of their free speech and freedom of religion. I had a civics teacher in middle school who used to always say “My right to swing my fist ends where your nose begins”, in essence, one person’s rights  ends when it starts to infringe on another person’s rights. For instance, it might be some Mormon fundamentalist’s religion to marry and rape multiple young girls, but his right to freedom of religion ends when he violates those  girls’ rights.

You have the right to practice your religion any time, any place you want, as long as you do not infringe on other people’s rights. You have the right to build houses of worship on private property and put up whatever signs you want on that property. You have a right to pray to yourself in school any time you want. You have the right to stand on public property and protest, holding religious signs. The government has no right to stop you from any of these activities, as long as you are not infringing on the rights of others. You do not, however, have the right to force your beliefs onto the government that is supposed to represent everyone equally. Erecting a cross on a public land, putting the 10 commandments in a public courthouse, or trying to brand the government with your faith is not one of your rights.

Atheists are hate groups

So recently Obama met with The Secular Coalition for America and some right wing groups went nuts.

“It is one thing for Administration to meet with groups of varying viewpoints, but it is quite another for a senior official to sit down with activists representing some of the most hate-filled, anti-religious groups in the nation,” said Council Nedd, chairman of the religious advocacy group In God We Trust.

Seriously? Atheist groups are hate groups? We stand up for freedom of religion for all, and we’re hate groups? We stand up for separation of church and state and we’re hate groups?

Last time I checked, Atheists weren’t the ones protesting human rights. Atheists aren’t the ones killing gays and shouting “I hate fags!”. Atheists aren’t the ones who stone people or blow up health clinics. Atheists aren’t the ones who blow up restaurants and buses. Atheists are not the ones with a book, telling other people they are going to burn in HELL forever!

But yeah, other than that we’re totally hate groups. The idea that we fight for the equality of all human beings and stand up for reason and intelligent inquiry is just some conspiracy…

Christian Privilege

First let me define privilege.

Privilege is: About how society accommodates you. It’s about advantages you have that you think are normal. It’s about you being normal, and others being the deviation from normal. It’s about fate dealing from the bottom of the deck on your behalf. (Source)

This is usually (and rightly so) used when talking about Male Privilege or White Privilege.  These types of privilege are everywhere, but most evident in the media. My white male readers, stop and think about how many movie/books/video games are told either through the perspective of white male like yourself, or made with you in mind as the target audience? For many things in life, white male is the default.

I would like to argue that there is another type of privilege, at least in the United States; Christian Privilege.

America is an extremely religious country. 78.5% of the country alone is Christian. (source)  (The country’s constitution is secular, it’s people are not) Christian is the default. This is most evident at Christmas, the old pagan holiday adopted by early Christians and lately turned into a shopping orgy by corporations. Christmas Christmas Christmas! It’s EVERYWHERE! Everyone says “Merry Christmas!” as if everyone celebrated it. Nobody goes around on other holy days of the year saying “Merry _____”, just Christmas, because everyone assumes everyone else is Christian.

It’s common to just ask people if they go to church, assuming they’re Christian. Church is the norm. Our government starts meetings of congress with an opening prayer. The White House puts up a Christmas tree every year. People want to put religious monuments on public property. (What’s the problem? Everybody’s Christian right?) Anti-government tea-party conservatives want to force Christian music on children in California. The Christian god is on our money, in our pledge! Bibles are put in every hotel room and doctor’s office! Walk into a grocery store or Walmart, all the “Choice books” displayed are Christian books!

Atheists can’t get elected to office in this country. (One was, but he came out afterwards) 7 states have specific legislation banning Atheists from holding office. Political candidates where their religion like it’s a ticket to an exclusive event, or a flag. They always have to go on and on about their religious credentials. (If they don’t they won’t get elected) The US military is very Christian. Fundamentalists have been proselytizing for ages in the military. Just recently they were forced to remove bible inscriptions from sniper scopes being used to shoot Muslims in Iraq. Christian ministers are always the president’s “spiritual adviser”, they also give opening prayers at elections.

There are at least 335,000 churches in America. America is 3.79 Million square miles. That’s about 1 church every 11 square miles. (And this doesn’t count newly opening churches)

All these facts make Christians feel they are normal, and anyone who is not a Christian is not normal. I remember when I was a Christian I didn’t even learn that there was such a thing as “not Christian” until 5th grade. Even then I was only dimly aware of Jews and Muslims, but that was it. There was the Christian god and nothing else. Everybody knew that. I remember reading about Atheists in the news in highschool and thinking “Those people don’t believe in god? What the? How can you NOT believe in god!?!? Everybody knows there’s a god. They’re just crazy and luckily small in number…” For the longest time, I cringed when people said “I’m not Christian.” That was like the worst thing you could say. It shocked me when my college professor came out and said it. “That’s awful, you should keep it to yourself” I thought in my head.

Now that I’m one of those “crazy and few in number” people, I feel distinctly not normal. When you’re not a believer in an extremely religious country, you start to feel like it isn’t your country, like you’re a second class citizen. I put signs in my car window to try and remind Christians that they’re not the only ones here, but Christian Privilege is just so massive I don’t know how to fight it. Women have feminism to fight male privilege. Blacks have the NAACP to fight white privilege, what about Atheists? Trying to get us to work together is like herding cats. We have nothing in common except a lack of a belief in magical beings.

The BS idea of “secular society” in America

I hear the phrase “secular society” thrown around a lot. Usually the people I hear using it are saying it with a tone of disgust in their voice, as if the secular society was keeping their religion from breathing easy, free from scrutiny or any kind of restraints.

So what exactly is a secular society? Well when I asked google to define it, all it did was point me to ” Consumer Behavior: Building Marketing Strategy“, a textbook. According to the textbook, a secular society is

“A society where the educational system, government, and political process are not controlled by a religious group, and most people’s daily behaviors are not guided by strict religious guidelines.”

So does America fit that profile? Sorta. Currently the educational system in this country is under attack by the “Intelligunt [sic] Design” people, or christian creationists in wolves’ clothing. Instead of teaching our children critical thinking skills, they rather have them stop questioning, give up, and say “god did it.” They purposely misuse the word “theory” and have no testable hypothesis of their own….but I digress….

As for the government and the political process, while they aren’t official theocracies like Iran, religion plays a big role, especially since the days of the Reagan administration. While Article VI section 3 of the U.S. Constitution clearly states “no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States” none the less, religious tests specifically baring Atheists were written into the state constitutions of Arkansas, Maryland, Texas, Massachusetts, North Carolina, South Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Tennessee.  While the 14th amendment to the Constitution also prohibits these, it is damn near impossible for an Atheist to get elected to public office if they are open about their Atheism. (Only 1 congressman is openly Atheist, Rep. Pete Stark (D-Calif.) and I doubt he was openly Atheist when he was running)

According to a study done by the University of Minnesota in 2006, Atheists are the least trusted group in American society…..our “secular society”…. Perhaps the bible should read “It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for an Atheist to to get elected in America.

The funny thing about this “secular society” is that the majority of the people who make up society aren’t secular. According to the CIA World Fact Book , 84% of the country is religious, and of that 84%, 78.5% is christian! Of that 78.5%, over a full third go to church every Sunday!

The scary thing is that the Republican Party has been taken over by the christian right. Slowly ever since the Reagan years the christian right has infiltrated the party, moving it farther and farther into the right. We just go over 8 years of an Evangelical christian president, arguably one of the worst presidents in history. Just this past election season Gov. Sarah Palin, another christian fundamentalist, ran for vice president. Had McCain been elected, she would have been a heart beat away from running the most powerful nation on earth……this coming from a person who doesn’t believe in evolution, thinks the world is only 6,000 years old, and that the Iraq war is “God’s will“…. Even scarier, this woman, if you can call her that (her view’s about a woman’s rights are atrocious) isn’t going away any time soon. Something tells me she’ll be back. “Huckabee/Palin 2012″…..*shudders*

So what is “secular” in this “secular society”? Well the courts perhaps. They do require empirical evidence before they convict someone of a crime, and until then the people making the charge/claim have the burden of proof….so I guess that’s secular. You can’t really just walk in as say “I have faith that the defendant is guilty!” That type of reasoning might work with the religious, but not in the real world. Unfortunately, the same christian right that has taken over the Republican party has slowly been working to “infiltrate the profession [of lawyers and judges]” as the bigot Jerry Falwell pointed out when talking about “liberty” “university’s” “law” “school”.

The same logic and reasoning behind requiring observable evidence is the cornerstone of science, so I guess that makes science secular too. (But not if the ID idiots have their way) Science is everywhere in our society…well almost. It’s given you everything you use, from the computer you’re reading this on, to the fiber in your clothes, to your car, house, electricity, and medicine that makes you feel better and can even save your life. Yet nobody remembers that when they’re trashing our “secular society.”