I'm an Atheist and I really enjoy the holiday season. It's a time for spending time with family and friends. It's also a time for self-less giving (a.k.a. PRESENTS!).
There are many secular things that Christmas is associated with. For example the Christmas Tree is a pagan tradition adopted by Christians. Santa and Frosty are two examples of secular traditions that have more airtime than Jesus does.
Here are a list of secular Christmas movies and secular Christmas music.
Bad Santa
A Christmas Story
Elf
Home Alone (1,2, and 3)
How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2000, and 1966)
The Polar Express
The Santa Clause (1,2, and 3)
Frosty the Snow Man
White Christmas
Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer
The Nightmare before Christmas
T'was the Night Before Christmas
Ice Harvest
Miracle on 34th Street
A Christmas Carol
Holiday Inn
The Muppet Christmas Carol
Raymond Briggs' The Snowman
So as RabidApe would say, I wish believers and non-believers everywhere a Merry Christmas!
1 comments:
You are correct that the Christmas we know today is about 150 years old, having gotten more and more commercialized, and therefore secular, over the years. And as more and more people who are not religious get into the commercialized aspect of Christmas it will, to a very limited extent, make it more and more secular.
Having said that, I must also point out that it is not Atheists and other nonbelievers in this country who are making Christmas secular, but rather the Christians and Catholics themselves, as they fall into the consumerism/commercialism trap of excessive gift buying and partying to the point that they negate their own basis for the holiday. As the years pass and commercialism becomes even more invasive, Christmas may indeed become a truly secular holiday in this country, especially as more Muslims and others of different beliefs, including nonbelief, become more visible in numbers.
(Witness the many non-Christian Japanese and Muslim Arabs in their countries who have latched onto the end-of-the-year commercialized gift giving frenzy without the associated Christian connotations. These people, however, are starting it out as a non-religious holiday, whereas this country and Christian Europe, South America, etc., have always had it as a religious holiday. And it remains such, no matter what people say to convince themselves otherwise.)
In this country and the rest of the "Christian" world, it is still a religious holiday, even if you celebrate it without the religious aspect.
Which brings me to my final point, and request: Nonbelievers need to stop referring to the Christmas tree as a pagan tradition co-opted by the Christians as a reason they put up a tree this time of year. To say Atheists are "taking back" the tree is counter-productive to nonbelief. The pagans used the tree as a symbol of life everlasting (sound Christian to you?) and based it on their own religious superstitions/beliefs. Since Atheists are neither pagans nor practitioners of any religion past or present, associating ourselves with pagan practices is self-defeating. Better to just say the tree tradition was stolen from one religion by another, and say you, as an Atheist, just put it up because it's seasonal, pretty, smells nice, or whatever reason you want. As it stands (no pun intended), it's still currently, and was before, a religious tradition symbolizing everlasting life. There's no self-justification around it, even the pagan one, for Atheists to latch onto.
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