Atheists aren’t really concerned about celebrating superstition
Monday, December 3rd, 2007The Thanksgiving holiday has passed and now we move into the celebration of the Christmas holiday season.
With it will come the usual litany of criticisms against the Christian connections associated with this time of year. They will be repeated like the repertoire of a pull-string talking doll.
I am well aware of the pagan traditions behind numerous aspects of Christmas, such as, the Christmas tree, the significance of the date December 25th, and numerous other objections that contentious folks may want to throw out there, thinking they are providing arcane information.
But my argument heads in a different direction.
Three renown leaders of the neo-skeptical/atheist movement, have written tomes in the past year or so, reviving old canards about belief in The Almighty being tantamount to belief in Zeus, Santa Claus, The Easter Bunny or The Flying Spaghetti Monster. Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens are the new triumvirate representing the Village Atheist nation, in their contemporary battle against the “superstitious” throes of Christianity.
Since Christmas is less than a month away, let’s look at the comparison with Santa Claus and the Almighty. Without getting into a lengthy analysis, we might quickly observe one obvious distinction: Most people quit believing in Santa Claus in their childhood, while some people profess a belief in God for the first time in adulthood.
I am sure they will say that there is no need to offer such a rebuttal because nobody actually believes in Santa. But we should keep in mind the following: (more…)