It is Christmas Eve, and I have almost lived through this year’s annual greatest of holidays. At midnight, Christmas will begin, and twenty-four hours later it will end. It will be over! But not yet. At this writing, the world is shutting down in anticipation. The 24 Hour Kroger closed at 6:00 pm. Gas stations are closing. People are smiling. Even NRP is playing Xmas music.

Lots of people are in church. Children are nestling to greater or lesser degrees of snugness in their beds awaiting, or fearing, the coming of Santa, an anagram for Satan. Lots of people are getting drunk, and lots are getting laid.

Santa Clause is coming to town. Not a very good modern role model actually. Overweight; labor laws scoffer; animal rights ignorer; and—believe it with horror—a smoker!

Some folks will die in car crashes from negligence and some will die by their own hands from, inter alia, pills, or pistols, unable to deal with what they experience as the depression and loneliness of the day. And it will be observed how awful it was for this to happen on Christmas. How dare they stain the wonder and magic of Christmas with their blood?

After the ripping of the packages, some fine meals will be consumed and much booze will be ingested.

I plan to have a wonderful time visiting with my children and grandchildren and having a splendid dinner. But, by present custom, I will neither give nor receive Christmas presents. I make up for this character flaw by being extra generous on birthdays.

Tomorrow at midnight the whole show will stop as if someone flipped some mighty cosmic switch somewhere. The Christmas decorations will still be up, but people will cease compulsively smiling at one other, stores will reopen, and celebrants of the season will start forgetting just what they got for Christmas. Relatives who can’t stand each other can quit pretending again. Some children will be delighted, others will be sad, and some will feel sold out. Some adult humans will already be arguing about the holiday bills that will soon arrive. Some of these spats will lead to divorce. A general fatigue and let down will occur as many expectations have been dashed and both adults and children will be drained.

Stupid discussions and invective about “self proclaimed” nonexistent “new atheists” and their imaginary “War on Christmas” can be put on hold for another year.

Many atheists love Christmas. And that is just fine. Christmas can, in paradox ally, be either religious or secular, or both. But most people don’t know this. They actually think that mistletoe and holly and Baby Jesus and astrologers and shepherds and mangers and flying reindeer and hewed down trees and Yule logs and feasting and drinking and all of the other heterogeneous trappings of the great day are all somehow compatible with each other.

Atheists can enjoy a perfectly secular Christmas and totally ignore the son of god superstitious part.

One neat way some atheists deal with the event is to celebrate the birthday of Sir Isaac Newton. It is on December 25. Some atheists have a tree in their home with fig newtons hanging from it and gifts for each other under it. A lot of people around Newton’s time, who were not born on December 25, are listed as having been born on December 25. This could well be because the religious constabulary of the day had made it unlawful to celebrate Christmas. No kidding. But, if one’s birthday was on December 25, it was perfectly legal to have a big birthday celebration. Get it? So these good people simply lied in church birth records to give them lawful cause to have a Christmas celebration that was called, if the authorities asked, a birthday party, for say Isaac Newton, certainly not for Jesus. Is is now seemingly impossible to know for sure if Sir Isaac was really actually for real born on that date or not. It doesn’t really matter.

So, the end is near.

On to New Year’s Eve!

Edwin
December 24, 2011
© 2011 by Edwin Kagin.

December 22, 2011

Offensive humor is more powerful than defensive politeness.

That is when you are, as we are, under religious attack.
There is to be, in this blog, as much offensive material as I can tastefully write.I don’t care if you “get” the jokes or not or why you think they are jokes or not.

There is going to be something somewhere in my blogging to offend just about everyone at some time or another, whatever time is. If people aren’t offended, blasphemy is without meaning. And I will have failed in my mission to comfort the troubled and to trouble the comfortable. Go ahead and be offended. Such offense taking cannot happen without the consent of the victim, so if, at any time, you feel overwhelmed, you are invited to switch to another channel.

Example of humor as a weapon. In Texas, a state in the United States, public officials, bound by oath to uphold the Constitution and laws of the United States, are busy removing Thomas Jefferson from public school history books and substituting some foreign religious figure in his place.

Such inspired a brilliant attack-response created by Kathryn Kagin, a young artist (and daughter of Edwin) from whom we hope to see much more good work. She removed Jefferson from a photo of Mount Rushmore and substituted the head of his holiness, that Pope. I will publish it here when I figure out how to post photos. Thought I knew, but what I thought would work didn’t work.

Christians are, at this time of the year, pleased to announce all over the place things like “Jesus is the Reason for the Season,” and similar certainties compelled by their religious faith. They seem to have little difficulty if religious icons of their religion appear in public places, like Court House lawns, public highways, and public centers of government. Like twelve-foot-high crosses on highways in Utah and a twenty-foot-high cross of structural material from the faith based attack on the World Trade Center in New York. Then they say it is not religious. Wonder how it would look if it was.

Today, December 22, 2011, is the Winter Solstice. This event, overlooked by Christmasterians, has been celebrated by non-Christian cultures from times far before the madness of searching for the Holy Grail got going. Solstice is the day, discovered by people far smarter than we think they were, when the days stop getting shorter and, slowly, ever so slowly, started to get longer again.

It is perfectly reasonable that our ancestors who observed this event could not know for certain if the gradual lengthening of the nights would continue until all was in darkness. It was therefore also reasonable to ask the gods du jour to give back to humankind, and to all other living things, the light of the sun. How can modern believers in such things as a god child being born in a feed trough from the womb of a virgin, and being adored by goatherds and astrologers, possibly consider Solstice beliefs and practices odd?

The Jesus cult of the first century Common Era simply borrowed the details from other mystery cults and acted like the data were unique to them. Like the worship of Mithra in the first century CE. Mithra was born on December 25, the then Solstice, walked on water, raised the dead, was crucified and then arose from the dead. Inter alia. Sounds vaguely familiar don’t it?

It wouldn’t have been too hard to get rid of atheists by simply killing them or by letting them clearly know they would not make the next roll call if they did not convert. No wonder there are so many closet atheists today. Mithra is our heritage. We are bathed in the blood of the bull.

But I digress.

If we would find some commonality among earth’s children, universal festivals and celebrations might well, as suggested by the founder of American Atheists, be celebrated four times a year. These are the Winter Solstice, the Summer Solstice, the Vernal Equinox, and the Autumnal Equinox. If you don’t know what they are, look them up and then you can be as religiously literate as an intelligent eight year old Mayan child.

So, when religious types who want you to play in their sandbox, and who want the laws that apply to all of us to be used to kick start their proselytizing, you can know with certainty that their assertion that “Jesus is the Reason for the Season” is just plain wrong.

Solstice is the reason for the season.

And there is a grand tradition of drinking, feasting, and gift giving thereunto appertaining that goes way farther back than the Baby Jesus stories.

There is also a grand tradition of fertility rites and related activities associated with the season, but don’t tell them that.

No need to blow all of their fuses at once.

Edwin.
December 22, 2011
Solstice.

Religious Christmas is a festival of humans who tearfully celebrate unfulfilled expectations. This blog will usually contain new material. However, the following classic (hopefully) Edwinian writing has been in demand every Christmas since its first publication as a “Kagin’s Column.” In response to numerous (maybe three) requests that it be repeated now at this holiday season, here it is so you don’t have to go digging for it in the archives of earlier blogs:

ON CHRISTMAS, or
“NO, VIRGINIA, THERE IS NO SANTA CLAUS”

If I could work my will, every idiot who goes about with “Merry Christmas” on his lips should be boiled with his own pudding, and buried with a stake of holly through his heart. He should!
Uncle Ebenezer Scrooge (not to be confused with Uncle Scrooge McDuck)

————————————————————-

I can’t prove that no ungulate unit of reindeer persuasion can fly, any more than you can prove I don’t have two invisible unicorns that frolic in benign innocence at Camp Quest. I can’t prove there are no living dinosaurs (as the arkonuts challenge the skeptical to do) anymore than the arkonuts can prove the English text of Genesis they rely on is identical to the original version they hold was dictated, or inspired, by god. But if one says that all crows are black, there is no need to check every crow to falsify that assertion. All that is needed is to find one white crow, or any crow of a different color. Similarly, Santa skepticism can be soundly silenced by the production of one flying reindeer. Yet Christmasterians insist doubters disprove Santa, sleigh, and such, or keep silent, lest they destroy a child’s simple (mindless) faith. This method of proof proves useful later, as children, programmed to believe fantasy is truth, grow to adultery and unquestioningly follow the fantastic follies of faith of their fathers (and mothers–political correctness must not be permitted to fall down a personhole).

To be sure, Plato (not to be confused with Mickey Mouse’s dog) argued that, to conceive of something that is real, one must somehow get the perfect idea of that something from the place it really exits, to wit, the world of forms–a place somewhere that no one has ever seen. Reality alone wouldn’t do. Thus, everyone but philosophers know what a horse looks like, and kids know all about Santa without having to survive Philosophy 101.

Can we imagine, or even believe in, something that doesn’t exist? Sure we can. Just talk with those who have been abducted by aliens. If some unseen thing is believed by many, e.g., angels, it is called faith. If a thing is believed by only one, and is wildly outside the gates of common sense and experience, then the belief, e.g., suddenly realizing that one’s guardian angel is made of grape jelly and having him (there are no female angels–check your bible, you can win bets on this) on toast, it is called psychosis. The problem is that the invisible and the non-existence look much the same. Christmas beliefs fall somewhere between the province of priest and psychiatrist.

Christmas combines two contradictory images of godlike characters: Jesus, the Christ, who taught that to be saved one should sell all of their property and give it to the poor (the church later declared belief in this teaching a heresy), and Claus, the Santa, to whom children are taught to write letters requesting property–believed to be given by Santa, in one night, to those children of the world found worthy–in direct challenge to the counsel of the Christ. One should note, before teaching the latter belief system, that an anagram of Santa is Satan.

The day itself, meaning Christ’s Mass, is the same day the Romans used to honor their sun god with gift giving and feasting. Christmas is quite pagan. Its secular celebration involves rituals specifically forbidden by holy writ, like hewing down a tree, bringing it inside the house, decorating it, and praising it. This is as clear a violation of divine decree as public prayer, or celebrating the Sabbath on the first day of the week instead of on the seventh day as ordered (Commandment IV). No wonder we are in such trouble these days with crime, inflation, and teenage pregnancies.

Unfortunate cultural consequences flow from the forced frivolity and jejune joy Christmas creates and requires. People get depressed when they don’t feel happy as they should, when they do not have their artificial expectations fulfilled, and when they cannot meet the unreasonable artificial seasonal needs of others–like their mercenary relatives, and their materialistic, greedy, spoiled children–and get even deeper in debt by trying to behave as expected.

Thanks to Tom Flynn, and his wonderful heresy The Trouble With Christmas, I chucked the whole thing a few years ago, and lived. Try it. You will feel better for it.

Should I be granted a Christmas wish, it would be that the holiday be canceled, and that the whole show appertaining to this business of Christmas not be done at all. Please understand that I do not care if others celebrate Christmas if they wish, nor would I suggest that they be prevented from doing so. I just don’t want the holiday to be compulsory for me or anyone else–any more than I want other people’s prayers, that they have an absolute right to pray, to be forced upon me by public officials or upon children by public schools. One who would rather decline gets somewhat tired of listening to those who absolutely and uncritically assume all good people celebrate Christmas, and that something is horribly wrong with anyone who ignores the invitation to attend their compulsory party.

Failing the unlikely event of Christmas being made optional, I would alternatively wish, in seasonal answer to Virginia’s famous question, that we might see something in the public press, for innocent children, like:

Dear Virginia,

No, Virginia, there is no Santa Claus. It is a myth that has been cruelly used to deceive children for the pleasure of adults who unwittingly destroy children’s sense of basic trust by teaching them that the world is something other than it really is.

I know this news must be a shock to you, and I am truly sorry for your discomfort. But it is not my fault. The person who tells you the truth should never be blamed for the hurt that comes from learning that others have lied.

You should not believe in Santa Claus any more than you should believe in fairies, or in demons waiting around to pull you under the earth, or in angels lurking about to transport you above it.

People do not need to believe foolish things to have love and compassion and caring, any more than they need a special season or holiday to be nice to one another.

If things believed prove false, does that mean peace, and sharing, and kindness must dissolve like mist along with the untrue things? Of course not! We don’t need magic to have happiness, and wonder, and joy. Our beautiful world is full of these things, and they are very real, and our real world holds more interesting and wonderful people and things than any fairyland anyone could ever even imagine.

Some adults are afraid of things they don’t understand, and they teach children to believe in magic. But the truth is really far more exciting. Wouldn’t you rather learn what is on real planets, that are millions of miles away, than believe reindeer can fly? Have you ever seen the northern lights? I have, and I can tell you they are more beautiful, more mysterious, and more wonderful than any pretend story anyone could ever invent about elves that have workshops at the North Pole.

Is it okay to pretend and to believe things we know are not true? Of course it is! And it can be a lot of fun. Intelligent people love to play. Any time you watch a movie or a play or go to a costume party you are playing and pretending something is so that is not.

We know those aren’t real people in the TV–only images of them–but we know we are pretending, and this is fun and much different from believing a falsehood. Would it be wrong to tell a friend of yours, who firmly believed there were really small people inside the television set, that his or her belief was not true? Would it be right for you to be condemned for destroying that friend’s childlike faith? What if several of your best friends thought they could fly, and set off for a bridge over a 600 foot deep gorge to prove it? Would it be wrong for you to politely try to convince them that they just might be mistaken, no matter how firmly they believe they are right? Would you be destroying their childhood or saving their future?

Follow the truth, no matter where it may take you. And don’t pay any attention to those who think comforting falsehoods are better than understanding the world as it is. If you ever have children, teach them trust by telling them the truth.

By the way, just in case you didn’t know, the stork didn’t bring you. You are here because your parents had sex.

Keep questioning, Virginia, and don’t feel it is the least bit wrong to demand correct answers.

Asking questions is what makes us human.

Your friend,

Uncle Edwin
=====================================

And Here for Dessert:

Christmas Letter

Dearest Beloved of Our Family in Christ,

There have been many changes this year for our family. Our beloved 17 year old daughter suffered blindness and paralysis after being struck by a drunk driver on her way home from Wednesday night church services. Aunt Polly died of liver cancer, following a long and painful illness. The family cat was smashed by a UPS truck. Mabel’s M.S. is getting worse and she can hardly do anything much anymore. Father had to have a triple bypass operation, and now uses a breathing tube. The house was burned down by sparks from the burning of Harry Potter books in our yard. Little Marvin got a chicken bone stuck in his throat at a church picnic and was rushed to the hospital where doctors had to remove his voice box, so he can never talk again, but God miraculously saved him. Miranda is now being home schooled after she left eighth grade to become a single mother. An abortion was out of the question, and we know God has given us a hydrocephalic grandchild for his own good and perfect reasons. Our oldest son had his left foot blown off in an ambush in Iraq while helping to bring Christ and Democracy to those poor heathens. We rejoice in the wisdom of our God, in His gifts, and in His plan for our lives. We bear grateful witness to all that our great and merciful God has done for us in the past year, and we praise the works of His hand. Oh, almost forgot. The dog died.

In His Holy Name,

The Fundangelical Family

© Edwin Kagin. December, 2006. Permission to reproduce without profit is given. If you make money on it, I want some of it. Edwin)

https://freethoughtblogs.com/kagin/2011/12/21/170/

I am as excited as a priest in Chuck-E-Cheese over my new blog.  That was funny wasn’t it?  I thought so when I first heard it.  Have no idea where it came from so I can’t ascribe credit for it.  Maybe it is now part of our spiritual heritage.   Someone said Einstein said something to the effect that the secret to genius is concealing your sources.

So why was that funny?  It was funny to at least some of you.  The reason it is funny is because it proclaims (or at least implies) that certain priests have an unhealthy and unlawful interest in children.  Hence the venue of a place where kids go and a priest who went it there, presumably to ogle children, excited to be in that known haunt for children.  And it is his type and other fanatical religious fellow travelers who are the targets of this new adventure in blogging.

This blog is titled “Blasphemous Blogging.”  Here is how I described it in its earlier incarnation:

Blasphemy is the crime of making fun of ridiculous beliefs others hold sacred. This blog is about satire, truth, inquiry, and critical thinking. It is about enjoying life before death. It is about how some try to control many through their notions about a make believe supernatural world and imaginary rewards and punishments after death. This blog says that blasphemy is a good thing, a healthy thing, and a good antidote to harmful superstition. This blog is about freedom. Edwin.

I really don’t see any good reason to change a word.

Thank you for your comments.  It was good to see some old friends.

I am satisfied that blogs are, to us the living, what the coffee house, Fleet Street news, and hand set type were to our ancestors who were then surprised from complacent superiority by the telephone and telegram.  My father, the minister, had a little joke which informed listeners that the three ways to rapidly dispense information were telephone, telegraph, and tell a woman.  Isn’t that cute?  He had a lot of little jokes

And once I got used to the physical reality of telephone and telegraph (but certainly not of women), along comes electronic everythings that do not seem to be grounded in physical reality–at least not in what I learned of in school.  This is enough to cause serious culture shock to anyone who remembers when Geography and Health were still taught in High Schools.  Although I seem to know a bit more about how to work electronic stuff (not how it works, for dog’s sake) than some of my similarly aged fellow travelers, for serious questions I suggest consulting an eight year old.  They have never failed me.  They do not see the Internet as some kind of idle persons toy–something without inherent  usefulness.  Those who hold that view are going to lose and the eight year olds are going to win.

We are going to talk about how to hold back the night–how to prevent the coming of a new Dark Ages.   Because I plan to make much of this blog autobiographical, with a fictional gloss, speculation only makes the project more fun.  You are welcome, should you have the slightest interest in doing so, to try to figure out what is fiction and what is fact.  Just like you should be doing in any inquiry about the nature and things of religion.

The proposed title for my autobiographical ramblings is “Never Live with a Woman Who Keeps Self Improvement Books in Bedroom.”

Edwin

December 20. 2011.

This is my first blog from the front porch of my new blog home. I give thanks and appreciation to all of those who worked with, or worked around, my electronic ignorance and my behavioral eccentricities to make this blog actually happen. A number of my writings, and other postings, from an erratically fed former blog, have been added to this new blog. The address, or URL, is:

https://freethoughtblogs.com/kagin/

It is my intent to use this much appreciated opportunity to do some serious blogging. I haven’t written much, or done much for that matter, since Helen Kagin died on February 17, 2010. It is time for that to change. It is time to affirm life.
You can find out perhaps more than you may care to know about me by going to my website, www.edwinkagin.com and by putting Edwin Kagin into Google and hitting Enter.

There seems nothing more worthy of discussion within our world view of atheism, at this moment of what we understand to be time, than the life and death of Christopher Hitchens. To that end, I offer for my first blog on freethoughtblogs.com:

In re Hitch

Christopher Hitchens said of Thomas Jefferson:

“We make no saint of Thomas Jefferson – we leave the mindless
business of canonization and the worship of humans to the fanatics
-but aware as we are of his many crimes and contradictions we say
with confidence that his memory and example will endure long after
the moral pygmies who try to blot out his name have been forgotten.”

This statement, reportedly read at the Texas Textbook Rally when Hitch was too ill to attend, can now serve, by changing names, as a tribute to Hitch. For a long time he drank too much and he smoked too much. He could be belligerent, angry and hostile. I did not know him, although I heard him several times and met him once as he signed his book for me and I gave him my book “Baubles of Blasphemy.” Don’t know if he read it or not. Never heard.

I could have introduced myself to him at the bar of the hotel where he was drinking prior to giving a brilliant talk as one of the four “horsemen” who had gathered for the event. But when people are drinking, their actions are less predictable, and I did not want to be responsible for causing some theoretical problem before his address, so I missed the moment. I kind of regret that now, because I will never have that chance again.

That is because “Hitch” died of cancer. He knew he was going to die, and he confronted that reality fully and appropriately. He seemed a nicer person than he seemed before the reality of his death sentence diagnosis was made known. He was both jeered and praised by religious types who must have hated him for his eloquent destruction of their most deeply held beliefs. But many of them actually seemed to admire him. Some religious types announced they were praying for him. As Hitch observed, such was both appreciated as a sign of caring (maybe—maybe not) and seen as a somewhat foolish exercise.

Hitch made clear that no “deathbed conversion” proceeding from a dying brain should be given credibility.

Is Hitch in some non-material word of when? Probably not. Is he having chats with, and being oriented to his new thing by, Thomas Jefferson, Robert Ingersoll, and Helen Kagin? Probably not. It would be nice. No, these splendid persons, as well as Hitch, have ceased to exist in what we are pleased to call the natural world.

And the certain knowledge that each of us must go where they have gone should, I think, provide a certain sense of comfort. At least each of them now knows for sure what happens, from their point of view, after death. What is really going on with all of those places we can no longer clearly see in the night sky because of light pollution? If it were not for religion, we might have by now found out.

Perhaps the finest tribute to Hitch is the spontaneous happening that seemingly everyone in Freethought, and many outside of it, are talking about Hitch and his legacy. The discussions, memories and observations are close to uniformly positive. Some Fundies laugh and jeer at their understanding that Hitch’s soul is now being punished for eternity by an entity they are pleased to call a loving god.

What I will remember of Hitch is that he was perhaps the finest stand-up debater I have ever encountered or heard of. He was not restrained by fear that he might be offensive to his opponents. He didn’t care what they thought or felt when he was denouncing the crimes of their priests, and their teachings and commands that made a lie of the claimed benefits attendant to their religious good works.

It takes some serious moxie to call the beliefs of so many believers dangerous foolishness in public. But Hitch did just that. He happily challenged anyone to explain just how some beneficial act could only be done by religion, or to name a good thing a religious person can do that a non religious person cannot do. Or tell what good idea religion has offered. “Love thy neighbor” comes close, he thought, but that is not always a good idea. Sometimes such can be very terrible and destructive.

Hitch did not feel any obligation whatsoever to be nice to religious apologists. He did not respect their beliefs, and he said so. He did not respect the people who advanced these beliefs either. He felt that many such efforts to push for ridiculous beliefs, like the Creation Museum, were ultimately dangerous to society. Science has helped people live. Religion has helped them die. As forbidding by divine order the use of condoms in countries dying from AIDS.

Hitch was a mighty warrior.

Hitch was an attack dog for truth.

Edwin

ATHEISTS ARE EVERYWHERE

There are Atheists in foxholes

Atheists in hurricanes

There are Atheists in all the roles

Denied by your refrains

Atheists are your fellow citizens

People who love and laugh and cry

Atheists are your relatives and friends

Don’t insult them with a lie

Atheists in many foxholes served

And some have had to die

Give Atheists the thanks deserved

Don’t dismiss them with a lie

Atheists are all around you

They work, they help, they care

And no matter what you think is true

Atheists are everywhere

And no matter what you think is true

They do not want your prayer

by Edwin Kagin

September 12, 2005

=======================================================================

ATHEISTS IN FOXHOLES SONG

(May be sung to the tune of the Marine Corp Hymn)

Music: http://www.niehs.nih.gov/kids/lyrics/marine.htm

For the Bill of Rights of our free land

For the Treaty of Tripoli

Many Atheists have fought and died

In the air, on land and sea

Atheists in many foxholes served

No task too hard to try

Give Atheists the thanks deserved

Don’t dismiss them with a lie.

(May be sung to the tune of The Army Goes Rolling Along) Music: http://www.defenselink.mil/multimedia/audio

In the field, under sail

Atheists will never fail

Atheists were there all along

Helping us stay free

Protecting liberty

Lying about them is wrong.

So where e’er you go

People need to know

Lying about them is wrong

Where free people go

Let them always know

That Atheists are going along.

(May be sung to the tune of The Navy Hymn) Music: http://my.homewithgod.com/heavenlymidis/USA/usnhymn.html

To Atheists who were so brave

Thank you for all you did to save

Our freedoms that permit a few

To lie about the things you do

From your foxholes hear and see

This thanks from those you helped keep free.

by Edwin Kagin

Permission is given to reproduce without profit so long as credit is given. If you make money on this, I want some of it. Edwin.

While driving down the highways, how many have I seen
Of Christian signs and banners–some pretty, some obscene.
And everywhere are fancy signs to make a Christian out of me
Like “Jesus–the Reason for the Season,” or some such fantasy.
Mangers, Wise Men, Shepherds, a star above a feeding stall
Surround me like a blanket leaving hardly room to breathe at all.
Religious scenes on public lands outside of city halls,
Baby Jesus in the classrooms, bibles passed out in the malls,
Choke reason from the victims of this vast wide sticky net
Of pious talk upon our doors, our roads, and the Internet.
But let some atheists post one sign saying reason should prevail
Over the myth of Christmas, and you will hear the Fundies’ wail
That atheists are not respectful, that they should die, leave, or go to jail.
And thus we learn the lesson, from what we see with solemn awe,
That they think Christians are the only ones protected under law.

Edwin Kagin
November 30, 2010

AMERICAN ATHEISTS
http://www.atheists.org/xmas

ATHEISTS CHALLENGE ”MYTH OF CHRISTMAS’ WITH GIANT BILLBOARD
AT LINCOLN TUNNEL

An atheist group intends to get an early start on the holiday season with plans to erect a huge billboard near the Lincoln Tunnel in New York City inviting people to examine their beliefs about Christmas.

The sign will start catching the attention of motorists on Tuesday, November 23, 2010, and remain in place for approximately one month. It will depict the so-called “Christian” nativity and the message:

“You KNOW it’s a myth! This season celebrate reason!
American Atheists Reasonable since 1963. atheists.org”

Dave Silverman, President of American Atheists, said that the billboard will target people who “go through the motions” of celebrating the holiday but don’t believe in the Christ myth.

“Many people follow religions and observe rituals in which they do not believe,” said Mr. Silverman. “They go along to get along, which simply leads to more prejudice and bigotry. Closeted atheists hurt themselves and others like them by remaining silent about what they know to be true.”

Silverman added, ” None of the traditional Christmas seasonal practices originate with Christianity. What we call Christmas has its origins in secular events like the Winter Solstice and the change of seasons, as well as Pagan holidays like Yule. This season was celebrated long before Christianity usurped it.”

The billboard is an invitation to everyone to learn more about the real origins of the so-called “Christmas” season, said Silverman, and to spur discussion of what we know to be true, and what we know to be myth.

“We are encouraging everyone to be honest with themselves and each other about what they truly believe, and to celebrate reason and truth this season. Unlike gods and saviors, reason and truth actually exist.”

(AMERICAN ATHEISTS is a nationwide movement that defends civil rights
for Atheists, Freethinkers and other nonbelievers; works for the total
separation of church, mosque, temple and State; and addresses issues of First Amendment public policy.)

The story on Atheism on ABC’s Nightline has been rescheduled from today,
Thursday, July 15, 2010, to tomorrow, Friday, July 16th, 2010.

Apparently it was bumped because of some breaking news story. The
producer just called me with this information.

Please try to let everyone you can know of this change, in that word of
the story has gone all over the known world and elsewhere.

Also, please understand that this is not a guarantee that it will be on
tomorrow, or ever,for that matter.

This is only the best and latest information available.

I did not make the facts.

Regards,

Edwin

The long awaited segment called “Faith Matters” of ABC’s “NightLine” is
to air tomorrow evening, July 15th, 2010, according to the producer who
just contacted me.

No, I cannot guarantee this, but I believe it to actually be true this
time. The show may cover Camp Quest, American Atheist’s De-Baptism, and
perhaps interviews with Amanda of Camp Quest, Edwin, and Edwin’s son Stephen the minister in Kansas, among other things.

I was flown to New York City by Nightline to be interviewed for the show
and, based on everything I saw and heard, I really do think it is going
to be a major story on Atheism. Hopefully, it will be slanted in a
favorable way, but we have no control over that.

Get the word out:

ABC NightLine.
15 July 2010
On Atheism.

Edwin.