Atheists.org, be honest. It’s just Christians you have issue with, not religion in general… The author (amazingly) cites and quotes the American Atheists post, Winter Billboard Launched in Times Square: David Silverman, President of American Atheists stated, “We know that a large population of ‘Christians’ are actually atheists who feel trapped in their family’s religion. If you know god is a myth, you do not have to lie and call yourself ‘Christian’ in order to have a festive holiday season. You can be merry without the myth, and indeed, you should.”In response, the author writes:
Truly, this is a sniveling cowardice “campaign” they’ve got going and it’s hidden behind false concern for poor suffering closet atheists living in fear of retribution from their Christian families. I think they’re confused. They have Christianity mistaken for something else.
Where is their sense of concern for large populations of Muslims “who feel trapped”? . . .
And if you want to get down to technicalities, your billboard is false. . . .
The word “myth” should actually be under the Thomas Nast version of Santa Claus. . . .
Get your own damn holiday. Just make something up. I hear your pretty good at that.
Ha! You're clever. And by clever. I mean not.
ReplyDeleteTouché. Your mordant repartee has cut me to the quick.
DeleteWell he has sure put us in our place!!!
ReplyDeleteI'm glad he put me straight! Here I thought that Xmas was a good secular & pagan holiday stolen by the XTIANS!
I guess I will heed his advice and continue looking for 'my own holiday'. I know I will celebrate the 'WINTER SOLSTICE', now when does that occur? I will have to research that, it may take me a few microseconds.
I believe the original author is a she.
DeleteI am an escaped Xtian. It did in fact take me more than 20 years to allow myself the freedom to admit my own doubt (mainly due to the overriding presence of the HELLFIRE meme, which threatened me every time I was about NOT TO BELIEVE IN JESUS). It took reading a book by Julian Jaynes, THE ORIGIN OF CONSCIOUSNESS IN THE BREAKDOWN OF THE BICAMERAL MIND, which infected me with a different meme: the voice of god we hear is actually our own very wise intuition (sometimes, perhaps, the Jungian ancestral mind). Once I had the courage to face the terror of HELLFIRE, and say, "even if it means hell for me, I must be honest about what I believe or don't believe". The amazing was that the HELLFIRE terror vanished when I turned around to face it: I have not been afraid since. It took only my willingness to be honest to make this chimera disappear.
ReplyDeleteI have an altogether different reason for not celebrating X-mass. Eight years ago, my wife died on that day of the year - so I am not always on an even keel in December. But I have recently discovered that Isaac Newton's birthday is Dec 25, so I do have a reason to smile; I think of the Tannebaum now as an emblem of the tree of knowledge eating from which allowed us the ability to know and the conscious freedom to choose (the self-similarity of free will to that mythical choice is a wonderful idea to me).
memera: may I repost your comment on the front page?
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely.
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