Pharyngula::Christmas is for godless atheists and secular humanists, too!

Pharyngula has moved to http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/

Thursday, December 16, 2004

Christmas is for godless atheists and secular humanists, too!

PZ Myers • 37 Comments (last page)

Salon has a hilarious article on Bill O'Reilly's crusade to save Christmas. It's official: these people are insane. This is Christian paranoia run amuck.

"All over the country, Christmas is taking flak," O'Reilly recently announced, as he complained about "the anti-Christmas jihad" that's gripping the nation. "If they could, secularists would cancel Christmas as a holiday. That's how much they fear the exposition of the philosophy of Jesus." During his syndicated radio show O'Reilly intoned darkly, "The small minority that is trying to impose its will on the majority is so vicious, so dishonest -- and has to be dealt with."

Aaargh…my irony meter is howling.

So, someone tell me: where is this vicious minority that is trying to ban Christmas? I found one guy who wants to get its status as a federal holiday revoked. I found many more Christians who are affronted at Christmas commercialism. None of them have a prayer of getting the holiday shut down.

And look at me! I'm a big ol' grim poopy-headed atheist, and I've got a Christmas tree in my living room and stockings by the fireplace. When the pitchfork-waving mob descends on my house to pillory me for my anti-Christmas sentiment, they're going to have to walk under the mistletoe, and then I'm going to have to kiss 'em all. And serve eggnog.

O'Reilly laid out his conspiracy theory for Fox News guest Newt Gingrich on Dec. 10: "It's like the MoveOn people [saying], 'We're never going to get gay marriage, euthanasia, partial birth if we have a Christian nation. We've got to get rid of that Christian nation designation like Canada has, and then we can get our agenda through.' And what's the biggest display of Christian? It's Christmas."

He's just making this crap up. And it's not just O'Reilly, it's like the whole Fox lineup is whining about imaginary spoilsports trying to ruin their holiday.

Fox News pundit Morton Kondracke recently argued, "The logical extension of what [secularists are] saying is [to] ban Christmas." Meanwhile, his colleague Tony Snow concocted stories about how "you're not allowed to say 'Merry Christmas' in a lot of department stores" and then complained it was part of an elaborate "attack on Christianity." (Snow was apparently referring to a decision by Macy's to change its official store greeting to "Happy Holidays." Obviously people are still allowed to say "Merry Christmas" -- or whatever else they want to -- inside the stores.)

It must be a slow season for Fox. The election is over, so they can't rant against French communists running against their war 'hero', and there are no loud drumbeats for a new war (yet), so they're looking for an internal enemy to stoke hatred against…and who better than atheists and the usual targets, Jews and homosexuals?

O'Reilly is not alone in singling out Jews this Christmas season. In a column for the conservative Web site FrontPage, former Boston Herald writer Don Feder mocked the notion that "Myron may fear the onset of another Crusade if he hears the strains of 'O Little Town of Bethlehem' drifting through the hallways." He added, "The brave men who fought and died for America in every war from the Revolution to Iraq, overwhelmingly were Christians. Count the number of crosses in Arlington National Cemetery (on federal property, no less). Add the Stars of David."

Things got even uglier during a segment on MSNBC Dec. 8, when William Donahue of the arch-conservative Catholic League insisted, "Hollywood is controlled by secular Jews who hate Christianity in general and Catholicism in particular. It's not a secret, OK? Hollywood likes anal sex. They like to see the public square without nativity scenes."

This is fascism on the rise. Inventing phony pretexts to inspire fear and stir up hatred is a classic tactic for tyrants.

Trackback url: http://pharyngula.org/index/trackback/1719/iGTEtKqQ/

Comments:

#11246: — 12/16 at 12:41 PM
It's a Festivus, for the rest of us.

Is that sleighbells I hear, or is that the ringing of O'Reilly's ben wa balls?

#11247: Stacy — 12/16 at 12:48 PM
Didn't you hear, PZ? They took away your atheist card when you put up that Christmas tree, even with the Cthulhu Santa and octopus ornaments. So now, you're an honorary citizen of Jesusland too!

Spread the word, PZ doesn't get to go to anymore godless secular humanist anal sex parties.

#11248: — 12/16 at 12:51 PM
"... secularists would cancel Christmas as a holiday. That’s how much they fear the exposition of the philosophy of Jesus."

Exposition, exploitation .. what's the difference when your head is already full of imaginary enemies.

No doubt the reason the retailers of the US make all their money at christmas is because of this alarming trend inside of Bill O'Really's head.

#11250: — 12/16 at 12:56 PM
Thanks for posting on this, PZ, as tangential as it might appear to be to the defense of reason. I've beeen experiencing a sick sort of fascination with the howls of "Christmas Under Siege" from the conservative media in the past couple of week. This meme is all over Fox News and the conservative talk radio station here in St. Louis. It's like watching a car wreck--I may find it grotesque, but I can't look away. I mean, are they seriously promoting the notion that Christmas as an institution is being threatened by a handful of obnoxious, radical atheists--who I can probably count on two hands, and have about as much political power as goldfish fanciers or latchhook rug enthusiasts?

You pinned it right. The whole notion of "Christmas Under Siege" has all the qualities of the worst sort of authoritarian propaganda--conjuring illusory enemies, historical revisionism, guilt by association, self-congratulatory puffery for the benefit of the majority... Did I miss anything? Other than endless, endless lies, distortions, and misrepresentations?

#11252: — 12/16 at 01:02 PM
Crimony, I really have to start reading the 'science only' version of the blog.

I really live in a country that voted for 4 more years of this?

#11253: DarkSyde — 12/16 at 01:02 PM
This is one secularist who will take any holiday he can get. Christmas, easter, tooth fairy day, the day the music died day, I don't care what the excuse, just shut that freaking market down and let me sleep in.

#11254: — 12/16 at 01:07 PM
I guess the reason the Right is engaging in this "Christmas under seige" thing is because they'd have a hard time trying to convince people that atheists, Jews and homosexuals are trying to ban apple pie.

I was going to write "motherhood" in place of apple pie, but come to think of it, they ARE arguing that motherhood is under attack by the godless, so that's out.

#11255: OtherBen — 12/16 at 01:07 PM
Blimey, it must be an international Murdoch crusade to crush us "politically correct, killjoy leftists" in every country simultaneously - over here in the UK, the Sun newspaper is going bonkers about the same thing

#11256: — 12/16 at 01:16 PM
There was a lame column in the Minneapolis Star Tribune earlier this week about how the greeting "Merry Christmas!" was not welcomed by some, which is yet another perpetuation of the meme that Christmas is somehow being put down by those eeeeeevil secularists. This meme has a lot in common with the meme that conservatives are somehow put down in academia. Poor dears, I don't feel at all sorry for them.

#11257: — 12/16 at 01:20 PM
David W. -

Was that column in the 'Strib written by a James Lileks? I'll bet it was.

#11259: — 12/16 at 01:29 PM
Yep, it was Lileks. Which is pretty obvious, given the trival nature of the complaint.

#11260: Hank Fox — 12/16 at 01:36 PM
"It is my sad duty today to inform you all that playground bullies everywhere are under siege. There is no greater threat to the god-given lifestyle and well-being of playground bullies today than the relentless march of small defenseless children.

"Our common everyday pleasures, our joyous fraternal gatherings, our economic well-being, our very way of life is threatened with murderous extinction by these aggressive, insidious 7-year-olds, shamelessly and blatantly entering and attempting to carry out their filthy and degrading frivolity and loose, aimless hijinks in OUR traditional playgrounds.

"We have got to get them out of these playgrounds, we have got to KEEP them out -- by justified force, if necessary -- or our days as good, honest, upstanding playground bullies are over."

-- Tommy "Spike" Anderson

#11261: — 12/16 at 01:38 PM
I don't like being on the receiving end of anal sex. I guess that means I'm not a Hollywood Jew?

Anyway, my family thinks I celebrate Christmas. Most of my friends know I celebrate Atheist Children Get Presents Day. This involves helping set up a big evergreen tree in my parents' living room on December 23rd, putting exactly 100 of those C7 lights (multicolored, because all white lights on the ACGPD tree are an abomination) on the tree, helping festoon the tree with far too many beautiful, kitschy, and/or sentimentally valuable ornaments, adding exactly 3 dozen candy canes, putting tinsel strands (tinsel garlands on the tree are an abomination, as they belong on the rafters, mantels, and chandelier--whether they're allowed on the stairway is under debate) on the tree, keeping small children and dogs from messing with the tree, putting wrapped presents for family members under the tree on December 24th, and on December 25th, opening presents at 6am. Then there's the Atheist Children Get Presents Day dinner, which involves sweet potatoes cooked by a particular recipe...

We don't have mistletoe or eggnog, though. Not sure why. We have tons of cookies to make up for it, though.

#11262: — 12/16 at 01:42 PM
"This is fascism on the rise. Inventing phony pretexts to inspire fear and stir up hatred is a classic tactic for tyrants."

Problem is...a lot of them are talking themselves into believing this IS real. I'm sure O'Reilly think so.

#11265: — 12/16 at 01:51 PM
RRT:

I think fascists usually believe their own propaganda. The whole system works a lot better that way.

#11267: John Giotta — 12/16 at 01:56 PM
This is exactly how they get the Right to foam at the mouth. No amount of saying, "Nah-ah, not true" will make this go away. You have to realize the Christians are constantly told they're being oppressed.

I have a lot of insight about the Conservative-Religious Right-Red State crowd. I'm married into it.

#11270: — 12/16 at 02:57 PM
A secular Jewish couple I know patiently refers to Christmas as "Red & Green Day". Sounds okay to me. They don't live in Hollywood, so I'm not sure whether I should ask about the anal sex thing.

#11271: Murph — 12/16 at 03:03 PM
Bill says, "We’ve got to get rid of that Christian nation designation like Canada has, and then we can get our agenda through." And yet in Canada we have two federal holidays, Christmas and then Boxing Day right after. Interesting that he thinks the biggest display of Christian [sic] is Christmas; holy crap, what a flake. If ever there was a surer sign that he didn't actually, you know, go to church and all.

D

#11272: — 12/16 at 03:04 PM
Having just listened to 'Talk of the Nation' while on a lunch errand; it turns out that Christmakka is the only somewhat tongue-in-cheek title for Jewish/Christian households' celebrations at this time of year. It is a theme on the TV show The OC. The show's producer was the guest, and callers had greatly expanded versions that included Thanksgiving, Kwanza, and any other winter holiday in imaginative combinations. A lack of seriousness enveloped the show.

No doubt Bill O'Really and hundreds of others are dialing up NPR to register their complaints about this entire theme being paraded in public.

#11274: — 12/16 at 03:10 PM
I for one DON'T celebrate Christmas. No tree, no nothing!

DD..."alarming trend inside of Bill O’Really’s head". Thank (?) there's something there.

#11275: — 12/16 at 03:10 PM
Christmacca? Isn't that the day we celebrate the birth of Paul McCartney?

#11277: — 12/16 at 03:17 PM
OG I imagine BO's head as a smaller version of one of those hollow sperical cages with two motorcycles zooming around inside trying not to collide. A lot of noise and commontion, but no chance of productive output.

#11278: — 12/16 at 03:19 PM
The utter irony, as I'm sure everyone here is aware, is that this stuff has nothing to do with Christianity. The vast majority of these customs --- mistletoe, holly, Yule log, Christmas ham, whatever --- are at least a millennium old, some are probably far older (there is disputed evidence of Christmas-tree-like customs existing around the dark of the year two thousand years ago, even discounting the human-sacrifice-to-Odin-on-trees stuff), and the general custom of getting completely ratted at this time of year has documentary evidence over two thousand years old.

Christianity just pasted a thin layer of Jesusism on top of these customs, which I'd not be surprised to find are as old as human culture itself. Even the Church couldn't suppress them; they had enough trouble on their hands suppressing the Aesir in northern Europe.

(The Bible itself makes it pretty damned obvious that Jesus was born in summertime... I guess O'Reilly hasn't noticed. Perhaps the cattle stay on the hills in the middle of winter where he comes from.)

I'm as ready to ditch a celebration at this time of year as I'd be to ditch eating. i.e., not at all.

#11285: — 12/16 at 04:41 PM
"That’s how much they fear the exposition of the philosophy of Jesus." Gee, Bill, which philosophy? The one where we should turn the other cheek, or the one where we should fight Naughty People, like moneychangers in the Temple? The one where he had not come to make the slightest change to Mosaic law, or the one where he wanted to be worshipped as a God?

#11287: — 12/16 at 05:02 PM
Oh, I enjoy Saturnalia too, although you really have to have an entire community with various hierarchical relationships to each other to celebrate it properly. Otherwise you wind up with just the high school Latin Club exchanging frog-shaped candles.

Page 1 of 2 pages 1 2 >

Next entry: A neurological mechanism for Fragile-X disease

Previous entry: Flew who?

<< Back to main

Pharyngula has moved to http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/

Thursday, December 16, 2004

Christmas is for godless atheists and secular humanists, too!

Info