Pharyngula::Oh, no! Our plans…exposed!

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

Thursday, December 22, 2005

Oh, no! Our plans…exposed!

PZ Myers • 34 Comments (last page)

"Secularists do not believe in jollity," says Giblets. "They believe in a series of random chemical processes which over millions of years have created the appearance of jollity."
"Secularists don't decorate Christmas trees," says me. "They decorate Secularmas trees, which are big holes dug in the ground to demonstrate the absence of trees."
"On Secularmas, they do not exchange presents," says Giblets. "They exchange identical cardboard boxes filled with rocks and mold and broken childhood dreams and nothing!"

It's so worth it to see the little kids' faces when they open that box of mold.

Speaking of Secularmas, I think I need one of these for my Secularmas tree.

(via Evolucionarios)

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Comments:

#54921: — 12/22 at 06:34 PM
"On Secularmas, they do not exchange presents," says Giblets. "They exchange identical cardboard boxes filled with rocks and mold and broken childhood dreams and nothing!"

Then we all hit each other in the knees with monkey wrenches before settling down to a nice holiday feast of cattle bones and dryer lint.

Nice to see that our traditions are getting out to a wider audience now.

#54927: — 12/22 at 07:08 PM
"all I got for Secularmas were a clip round the ear"

What, you got a clip round the ear?! We were so poor, our parents couldn't afford to have children but birthed us as teen workers outside the factory door.

All they could afford for yule was a walk in the woods to see some trees.

Which would have been nice if not for the fact that all trees were chopped up for heating.

Of course, since no one could afford a stove, we had to burn down the houses instead and use the chopped logs to build new ones every day...

So don't come here and say that you actually got something for yule, you lucky bastard!

#54928: — 12/22 at 07:13 PM
My dear son asked for something from here for ~~Christmas~~ Secularamas ....

http://www.venganza.org/store.htm

I was so proud my heart grew 20 sizes (oh wait, wrong story).

#54946: — 12/23 at 01:18 AM
You muggles crack me up! Even the appearance of jollity is jolly!

#54948: — 12/23 at 02:28 AM
JM - re: the pope's letter about appropriating celebrations. The letter is to St. Augustine, not Bede, though it appears in Bede's Ecclesiastical History. It basically says that you shouldn't know down temples or forbid sacrifices and feasting, but incorporate them into Christian practice.

Bede's History does include some really interesting stuff on the topic - the Anglo-Saxon kings seemed to have a 'try before you buy' approach to religion. 'OK, so if your god can win us this battle/save my ailing child etc, then we'll consider believing in him'. They needed religion with Results

#54955: — 12/23 at 07:24 AM
Origin of the Secularmas tree-topper (I had to go find out!)
http://4obsessions.blogspot.com/2005/12/spaghetti-monster-tree-topper.html

#54958: — 12/23 at 08:13 AM
For Secularmas every year my mother would give us a hand written card (just one card for the six of us) that said that she had given our rocks and mold to the poor as a donation in our names.
Every year we would get that same card with the date changed. By the way, the note was written on the back of our adoption papers (giving us, not taking us) and our names were spelled wrong. Since we had to spend our time harvesting mold and gathering rocks and couldn't go to school until we were adopted, we didn't find that out for years.

#55009: — 12/23 at 08:14 PM
Even as a kid though, I somehow suspect PZ would have thought that some kind of interesting mold was a cool present.

Actually, if more kids wanted obscure feldspars and weird fungus for presents, it would probably be a good sign...

#55248: ekzept — 12/26 at 10:30 PM
aw, hogwash!!!

curiousity, frivolity, capriciousness, and playfulness are the essence of the scientific soul.

moreover, curiousity is something a hypothetical Divine Being can never experience. isn't that a paradox? the Divine Being knows all, so can't possibly be tantalized by the possibility of discovery.

so, in some small way, we are greater than any such Being.

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Thursday, December 22, 2005

Oh, no! Our plans…exposed!

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