PZ Myers. 2005 Dec 22. Oh, no! Our plans…exposed!. <http://pharyngula.org/index/weblog/oh_no_our_plans_exposed/>. Accessed 2008 Dec 04.

Posted on M00o93H7pQ09L8X1t49cHY01Z5j4TT91fGfr on Thursday, December 22, 2005

Oh, no! Our plans…exposed!

Fafblog has ratted us out.

"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.

image

(via Evolucionarios)

Posted by PZ Myers on 12/22 at 08:33 AM
Godlessness • Humor • 0 Trackbacks • Other weblogs • Permalink
  1. Finally! A use for popcorn strings!
    #: Posted by decrepitoldfool  on  12/22  at  08:48 AM
  2. We don't celebrate Secularmas at our house. We are a bit late in getting the Kitzmas tree up, but we wanted to make sure that there acually would be a Kitzmas this year. I believe the tree goes up tonight. Happy Hole-i-days!
    #: Posted by  on  12/22  at  08:53 AM
  3. While a FSM is pretty cool, we have a flying pig on our skeptical tree. Merry Solstice, all.
    #: Posted by  on  12/22  at  08:53 AM
  4. End of story spoiler alert!

    The Xmas Duck fights with Giblets at the edge of the Crack o' Doom and bites off Giblets's ring finger with the Creator's Decoder Ring on it. Drunk with glee and power the Xmas Duck stumbles into the Crack of Doom. The Dark Ages finally end and the Enligtenment of Secular Humanism begins.
    #: Posted by  on  12/22  at  08:57 AM
  5. Organized musical Christian proselytizers knocked on my door last night, so I turned out the lights until they went away.

    One more day until Cephalopodmas.
    #: Posted by  on  12/22  at  09:10 AM
  6. I can never remember. How deep does the hole have to be to qualify as a Secularmas tree? This is getting to be too much work!

    Happy humbug!
    #: Posted by Zeno  on  12/22  at  09:43 AM
  7. Put this in your Hox pipe and smoke it!

    (.)(.)
    #: Posted by  on  12/22  at  09:44 AM
  8. I wanted to send out Solstice cards this year but Hallmark was out of them (funny, I didn't have this problem for Halloween).
    #: Posted by  on  12/22  at  09:57 AM
  9. You get mould for Secularmas! Eeeh, Americans. When I were a lad all I got for Secularmas were a clip round the ear and I were bloody grateful! Rocks! We'd've killed for rocks!
    #: Posted by  on  12/22  at  09:59 AM
  10. Thanks, w00t. I'm addin' boobies to my Secularmas list. Boy, are all the humanists gonna be surprised and have much jolliarity this Secularmas season.
    #: Posted by  on  12/22  at  10:19 AM
  11. Jollity (which I presume means over-eating, drinking too much, wild partying)? Christmas trees? Exchange of presents? Would these Christians have us believe that these are good Biblical practices? I've been told by Christians that Christmas gift-giving is in memory of the gifts brought by the Magi to the Christ-child, but is that really the origin of the modern tradition, or just another attempt to subsume the practices of other religions in order to conquer them?

    I recall seeing the text of a letter to the Venerable Bede from the Pope of the time in which Bede was encouraged to win over the pagans of the British Isles by appropriating their religious customs into those of the English Church.
    #: Posted by  on  12/22  at  10:24 AM
  12. Wouldn't want our tannenBaum to be St. Nikko-less.

    Kitzmas, Fitzmas, Secularmas...

    Io, Saturnalia!
    #: Posted by Ken Cope  on  12/22  at  10:59 AM
  13. JM - I'm a firm Christian and I can honestly say the following things.

    1. This post is frickarious! Even I find this funny. The notion that Secularists don't enjoy life is absurd. If they don't enjoy life, it's only because religous people constant bash you for your belief =-\.
    2. The concept of Christmas has become so twisted. While yes gift giving is symbolic of the magi, personally I feel it is more accuratly represented (from a Christain point of view) by "Christ gave to me, so I give to others." HOWEVER now it has become "If mommy doesn't get me this 20 foot list of toys, she must not love me."
    3. The squid-like-thing? That might be my new MSN display pic! LMAO!
    #: Posted by  on  12/22  at  11:20 AM
  14. The story of the virgin birth, complete with the three magi bearing gifts, goes way back. I'm not sure if the Pharoahnic Egyptians celebrated a holiday with gift giving though.

    The mythical Messiah was always born of a Virgin Mother--a factor unknown in natural phenomena, and one that cannot be historical, one that can only be explained by means of the Mythos, and those conditions of primitive sociology which are mirrored in mythology and preserved in theology. The virgin mother has been represented in Egypt by the maiden Queen, Mut-em-ua, the future mother of Amenhept III some 16 centuries B.C. , who impersonated the eternal virgin that produced the eternal child.

    Four consecutive scenes reproduced in my book are found pourtrayed upon the innermost walls of the Holy of Holies in the Temple of Luxor, which was built by Amenhept III., a Pharaoh of the 17th dynasty. The first scene on the left hand shows the God Taht, the Lunar Mercury, the Annunciator of the Gods, in the act of hailing the Virgin Queen, and announcing to her that she is to give birth to the coming Son. In the next scene the God Kneph (in conjunction with Hathor) gives the new life. This is the Holy Ghost or Spirit that causes the Immaculate Conception, Kneph being the spirit by name in Egyptian. The natural effects are made apparent in the virgin's swelling form.

    Next the mother is seated on the mid-wife's stool, and the newborn child is supported in the hands of one of the nurses. The fourth scene is that of the Adoration. Here the child is enthroned, receiving homage from the Gods and gifts from men. Behind the deity Kneph, on the right, three spirits--the Three Magi, or Kings of the Legend, are kneeling and offering presents with their right hand, and life with their left. The child thus announced, incarnated, born, and worshipped, was the Pharaonic representative of the Aten Sun in Egypt, the God Adon of Syria, and Hebrew Adonai; the child-Christ of the Aten Cult; the miraculous conception of the ever-virgin mother, personated by Mut-em-ua, as mother of the "only one," and representative of the divine mother of the youthful Sun-God.

    These scenes, which were mythical in Egypt, have been copied or reproduced as historical in the Canonical Gospels, where they stand like four corner-stones to the Historic Structure, and prove that the foundations are mythical.
    #: Posted by  on  12/22  at  11:56 AM
  15. Encyclopaedia Britannica says

    Customs and Traditions > Gift giving
    is one of the oldest customs associated with Christmas: it is actually older than the holiday itself. When the date of Christmas was set to fall in December, it was done at least in part to compete with ancient pagan festivals that occurred about the same time. The Romans, for example, celebrated the Saturnalia on December 17. It was a winter feast of merrymaking and gift exchanging. Two weeks later, on the Roman New Year—January 1—houses were decorated with greenery and lights, and gifts were given to children and the poor...
    #: Posted by  on  12/22  at  11:59 AM
  16. Christmas trees go back farther than Christmas! And Christians. And Santa Claus. And ...

    I can't say how far back the Secularmas Hole goes though.
    #: Posted by DouglasG  on  12/22  at  12:41 PM
  17. There is an older name for the secular winter festival - Yule.

    It's an old pagan tradition that newer religions subsumed. According to Wikipedia ""Paganism" is also sometimes used to mean the lack of (an accepted monotheistic) religion, and therefore sometimes means essentially the same as atheism."

    Essentially the same is god enough for me as long as I get bribed by yule gifts.
    #: Posted by  on  12/22  at  12:54 PM
  18. God Jul, as my Norse relatives would say. (And no, it does't refer to a deity.)

    But I'll celebrate Secularmas too, if somebody gives me a box of rocks. Mold can be scrubbed off. I'd like chunks of blueschist, some red jasper, a few nice agates, rainbow obsidian...

    Does my passion for rocks mean I'm supposed to worship some kind of earth-goddess? And if so, what's her midwinter party called?
    #: Posted by  on  12/22  at  01:37 PM
  19. We have long topped our tree with a Fantod, which comes from an Edward Gorey tale; I think it was called "The Uninvited Guest," but I'm not sure I'm recalling that correctly. I made the Fantod, and covered his nakedness, including his large purple balls, with a variety of colored feathers. He also has wings. Most people registered him as some kind of weird angel...
    Meanwhile, we don't have a tree, nor a hole, and I find myslef not wanting to hear any more x-mas music EVER.
    #: Posted by  on  12/22  at  02:42 PM
  20. I agree with Karen. I'd be happy to get rocks for Secularmas. I need some feldspathoidal syenite, and Pele's hair, and while we're at it, my feldspar collection needs bytownite, andesine, and anorthite. smile
    #: Posted by  on  12/22  at  02:46 PM
  21. Oh, and I need sylvanite. Can you believe it? Stupid gold tellurides, so expensive.
    #: Posted by  on  12/22  at  02:49 PM
  22. My family and I are celebrating Ravenmas this solstice season. It remembers when Raven stole the sun from the evil chief and returned it to the sky for all us humans. (A northwest American indian creation myth.) We even have a Ravenmas tree decorated with ravens and suns.
    #: Posted by  on  12/22  at  03:00 PM

  23. #54856: Marge — 12/22 at 09:59 AM
    You get mould for Secularmas! Eeeh, Americans. When I were a lad all I got for Secularmas were a clip round the ear and I were bloody grateful! Rocks! We'd've killed for rocks!

    .

    I can't say how far back the Secularmas Hole goes though.

    When I was young, we couldn't afford a hole! Instead, we.. uh
    OK, that's as far as that idea went.
    #: Posted by  on  12/22  at  03:59 PM
  24. Cephalopodmas?

    http://www.livejournal.com/users/radioactive/69983.html
    #: Posted by  on  12/22  at  04:31 PM

  25. #54905: Jason Malloy — 12/22 at 04:31 PM
    Cephalopodmas?
    http://www.livejournal.com/users/radioactive/69983.html

    Glad to see that it's catching on. I thought it was tomorrow, not today. Those solar and lunar calendars can be so confusing!
    #: Posted by  on  12/22  at  04:49 PM
  26. "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.
    #: Posted by  on  12/22  at  06:34 PM
  27. "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!
    #: Posted by  on  12/22  at  07:08 PM
  28. 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).
    #: Posted by  on  12/22  at  07:13 PM
  29. You muggles crack me up! Even the appearance of jollity is jolly!
    #: Posted by  on  12/23  at  01:18 AM
  30. 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 smile
    #: Posted by  on  12/23  at  02:28 AM
  31. Origin of the Secularmas tree-topper (I had to go find out!)
    http://4obsessions.blogspot.com/2005/12/spaghetti-monster-tree-topper.html
    #: Posted by  on  12/23  at  07:24 AM
  32. 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.
    #: Posted by  on  12/23  at  08:13 AM
  33. 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...
    #: Posted by  on  12/23  at  08:14 PM
  34. 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.
    #: Posted by ekzept  on  12/26  at  10:30 PM