What Would Christmas Look Like?

What would christmas look like if the many angry christians were successful in de-secularizing the holiday? Really, it would look like one of two things.

Christmas might become a fringe holiday, celebrated in churches and the homes of the "christian faithful." It might be a holiday that we heard very little about anymore. Perhaps December 25th would be renamed as a secular federal holiday; say, the Day of Giving or something equally universal and unoffensive (although some religious nut somewhere would be offended). We would no longer hear christmas carols, except on christian radio and in christian stores; instead we would hear holiday songs. We would have our holiday trees and lights and decorations and food and presents. The nativities and creches might have their own separate aisle for the "christmas celebrators" (similar to how Hanukkah merchandise is relegated to one aisle separate from the rest of the holiday stock). Perhaps the christmas celebrators would go back to the old christian tradition of viewing the decoration with trees and lights as pagan, and we could have an easy dividing line between those celebrating christmas and those celebrating the secular winter holiday.

But that's not really what christians are going for when they fight secularization of the christmas holiday. Nope. And I think we all know what they are going for. There's only one good word to describe it; theocracy. A country where everyone who celebrates the holiday must do so with acceptance of the presence of baby Jesus as the reason for the season (even if it's just implicit acceptance by not raising a fuss when courthouses and congress buildings put up nativities and trees with angels at the top). A country were people pretend for at least a day that they have no complaints against christianity, that they accept and appreciate it. A country where no one celebrates a christmas that's conspicuously devoid of Jesus/god/biblical decorations, songs, and other reminders. In other words, a monotheistic country. "Sure," they may say, "you can celebrate your separate religions instead." Well, for now maybe. But come on, claiming a monopoly on an entire holiday season, and then claiming that they are willing to share it as long as people make sure to differentiate? That seems like the kind of concession that would only last for as long as it had to. If atheists, agnostics, humanists, and other non-believers in a particular religious faith all left christmas alone or celebrated it in a "christian way" do we really believe that Hanukkah or Kwanza or some other holiday wouldn't be the next target? If christians cannot live in harmony with those who don't believe, why would they be able to live in harmony with those that don't believe rightly?

Which is why, regardless of my personal beliefs about christmas, I am willing to fight for the right to leave baby Jesus and his manger out of christmas, to celebrate without carols or midnight masses, to be joyous and make merry without a maker to thank, to give gifts to each other out of love for humanity and not a deity. After all, there is no religious freedom if unbelief, disbelief, skepticism, doubt, and rejection aren't options too.

Merry...Christmas?

This is my first holiday season since coming out as a not-christian and non-religious person. It probably would have no impact on my impressions of the season if not for the fact that I have new friends and acquaintances online who are very openly atheist (and even anti-theist, as one woman likes to put it). So I find myself puzzling over the question of whether or not the use of the word "christmas" is a big deal.

On the one hand, let's admit it; this country may not be an explicitly christian country in legal wording, but in population and history it often may as well be. This is, in my opinion, rather unfortunate, but unavoidable nonetheless. I personally do not think it should continue to be one, but that isn't the debate I want to focus on right now. The real problem in the question of the use of the word christmas is that in a country that claims to offer its citizens freedom of religion there seems to be a very special preference for the judeo-christian brand of religion. Because obviously the history of christianity in this country is the reason that christmas is a federally recognized holiday.

On the other hand, though, there is no mandated religious expression associated with the celebration of the holiday. For the most part government buildings and institutions are still prohibited from showing a christian preference through nativity scenes or other depictions of Jesus, Mary, Joseph and company. In American christmas mostly means trees and lights, presents and food, family and time off of work (none of which are strictly religious observances; indeed, many of them have roots in paganism). So is it a problem to celebrate christmas? Is that somehow caving to some social pressure, to agree to call our American holiday by a name rooted in religion (Christ-mass; take that protestants!).

Perhaps I'm just too much of a chicken to touch this fight, or perhaps it's because christmas has always been a secularized holiday to me, but I really see no reason to mess with it. I mean, if people really want to be P.C. about the names of everything, we might want to rename the vagina too. After all, the word basically means sheath, which is kind of a degrading name for a woman's genitalia (especially non-hetero females). One could come up with a nearly-endless list of names that ought to be changed because of their history at some point or another. So, perhaps a better solution would be to continue to change the meaning of the words through our practice than to try to force everyone to use different words. At the least, it seems like a good choice in the interim between now and whenever it would be possible to institute a wide-range use of whatever new word one had in mind.

So on that note, merry christmas, happy hanukkah, have a good kwanza, a great new year, happy solstice, merry whatever-holiday-you-celebrate, and just a great happy holiday season.

What's Wrong With the Christian Religion

I would like to just some up, partially for myself, the major flaws within the christian religion. I will be specifically relating to the ways that religion creates dysfunction in its members. So, here goes.

1. Sexual dysfunction. This is largely reinforced by the "virgin worship" that protestants like to accuse catholics of, but really are just as guilty of themselves. No, really, I don't even know how much I need to argue about this one, because we all know how christians feel about those little whores with their birth control, abortions, and live-in boyfriends. The real problem, though, is that this leads to an idea that all sex is bad, and even though marital sex is obviously encouraged for reproduction, it can lead to less enjoyment (and yes, I do know plenty of christians for whom this is true, if you would like some sort of citation here). While I, myself, managed to escape feeling this way about my sex life, per se, that was only because I was prettty much outside of christianity by the time I married. Yes, I did wait until I got married. But I certainly felt a lot of shame and guilt for my pre-marital sexual desires and self-exploration/pleasuring. (Now might be a good time to mention to the sexually-prudish that they may want to stop reading my blog entirely; no, seriously). And let's not even get started on homophobia. Seriously, people.

2. Family dysfunction. Okay, I know everyone has dysfunctional families to some degree, but let's be honest; a system that encourages that one person in a group have all of the power and leaves the rest disenfranchised generally does not work well. On a larger scale we call it dictatorship (and I don't know why we don't call it that on a smaller scale to). Even in the most benevolent christian families (and yes, I know some) it just leads to buildups of resentment in the hearts of the ruled because no one can stand up to the dictator. And if the dictator is human (which I'm pretty sure most fathers are) they are bound to mess up sooner or later. Probably with some regularity. And when no one can tell them that they have, several things happen: 1, the wrong never gets corrected; 2, the leader never learns from his or her mistakes; and 3, anger and resentment tends to build up and also never get dealt with. I mean, come on people! Women and children are people too!

3. Intellectual dysfunction. I can't even tell you how many debates I have had that seem to fizzle out right about the time certain phrases or quotes are introduced into the debate. They include some of the following; "god's ways aren't our ways," "god wants us to have faith," "our minds are too small to understand god," "god doesn't want us to know/we're not meant to understand." I mean, really, if god didn't want me to know/understand/demand intellectual integrity in my beliefs then why the hell do I have such burning curiosity and intelligence that demand answers? Why would god create a universe with questions and creativity if god didn't like them or had no intention of answering them? The only way that I ever managed to have faith and intelligence simultaneously was by keeping the two of them far apart. Otherwise they would start fighting and my intelligence would get the upper hand and then I would have to put her in time-out for a while until she calmed down and my faith had time to heal her bruises from the quarrel. In other words? It didn't work out too well.

4. Emotional dysfunction. Oy. There are so many illustrations of this, including the aforementioned sexual dysfunction. Feelings of shame, guilt, fear, and lonliness are so fucking pervasive. Wanna hear something really special? When I was a kid I used to feel guilty for not feeling guilty enough about my sins. True story. I never felt as much need to repent, to pray to god for my sins and apologize, and I used to feel guilty thinking that that made me extra prideful or something. Bear in mind, I was a really fucking well-behaved kid. Oldest of six, got nearly all A's through school, almost never fought with my siblings (except when they were breaking the rules), I helped around the house, babysat, and I was the most religious of all my siblings. In many ways I was the standard my siblings were held up to (which I, and I think my parents, regret). Then of course there was the worry, because everything that happened was somehow part of god's plan and we had to figure out what god wanted us to learn or do in that situation. Outside on a beautiful day? Time to contemplate god's beauty. Driving through the rain? Time to pray for god's providence and learn to trust god. Late for work? God wants you to learn patience (ha ha). Friend betray you? Probably means god wants you to trust that god will always be there for you and protect you, or maybe god's convicting you of betraying the christian cause and not being enough of a "Jesus freak." This obsession/compulsion to always attribute god to everything that happened in life made it impossible to actually enjoy most moments because I always needed to know exactly what I was supposed to be enjoying, or I should be enjoying it as much as humanly possible because it's god's gift to me. After all, if I don't enjoy this sunset enough then I'm not grateful enough to god so I'm going to spend the next thirty minutes trying to work myself up to enjoying it as much as possible! And now that I've worked myself up to an emotional frenzy...the sun is already down. You see what I mean? Then there's all the worry about the afterlife, what it's going to be like, what if my friends and family don't make it in, etc.

Have to go to work now, but I hope this gives you a general idea of why I was so fucking happy to officially declare on facebook that I am not christian!!!

I Did It (For Definition of 'It' Read Last Post)

I did it. I came out of the a-religious closet and into a bright, glorious future of no longer having to try to be non-religious without actually denying or accepting religion (a bizarre and unpleasant tightrope to try to balance on, for those of you with no personal experience). I didn't receive quite as much flack as I thought I would (yet). In fact, mostly I received pity, sympathy, and lots of "we're praying for you." Ugh. If I wanted your prayers, if I thought I was just 'doubting' christianity, I would have asked for them and said that, respectively.

The toughest part, though, are the people closer to me who are genuinely worried that I might be giving up on god entirely. While, as a person who strongly, genuinely, and emotionally pursued the christian god for many years, I can understand that, it has led me to the question, what reason is there for me to believe in a god, any god? And, of course, its sister question; what reasons are there for me not to? So far, I'll be honest, the answers I'm coming up with aren't impressive. But I'll share them anyway.

First, and honestly, the hardest one to get past, is the past, tradition, familiarity, whatever you want to call it. One time I put it to my friend like this; "When you are raised with religion, no matter how much you reject it later in life, it kinda feels like you're married to god, and you know how god feels about divorce." While I was mostly jesting in this statement, in many ways it's true. I spent most of my life being afraid of god's disapproval, god's wrath, god's judgment, hell, the afterlife, and 'losing fellowship with god.' Even when I deliberately remove myself from christianity, these fears and concerns still haunt me, no matter how much I argue with myself that they are a load of bullshit. And I find myself struggling to believe in god, ultimately, because of the fear I was raised with (which is a shitty reason to believe in anyone or anything).

Which brings me to my second point; I was indoctrinated to believe that if your god doesn't match up to the god of the bible then you are delusional at best, blaspheming at worst. This means that I often end up feeling like believing in god is an either/or proposition; either you subscribe to all of christianity, or you are an agnostic/atheist. I don't really see a lot of middle ground. As someone raised as a christian, anyone who believed in god without christianity was probably in a 'cult.' Well, hell, I don't want to be in a cult. So I find myself see-sawing back away from religion and even god.

Then, of course, there is the double-edged sword of my 'religious experiences with god' that I have had in the past. Arguably, these could either have been genuine experiences of god, or products of the emotional environment that encouraged these kinds of responses to god (i.e., moving music, religious services, the fervor of others, the beauty of the natural world, etc.). I honestly couldn't give you a good reason to definitely label them one way or another, so for right now these 'experiences' are weighing in pretty much as a neutral. Yes, there were times that I cried for god and praised god and thanked god and loved god and felt close to god. But those were always the 'good times' that probably would have felt good to me with or without a firm faith in a god. And the other times, the times when I cried out with an aching heart for a god that didn't seem to hear me, the times I couldn't reconcile myself with the god that was supposed to be and the god that made sense to me, the times that I thought my heart was going to explode (not in a good way) those could be seen as being evidence for my firm belief in god or evidence that god doesn't exist. The problem with the question of god is that no matter what you belief everything comes down to confirmation bias. We pick our position and then pretty much everything defends it.

And, of course, closely related to the emotional experiences is the whole "creation echoes god's majesty" argument, which is said about people, nature, music, art, math; hell, even science sometimes. Quite frankly the argument is so non-compelling to me that I don't even have much of a rebuttal for it. I will point back to my confirmation bias above, and move on.

A large part of me wants to believe in god; I am familiar with the concept of god, it is a comfortable one. The idea of leaving something behind that has been so integral to my life for such a long time is, quite frankly, a terrifying one. But, surprisingly enough, the idea of there not being an afterlife does not scare me. To me, if there is an afterlife it will be so very different from this life that it would be an entirely different life and existence, and consequently the me I am now and the life I have now would cease to exist anyway. So it really makes little difference to my life now if there is or isn't an afterlife. Everything dies, everything ends, we just make the most of this beautiful, crazy, random life that we have now.

Mostly I want to believe in god, I want a reason to believe in god, because I can't imagine my life without it. I have been reared since my infancy to attribute supernatural meaning and significance to my life, to believe that there is never a moment that I am alone, to feel that I always matter and I am always infinitely loved. While I feel that I can actually satisfactorily achieve most of these things without a god (who, quite frankly, feels just as absent from my life as any human most of the time), I still feel like I need god or I'm supposed to have god. Which is weird, because I don't know if I actually believe it; I just feel it.

I'll be brutally honest here though; my other big reason for wanting to be able to continue to believe in god is that I honestly don't know what it would do to my spouse and my marriage if it didn't. Oh, I have no doubt that he would still love me, and I really don't think it will lead to a divorce or even a lessening of intimacy, but I know that it would tear him up inside. Now, I would never lie about who I am for the sake of someone else's peace of mind (at least not someone I want to have the deepest intimacy with) but at the same time, I really wish I could just believe the things that would make him happy. Fortunately, though, I don't think he wants me to give up who I am for him any more than I want to. It's just hard to realize that your path can really shake the foundations of someone else's life.

But right now, I just can see no reason, no evidence, no argument, no statement that makes me believe in god. I don't actively disbelieve in god (i.e., I am not convinced that we can be certain of the non-existence of a deity). But I see no reason to believe that god is actively pursuing a relationship to me, especially when the only 'evidence' for it that I can see are self-manufactured emotion experiences and biased opinions on science and art. No one who believes in god can give me an unbiased opinion on why I should, and no one who disbelieves in god can give me an unbiased opinion on why I shouldn't. It's all really quite frustrating. In this age of science, reason, logic, and information it's really annoying to just have to arbitrarily pick your position and defend it, with nothing but your own convictions to defend you.

Questioning Everything

It's something every good philosopher must do. They must do this, or they are not truly a philosopher, but a talker and maybe an occasional thinker (from time to time). A true philosopher can discover nothing if they begin from their assumptions, because they will always end in the same place (or at least similar places). If you begin your assumptions believing there is a god, you will wind up in one place. If you begin your assumptions believing there could not be a god, you will wind up in a specific place. And if you begin your assumptions not caring less about the question and ignoring it completely, you will wind up somewhere else[s] entirely.

I have always begun with the belief that, whether or not there was a god, I wanted there to be one. I determined early on that there was in fact, a god, and it wasn't until much later on that I decided I didn't care if there was a god or not, I wanted to believe in one anyway. After all, it never hurt anyone to believe in something like god, right?

Of course many have and do argue that believing in god actually has done people ill, and they are only partially correct in this. Generally speaking, it is the religion that people put their faith in, the ones providing them with their god, that brings ill to people's lives. Rarely does one witness a belief in god outside of religion that in and of itself causes harm. Even in the cases of the insane who believe things about god or believe in a god that causes them to harm themselves or others, it really is the psychological illness, not the idea of god, that is the poison. They could just have easily believed in the CIA or FBI or republicans or suburban moms and done the same thing.

So why is god such a big deal? Why are people so willing to fight and hurt each other over the arguments for or against the existence of god? Why will people smear each other's morals, intelligence, and ability based on this one belief that they hold (or don't)? We don't kill each other over our beliefs about how long we should date before we marry, or how old we should be to bear children, or what kinds of shoes are the most comfortable (unless, of course, one is absolutely and legitimately crazy). What is it about this belief that seems to bring out all of the worst things in people?

I suppose that religion's history might have something to do with it. If one is religious, one sees a history that has mistakes, yes, but has brought much comfort and goodness to the lives of many, bringing much needed direction and support for communities. If one is non-religious (especially if one has a belief in the non-existence of a deity) then one tends to see all of the wars, the violence, the corporal punishment, and the nitpicking over religious ideals that has gone on and does go on. And these are both legitimate points of view.

Of course this also begs the question, why do religious people bicker among themselves about the smallest details of religious and theological belief and practice.

So far the only answer I know of is, because everyone else is arguing about it. We've grown up in a world where the idea of god is still a powerful one, for good or bad, for a lot of people. I was raised to believe that not believing in god was the worst possible thing for anyone's life, so of course the idea of not believing in god still terrifies the shit out of me, no matter how rationally I try to approach the issue. And the thing is, even if I do eventually decide to believe in the existence of a god, if I can't stop believing long enough to really think it over, than am I really believing or just being coerced out of fear into saying something that I know I'm supposed to believe? I think that the latter is true, and has been true pretty much my whole life. This isn't to say that I didn't genuinely believe, but I think that faith that is not got at genuinely, that is not genuinely chosen from an informed and coercion-free state of mind, is not real faith. It's brainwashing. So even if there is a god, and this god has the power to make my life infinitely better if I will just have faith in this god, I don't think I will be able to access this mystical spiritual power if my faith is little more than powerful psychological conditioning.

And then comes the question, if there is a god, what the hell would a god be like? The problem with the current model of god held by most religious people in the U.S. is that it is so damn outdated. If you take a look at what most Christians (to pick a religion I'm familiar with) think and believe about god, you will find that it matches up best with Greek ideas of the perfect being (and, quite frankly, the Greeks were off about a helluva lot of things; like who constituted a citizen and what kinds of sex were and weren't acceptable--their standards on anal sex and when it was and wasn't okay are frankly disturbing).

Then there is the issue of a person-god. I mean, how arrogant is it to anthropomorphise everything we see and make it like us? We talk about our pets like their people, and animals in general, we tend to assume other people think like us, and even god has been made out to be a person like us. We talk about god's hands, arms, face, and then there are god's myriad emotions; god is sad, angry, disappointed, happy, rejoicing, grieved, jealous, and quite frankly very fickle in most of the bible.

Plus there is the undeniable fact that every, and I mean every ancient culture that I have ever read about had some theological or magical/mystical way of explaining everyday events around them. We know for a fact that they were wrong about almost everything else that comprised their understanding of the world around them. They didn't understand sex, procreation, illness, healing, proper food preparation or storage, psychology, anatomy, the earth, the stars, the moon, the sun, the universe, the weather, or pretty much any of the stuff that (we think) we understand now.

As we evolve I would expect at the very least that if god was a real concept with a real application, whatever that might be, our understanding of god would and should evolve along with our understanding of everything else that make up our world around us.

Honestly, there is no way of believing in god that does not seem kooky, bizarre, weird, out there, crazy, insane, and absurd. I have at least come to terms with that fact. What really bothers me, though, is the fact that there is no way for us to understand our universe and the world around us that is not absolutely nuts. We currently have zero, and I mean zero theories for where our world came from and how we got here that make any sense at all (if you don't believe me, just take a philosophy course; preferably not at a religious institution though, they tend to be very, very heavily biased). There are theories that we came from something tiny, an atom or a sea of goop, or something; but then, where did that come from? And where did the thing before that come from? You see? So either this universe has simply always existed, or something that created the universe always existed, or it came from nothing whatsoever. And quite frankly, the idea that the universe came from an atom that always existed is no more absurd or logical than the idea that the universe came from a god or deity or life force that always existed, or that it came out of nothing. This universe, quite frankly, has stumped us all.

I have no idea what I believe, and sometimes I wish I could just be a kid again and not think about it. Ever. But I'm not a kid and these are the kinds of questions that haunt me, questions I will likely never find a concrete answer to. I wouldn't be surprised if no one ever did. And in the end, it takes just as much faith to believe the universe came from nothing as it does to believe it came from an atom, or from an unseen life force, or just always was. It is all equally absurd.

Welcome to the madness.