How do atheists celebrate Christmas? I posed that question to my friend Michael Shermer, the editor of Skeptic, during our recent Cal Tech debate. (My two debates with Shermer will soon be up on the web and I'll link to them on this blog.) Shermer replied that he puts up Christmas trees, and his kids sing Christmas carols--even the religious ones--and he exchanges gifts just like everyone else. Here is a guy who is not a believer but who at least respects what Christianity has done to shape our civilization and our world.
Then there's Christopher Hitchens, whom I've known over the years and like just as much. Hitchens, alas, seems to be letting his atheism get to him. First, the poor man is never seen without a drink. As a wine aficionado myself, I cannot begrudge Hitchens his affection for the spirits. In fact, a priest friend of mine once observed that wine is evidence of how much God loves us. It seems odd, however, that Hitchens feels the need to imbibe even when he's on national television or giving a public speech. If you watch our debate on C-Span or on my website dineshdsouza.com, you'll see that Hitchens reaches for his glass with the same alacrity that fundamentalists reach for the Bible.
Recently Hitchens appeared at a "secular Christmas party" thrown by the libertarian magazine Reason. Many libertarians are basically conservatives who are either gay or druggies or people who generally find the conservative moral agenda too restrictive. So they flee from the conservative to the libertarian camp where much wider parameters of personal behavior are embraced. To the sensible idea of political and economic freedom many libertarians add the more controversial principle of moral freedom, the freedom to live however you want as long as you don't harm others. Hitchens, needless to say, is at home in this group.
Hitchens' contribution to the party was to read an irreverent Christmas ditty by the lyricist Tom Lehrer. Remember Lehrer? He's a bit of a relic, like the Monty Python and the Rocky Horror movies. When I was eighteen and a freshman at Dartmouth I found Lehrer and Monty Python very sophisticated and amusing. Most of us, however, outgrow the juvenile sense of humor that they represent. Hitchens also offered a brief summary of his view that God is a celestial dictator. He portrayed God as a kind of Kim Jong-il and Jesus as a kind of little Kim waiting to inherit the throne. So here we see another portrait of Atheist Christmas: bitter guys making sophomoric jokes and staggering out of the room inebriated.
Yes, I agree that many nominal Christians have also forgotten the message of Christmas. Even so I wonder: what's the atheist equivalent of Christmas? Darwin's birthday? For many libertarians I suppose it's the day they get their tax refunds.
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Reader Comments ( Page 7 of 54)
91. I wonder if DD anticipated the hornets' nest of derision he was about to burst open the moment he took the name of Monty Python in vain. Juvenile, indeed!
Michael P. at 8:07PM on Dec 21st 2007
92. "To leave a legacy? So what, it means nothing"
You don't care if your childern or grandchildren survive? Your only concern is your own happiness, your own soul getting to heaven?
a born atheist at 8:07PM on Dec 21st 2007
93. Somber, to make a really long story short, I get a lot of Jungian Synchronicities in my daily life, all relating to things that I have attached emotional importance to in one way or another. Some are huge ones. Other people can see them too. My wife now thinks it's the same thing as I do, since she can't find another explanation for all the synchronicities. You see, she's getting them too, now. And her son as well, my stepson. All from being around me.
And I wasn't lying about the baptist woman that lost her faith from seeing this about me. I had just barely met her, started telling her about my synchronicities, and what I didn't know was that she had been getting very similar ones in her life, and had attributed them to her God. But here I was giving her another explanation, and not even KNOWING about hers, just talking about mine.... Which of course was another coincidence... Well, she had a crisis of faith, and really seriously thought that I was Satan... She came to her senses, though, and eventually just thanked me for it all...
So, where does that leave me? I've actually CONVERTED a christian... Without trying to!
Given that, if you were me, what would be your conclusions?
Brian at 8:11PM on Dec 21st 2007
94. If I'm an athiest and don't believe in heaven, yes. What's the point of leaving a legacy? It doesn't matter because it doesn't benefit me in anyway once I'm dead.
jasondrhm at 8:11PM on Dec 21st 2007
95. 85. Didn't think you were my god, I was following your musings and was curious. thanks for responding.
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Sorry.
Brian at 8:13PM on Dec 21st 2007
96. Then you lack morality.
a born atheist at 8:14PM on Dec 21st 2007
97. 90. If I may ask, what observations?
a born atheist at 8:05PM on Dec 21st 2007
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Jungian synchronicities. Lots of them, all the time. I explained it in a recent post above. I can go into extended detail if you like. Too weird, I promise you. If they happened to you, you'd doubt your own sanity, as I did for a while. And still do, of course, as a matter of principle... Lol...
Brian at 8:19PM on Dec 21st 2007
98. How does it benefit you to leave a legacy if you believe in a god? All you have to do is worry about your own soul going to heaven. An atheist only has this world and his/her children, grandchildren etc. A legacy for an atheist is all there is.
a born atheist at 8:20PM on Dec 21st 2007
99. Brian, when my friend did alot of crystal meth he started to notice crazy coincidences that could not be explained, if you have ever read the celestine prophecy you could do arrive at the same state of being without drugs. who is to say that these things won't one day be explained by science. I belive they could be explained but not to many scientists or christians are trying to research how physics and quantum physics affect our universe by way of mental(electrical nervous system)energy vibrations and physical/non-physical subatomic reactions to action. You are not special, just more aware then most
BabyHeyZeus at 8:22PM on Dec 21st 2007
100. It doesn't matter because it doesn't benefit me in anyway once I'm dead.
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You can tell that you're NOT an atheist. You're too selfish to be an atheist. You only act moral because you think that it benefits you.
Too immoral. All about you.
Nope. You must be a christian.
Brian at 8:23PM on Dec 21st 2007
101. Then you lack morality.
______________
That's my point. This argument is cyclical, because its hard to comprehend somebody not having morality, but thats more logical than having morality. The purpose of my life is to have morality? That could be seen as just as silly believing my purpose is to go to heaven.
jasondrhm at 8:25PM on Dec 21st 2007
102. I can't speak for anyone else here but I am open minded enough to listen and be curious. I would like to hear details.
a born atheist at 8:25PM on Dec 21st 2007
103. Never said I was an athiest nor said I was a Christian, but selfish implies Christianity? Or does it imply your view of Christianity? And athiests aren't selfish? How did you come to that conclusion that Christians are selfish and athiests are not?
jasondrhm at 8:28PM on Dec 21st 2007
104. BabtHeyZeus, I have met a lot of others as well that experience them. Apparently, if you can get to the place somehow that you can believe that you CAN see them, they appear. If you're closed to them, think it's impossible, you'll never see them. I lived 36 years and never noticed them. I'm 46 now, and for the last ten years, almost every day there's one or even two...
Also, since they started, I've read a lot of quantum physics.... Brian Green, Hawking, Boer, Einstein.... Heisenberg.... And other people see the paralells. Amit Goswami, Fred Allen Wolf...
It's a growing paradigm.
Brian at 8:30PM on Dec 21st 2007
105. Of course I have already googled 'Jungian synchronicities' and I have experienced at least a few. I have been aware of them before I knew that they had a name.
a born atheist at 8:32PM on Dec 21st 2007