“Why do you celebrate Christmas if you are an Atheist?”
I’ve been asked this twice in the last two weeks. It’s one of those questions that typifies what I expect from Christians. If you do something that they happen to do then you agree with them and you have seen their “superior” way that you can only subscribe to if you are one of them. “If you aren’t a Christian then you shouldn’t celebrate Christmas”, sort yourselves out!
I celebrate Christmas because I always have done. It’s a tradition, when I was a kid I got presents, now I give them to my kids. I get drunk a lot, I don’t work and eat a ton.
It’s irksome when you have to point out to Christians that Christmas was celebrated for hundreds if not thousands of years before the big J supposedly made his presence felt on the earth. The only reason it is called Christmas is because during the Roman invasion the Christians merged their stupid ceremonies with existing “pagan” ceremonies. In Britain, before the Romans, it was a celebration of Yule, i.e. the Winter Solstice.
Christmas is a time when we get pissed, eat a lot and give people presents. For a subset of us, called Christians, and only Christians, it is a time when they celebrate the birth of Jesus (who, if he existed, wasn’t born on Christmas day, not by a long shot). In fact the “god” that was born on Christmas day, 25th December exactly, was Mithras. The religion of whom was around before and at the same time as early Christianity. Mithras was the lord of light, son of the Sun (God) on Earth. He had gave his followers life after death. They had feasts with bread and wine… And he was from a virgin birth and possibly witnessed by shepherds tending their sheep.. But that’s another story.
Christianity itself is an amalgamation of many religions and customs and it is complete bollocks to turn around and say that people can’t have a bit of fun if they aren’t Christian when it’s a case of the Christians copying everyone else! Christians got their traditions and morals from others, not us from them.
I ask the Christians amongst us, how many of you have a Christmas tree? How many of you put a fairy on the top of it (sorry angel)? How many of you wait for Father Christmas come down the chimney? How many of you give gifts?
Well.. have a think about this. Having a Christmas tree is seen as idle worship and banned by God itself (Jeremiah 10:3). The fairy on top of the tree is a pagan tradition because the tree was seen as a deity in itself and the fairy represented a good “god”. Santa comes from the deep past and is most likely to represent the god Saturn (Satan), who would come down the chimneys and scare Roman children {There’s a reason why Satan is sometimes referred to as “Old Nick”}. Gift giving is a tradition at Yule, in Christianity it happens a few days later to represent when the “Wise Men” showed up (although that is in itself a load of crap made popular by the nativity scene, the Wise Men came well after Jesus was born when he was a young boy).
So I’ll turn the question around and ask you, Mr. or Mrs. or Ms. Christian; Why do you celebrate Christmas when it is so obviously and blatantly a pagan celebration?
Or for that matter, why do you celebrate birthdays? {and before you answer that question you’d probably better read some of the bible, in particular Leviticus, with the knowledge that birthdays were celebrated in Egypt, oh and by followers of Mithras…}
Merry Christmas my non Christian friends. And all my Christian friends might as well get merry because, in the words of God itself, in reference to people who have Christmas trees: “They are worthless, the objects of mockery; When their judgement comes, they will perish”.
Cheers
Lee
