How do atheists do Christmas?

The short answer, in my household at least, is pretty much the same as the rest of my family–just without God. The long answer is somewhat more complicated, and it continues to become more so as my daughter grows up, asks more questions, and tries to figure out what she believes.

I was raised Catholic, but like many US American Catholics my family was never particularly religious aside from going to mass most Sundays and making sure that my sister and I had first communion and were confirmed at the appropriate ages. Holidays with my family were and are primarily secular affairs, days for eating too much pie and spending more-or-less quality time together.

10 Biblical Reasons for Women to Avoid Christianity Like the Plague

Al Stefanelli has a longer post on this topic, but I think these verses (direct from the Bible!) that he quotes stand on their own and make the point as well as anything else we can add to them:

1. “No wickedness comes anywhere near the wickedness of a woman…..Sin began with a woman and thanks to her we all must die” (Ecclesiasticus 25:19,24).
2. “A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. I don’t permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent. For Adam was formed first, then Eve. And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner” (I Timothy 2:11-14).
3. “The birth of a daughter is a loss” (Ecclesiasticus 22:3).
4. “Keep a headstrong daughter under firm control, or she will abuse any indulgence she receives. Keep a strict watch on her shameless eye, do not be surprised if she disgraces you” (Ecclesiasticus 26:10-11).
5. “As in all the congregations of the saints, women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission as the law says. If they want to inquire about something, they should ask their own husbands at home; for it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in the church.” (I Corinthians 14:34-35)
6. “When a woman has her regular flow of blood, the impurity of her monthly period will last seven days, and anyone who touches her will be unclean till evening. Anything she lies on during her period will be unclean, and anything she sits on will be unclean. Whoever touches her bed must wash his clothes and bathe with water, and he will be unclean till evening. Whoever touches anything she sits on must wash his clothes and bathe with water, and he will be unclean till evening. Whether it is the bed or anything she was sitting on, when anyone touches it, he will be unclean till evening” (Lev. 15:19-23).
7. “If a man takes a wife and, after lying with her, dislikes her saying, ‘I married this woman, but when I approached her, I did not find proof of her virginity,’ …and no proof of the girl’s virginity can be found, she shall be brought to the door of her father’s house and there the men of the town shall stone her to death. She has done a disgraceful thing in Israel by being promiscuous while still in her father’s house. You must purge the evil from among you.” (Deuteronomy 22:13-21)
8. “A bad wife brings humiliation, downcast looks, and a wounded heart. Slack of hand and weak of knee is the man whose wife fails to make him happy. Woman is the origin of sin, and it is through her that we all die. Do not leave a leaky cistern to drip or allow a bad wife to say what she likes. If she does not accept your control, divorce her and send her away” (Ecclesiasticus 25:25).
9. “Now I want you to realize that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is man, and the head of Christ is God…A man ought not to cover his head, since he is the image and glory of God; but the woman is the glory of man. For man did not come from woman, but woman from man; neither was man created for woman, but woman for man. For this reason, and because of the angels, the woman ought to have a sign of authority on her head” (I Corinthians 11:3-10).
10. “They called out to Lot and said, “Where are the men who came to you tonight? Send them out to us so we can have sex with them! Lot went out to them at the entrance and shut the door behind him. He said, “Don’t do this evil, my brothers. Look, I’ve got two daughters who haven’t had sexual relations with a man. I’ll bring them out to you, and you can do whatever you want to them. However, don’t do anything to these men, because they have come under the protection of my roof.” (Genesis 19:5-8)

There’s No Need for a Higher Authority

Squashed Asks: Do you have anything that you consider a higher authority than yourself to test your beliefs against? What in your life are you forced to wrestle with, even if it makes you uncomfortable?

I don’t see the purpose of the desire for a higher authority, to be honest. Believing anything based simply upon the authority of someone else is a terrible idea, and I think this can be applied to gods as well.

Even if I were to find out that there is, in fact, a “higher power” in the universe, I’d be quite skeptical of believing the things that it said or doing the things that it told me to do simply because it was bigger or smarter or more powerful than I am. I’d prefer to see evidence of why I ought to listen to that higher authority before choosing whether or not it was worth doing so.

Atheism and Rejection

Squashed Asks: Do you consider atheism as a rejection of essentially all elements of all other religions? Does the categorical rejection of beliefs shared (to one extent or another) by the vast majority of the world bother you?

Atheism really is simply the belief that there is no god or gods. Inasmuch as any religion is based upon the belief in a god and that belief is a basis for inclusion in that religion, then yes, atheism is a rejection of that. As far as a rejection of general spiritual beliefs, specific points of doctrine, moral rules, and even religious traditions, I would say that every atheist is a little different.

For example, I reject all religious arguments in favor of persecuting LGBTQ people and oppressing women because those are bad things. However, I continue to celebrate Christmas as a secular holiday and I rather like Easter because of bunnies and eggs. Also, since my family is moderately religious, refusing to participate in family celebrations of major holidays would mean largely cutting myself (and my daughter) off from people I love.

It’s complicated, but I would guess that most atheists (like most everyone) pick and choose practices that fit into and enrich their life, and this can sometime include practices that have their roots in religious tradition. Since atheism is not itself a philosophy or religion, the broader beliefs of atheists are highly diverse.

Evidence and Uncertainty

Squashed Asks: How much evidence do you need to “know” something—particularly where double blind experimentation is not a practical approach? Does direct experience work? The word of somebody trusted? Personal review of scientific journals? How do you make decisions when you don’t have all the information you would like—or when you have to rely on other people to provide the evidence?

I think we live in an uncertain universe in which we, with our limited minds, physiology, and lifespan have only limited ability to know anything with certainty. That being said, I would say that the quantity of evidence necessary to be convincing is sometimes variable, depending on the degree of certainty required. Even more important than quantity is, of course, quality of evidence, and some types of evidence are more convincing than others.

I would also like to point out that the quantity and quality of evidence necessary for something to be consider “known” or “proven” also depends heavily upon the consequences of being incorrect.

Things I’ve Read: The Mists of Avalon

I don’t read as much Arthurian legend as I used to, but my love for that mythology is one that I don’t think will ever truly die. A few years ago, I went through a rather long phase where I read nearly every King Arthur story I could get my hands on. I read T.H. White’s The Once and Future King. I read J. Robert King’s Mad Merlin and Lancelot Du Lethe (but not his Le Morte D’Avalon, yet). A.A. Attanasio’s The Dragon and the Unicorn (and its sequels) were challenging but rewarding. I can’t even recall all the less notable and more poorly written books I read, honestly. Regardless, I somehow managed to make it through all of this phase without reading Marion Zimmer Bradley’s The Mists of Avalon.

The Mists of Avalon, by Marion Zimmer Bradley

A few weeks ago, I was browsing through Amazon, growing my Wishlist to an even more preposterous size than it already was, when Mists popped up as a recommendation. I was familiar with the title, having worked in a bookstore for a couple of years and being a prolific reader, but I didn’t really know what the book was about other than that it was a retelling of the King Arthur story that was centered on the women characters of the legend. Thinking to myself that it had been a while since I’d read a good King Arthur story, I clicked through and started reading through some of the Amazon reviews.

Atheists Are Not Responsible for the Poor Behavior of Believers

Squashed Asks: Are you comfortable with the actions of other atheists whose attempts to portray religion as something that is fundamentally at war with science have led (predictably) to the absurd reactionary things like efforts to keep basic science out of schools? Do you think there was a deliberate attempt to get some religious folk to take an absurd position? Do you feel atheists (or a subset thereof) bear any responsibility for the disastrous consequences of their (frequently successful) attempts to link science and atheism succeeded in the minds of many believers?

Efforts to push science out of schools are, sadly, not a reactionary thing, although they are absurd. Religious people have, throughout pretty much the entirety of history, been the enemies of scientific progress, so the current efforts to restrict the teaching of evolution should come as no surprise to anyone.

In the US, over 40% of the populace still maintain that the earth is young and that the Biblical account of creation is accurate. It’s not as if this is some fringe group of weirdos. Only about a quarter of the country accept evolution as being an accurate theory of the development of life. People like Ken Ham, creator of the Creation Museum in northern Kentucky (I have visited! It was weird!), are the driving forces behind much of the insistence on the incompatibility of science and religion. Ken Ham, Ray Comfort, Kent Hovind, Rick Warren, Tim LaHaye, Joel Osteen and others have often claimed to greater or lesser extents that if the Genesis account of creation is false, then it would invalidate the rest of the Bible. Some, like Ham, have even claimed that if you do not believe the Genesis account and reject the theory of evolution you may not really be saved.

With such an enormous pressure even within mainstream Christianity, it seems disingenuous at best to imply that somehow it’s “the atheists” making people believe absurdities.

Love, Suffering, Life, and Death

Squashed Asks: Are love and suffering anything more social constructs or evolutionary by products? Does our suffering have a purpose?

Short answers: Probably not, and no, not really. Meaning and purpose are things that we all figure out for ourselves, and one person’s “purpose” is sometimes another person’s soul-crushing hopelessness.

We human beings take ourselves incredibly seriously considering just how tiny and insignificant we are in the grand scheme of things. It’s not enough, for most of us, to try and live good lives, be kind to each other, raise our children, and die–we all want to live forever, or at the very least do something that will cause us to be remembered forever.

I know I do, anyway. I consider it a great tragedy that I won’t be here to see what humanity turns into a hundred or five hundred or a thousand years from now. We have so much potential that I’d like to believe it’s going to be good. If I can’t live forever, it would be nice to be remembered forever. How profoundly sad to think of a time when no one will remember my name!

When I finished reading The Five Ages of the Universe, years ago, I cried myself to sleep pondering the inevitable heat death of the universe–just imagine, all those molecules so far apart. Imagine the loneliness of all those trillions and trillions of years in the future when there is no one there to see as waves lengthen and strings stop vibrating and things just begin to fall apart at the quantum level. Even if that’s not how it all ends–and there’s no certainty, I suppose, that that’s how it will go–it’s a sobering thought, all that unimaginable cold and emptiness and no one there to see it.