Merry Christmas!

I hope everyone is having a good one.

The Evil Power of Christmas Trees on non-Christians

Merely being in a room with a small Christmas tree causes bad feelings among non-Christians, and even causes Christians to feel "guilty." That's the conclusion of a recent Canadian study on the effects of Christmas tree displays.

Researchers at Simon Fraser University in Canada, found non-Christians feel less self-assured and have fewer positive feelings if a Christmas tree was in the room.

They displayed a single 12 inch tree in room and asked the participants, 77 Christians, and 57 "non-believers," to "fill in questions about themselves" with the tree either in or out of the room. It would be pretty interesting to see exactly what questions were asked. Naturally the researchers in question had no problem drawing sweeping conclusions based on their one highly dubious study of 132 people.

I think if people do care about making a whole range of different kinds of people feel included and respected, then we can make some small changes that would go a long way toward creating a more multicultural or inclusive society.

Really? Why don't we examine every single public display, see what kind of transient feelings they inspire and then base our policies off of those results? I know when I see some piece of lousy public artwork I certainly don't feel included. I guess we need to do away with public art. And since when do displays of any kind have to make people feel "included and respected"? Many displays obviously appeal to certain segments of the population and not to others. That's going to happen, particularly in a large diverse country. Without seeing the questions it's impossible to say for sure, but the evidence suggests that these researchers conducted a study looking for a result to support their preexisting biases.

The War on Solstice

The Freedom From Religion Foundation has a pretty amusing article up called, "Solstice celebrated long before Christmas."

Long before the star over Bethlehem and the eight days of Chanukah and certainly Festivus, there were solstice celebrations. So why aren't we freethinkers complaining about the War on Solstice and the theft of our winter holiday by religious folks like Bill O'Reilly?

Here's FFRF co-president Dan Barker, referring to the group's controversial solstice signs,

“Most people think December is for Christians and view our solstice signs as an intrusion, when actually it’s the other way around,” ... “People have been celebrating the winter solstice long before Christmas. We see Christianity as the intruder, trying to steal the natural holiday from all of us humans.”

Personally, I think the FFRF's holiday campaigns, especially trying to get harmless nativity scenes removed, are largely pointless and counterproductive. I wrote about one of last year's efforts here. In my opinion Christmas is as much as secular holiday in America -- if not more so -- as it is religious. I view even religious trappings such as nativity scenes as harmless mythological symbols akin to Santa, elves, reindeer and other things we associate with Christmas. But I did find the FFRF's argument about Christians stealing solstice not only essentially correct, but also entertaining. And the solstice cards are pretty nice.

Bailing Out Christmas

The Wall Street Journal reports that 

the Treasury Department is drawing up plans to bail out Christmas. "We have reason to believe," said a person close to the matter, "that without an immediate capital injection, Santa Claus will fail before December 24."

The whole article is pretty funny.

Atheist Stupidity

"An atheist group has unveiled an anti-religion placard in the state Capitol, joining a Christian Nativity scene and "holiday tree" on display during December." 

As an atheist, this kind of obnoxious behavior really annoys me.  It's one of the reasons many people hate atheists, and why many atheists are relucant to identify themselves as such.  The organization behind it is called the Freedom from Religion Foundation. According to their co-president, Dan Barker, they put up the placard because:

it was important for atheists to offer their viewpoint alongside the overtly religious Nativity scene and Christmas-style holiday tree.

No, it isn't important.  It's stupid and counterproductive.  Atheism is not a religion; it is an absence of belief.  Why is a group of atheists acting like a religious organization and competing to have its own Christmas display?  Holiday trees, Christmas scenes, and other religious holiday displays are completely harmless, and appreciated by the vast majority of the country.  Although Christmas started as a religious holiday, it is also a secular tradition in much of the country. When a minority of atheists behave like a proselytizing religion, especially over something so trivial, it creates animosity toward the rest of us, and it accomplishes nothing.