Christmas time

I know I have not written much.  This time of the year I tend to get anti-social, especially the last two years.  A couple of reasons for this.  One, work seems to always be busier this time of year.  Two, I have no money, so I tend to get a little less social, and apparently that also means less posting things.

Oddly, neither of these have to do with Christmas.  Even though im atheist, I still celebrate this time of the year.  Its nice to get with family, give presents (though this year is not going to be a whole lot due to money issues) and some are generally happier (on a side note, I do hate the weather this time of the year.)  However, there are some that do make Christmas lame.  Usually, they are the supposed reason we celebrate.

It seems like especially this year, the supposed war on Christmas has gotten a bit stupid.  There has been a lot of news lately of the Freedom from Religion Foundation putting up ads and posters places (especially in Washington) that of course has the religious nuts like Bill O'Reilly claiming that us evil atheists are declaring war again.  Its kinda funny considering that most atheists I know don't care all that much about Christmas.  Its the stupid thing that when someone says Merry Christmas to some, they get a happy holidays and it somehow makes people like O'Reilly upset.  Well, poor him.  

Another example, of which the reason I decided to finally post something to break my hiatus, here is a great link to a story that is pretty much exactly what im talking about.  Someone claiming that if he lived in a predominatly Muslim, Buddhist or Jewishg country that he would not be offended when other holidays were celebrated.  Though that may be true, I generally doubt it as there are many times (this Washington capitol thing is a decent example) of how they expect to be able to put up a nativety scene or something that symbolizes Christianity.  Its celebrated as a thing of free speech and goodness.  However, whenever someone else wants to put something in there, thats not right cause this is a Christian country (which is a whole post that someday I may do something on).  

Another thing in the above article that pisses me off is that he says the following "You would think in a free country like America, Christians would be able to celebrate their religion in peace.  But unfortunately, atheists fight for a free country only when it's in their interests."  First of all, oh the irony.  The first sentence practically contradicts itself.  Hes upset that he thinks that Christians should be able to celebrate in peace, but that no one else can have equal time or in some cases, any time.  And the second part, fuck you.  I would be just as pissed if for some reason a public forum had just an atheist sign and Christians (or any other religion) was told no.  However, it does bring up the reason why I like this sign in Washington.  

It shows that the only sensible way to deal with it is to not allow any of them and just be secular.  And people seem to miss the difference between something being neutral and secular and something thats promoting atheism.  A thing I have heard before is that a blank piece of paper is not atheist paper.  Now if it was paper that said "There is no god, religion is BS." then yes, that would be atheist paper and would be promoting a message that, along with religious messages, should not be allowed into the government.  However, since they are allowing one, I hope they allow it all.  I am a bit upset that they put a moratorium on it, which blocks the festivus pole, the Flying Spagetti Monster and the Westboro Church "Santa is taking you straight to hell" message, but alas they only have so much room.