The War on Christmas is a lot like the War on Farts: totally fictional but completely hilarious. Don't get me wrong, war was declared on Christmas several years ago, but as every history buff knows, the Wal-mart Corporation claimed victory and remains to this day the guardians of affordable holiday bliss.Unfortunately, there remain fully evolved human beings under the impression that some kind of godless jihad has been called against Jesus Christ's birthday celebration and they are prepared to make gigantic fools out of themselves to prove it. Their commander, FOX News talking head Bill O'Reilly, is leading the charge once again this year, providing proof that the War on Christmas is realer than ever in this year's Christmas letter to his fans and followers:
Once again we are in the Christmas season, and the coal-in-your-stocking crowd is back at it. This year the American Humanist Association is putting up bus ads in selected cities that say, "No god? No problem! Be good for goodness sake." The picture accompanying the text shows a group of young people wearing Santa hats. Ho, ho, ho.
A second front was launched by the virulently anti-God group "Freedom from Religion." It is celebrating Christmas in Las Vegas with ads that say, "Yes, Virginia, there is no God."
Nice.
The question is, why bother? Why spend money at Christmas time to spread dubious will among men? The reason, I believe, is that the atheists are jealous of the Yuletide season. While Christians have Jesus and Jews have the prophets, non-believers have Bill Maher. There are no atheist Christmas carols, no pagan displays of largesse like Santa Claus. In fact, for the non-believer, Christmas is just a day off, a time to consider that Mardi Gras is less than two months away.
A second front was launched by the virulently anti-God group "Freedom from Religion." It is celebrating Christmas in Las Vegas with ads that say, "Yes, Virginia, there is no God."
Nice.
The question is, why bother? Why spend money at Christmas time to spread dubious will among men? The reason, I believe, is that the atheists are jealous of the Yuletide season. While Christians have Jesus and Jews have the prophets, non-believers have Bill Maher. There are no atheist Christmas carols, no pagan displays of largesse like Santa Claus. In fact, for the non-believer, Christmas is just a day off, a time to consider that Mardi Gras is less than two months away.
I am endlessly baffled by the fact that while idiots like Bill O'Reilly are allowed to speak to millions of Americans on a nightly basis and publish volume after volume of hateful drivel, I'm left to wallow in obscurity writing a blog that barely anyone reads. O'Reilly is a fucking moron! He is still under the mistaken impression, and many Christians are as well, that Christmas is strictly a religious holiday. Christmas is an American holiday with tenuous ties to Christianity at best. Sure, for the religious crowd it's a time to gather together and celebrate the birth of Baby Jesus, but for millions of others it's a day to exchange gifts and eat an extravagant dinner. Christmas is for everyone who isn't Jewish, Muslim, or a Jehovah's Witness.
Before I move on, I'd like to take issue briefly with a few of O'Reilly's points.
1. OK, maybe I do agree that it is a little dubious that these atheist groups have chosen the Christmas season to unveil their latest campaign, but is the message really that bad? "Be good for goodness sake?" This phrase alone illustrates beautifully why I personally have lost all interest in religion, specifically Christianity. I can't tell you how many sermons I've sat through at my parents' church during which I've thought, "Wow, this is a really powerful message. I want to do all of these things," and then been turned off in the last five minutes when the congregation is reminded that every good thing we do in life should be done to escape the fires of Hell. Don't donate your time at a homeless shelter because it's the right thing to do. Do it because you'll get a penthouse suite and golf club membership in Heaven. I've embellished a bit, but I heard this once in church. The sermon was about a man who had wanted to give everything he could while he was alive--his time, his money, his support--to various organizations that needed assistance, no matter how big or how small. I'd never been so inspired. I spent my teenage years in church constructing filthy sexual fantasies about my girlfriend during the sermon, so this listening thing was all new to me. Then the minister had to go and mess things up with the whole "extra rewards in Heaven" bullshit. Wow. That was quite a digression. I'm sorry. All I'm trying to say is that we should be good for goodness sake.
2.) You're telling me, O'Reilly, that "Jingle Bells" is a Christian Christmas song? "Santa Claus is Comin' to Town" is about the virgin birth somehow?
3.) To atheists: Is Christmas really just a day off to plan your upcoming trip to Mardi Gras? You don't call your grandma or bake cookies with your kids? You just wake up, piss on a Bible, and make a list of all the different cocktails you want to try next year?
So the War on Christmas is a farce created by FOX News to angry up conservatives. That being said, I am a big fan of the "Merry Christmas" greeting. I want people to wish me a Merry Christmas. I celebrate Christmas, so, you know, wishing me a merry one is kind of a nice thing to do. What some people forget, however, is that not everybody celebrates Christmas. There are a lot of holidays whipping around in the December wind and wishing shoppers, co-workers, and neighbors a "Happy Holidays" isn't a slap to the face of the infant Christ-child's face, but merely a way to not be presumptuous. Plus, there is nothing worse than an angry Merry Christmas. Have you seen this:Cashier: Here's your bag, m'am. You have a Happy Holiday now.
Annoying Bitch: (angrily) And you have a Merry Christmas!
That's the holiday spirit. I had a guy at work wish me Merry Christmas so many times during a two minute conversation yesterday, I thought he was doing a bit.
Of course, substituting "holiday" for "Christmas" becomes a problem when you consider yuletide accoutrement. Referring to "Christmas trees" as "holiday trees" is probably the wrong way to go. Christmas trees are specific to Christmas, so you can probably just leave that alone. Plus, when you start selling "holiday trees" you get backlash in the form of, well, this: the CHRIST-mas tree, perhaps one of the most disturbing Christmas decorations in the history of man. Yes, celebrate the birth of Jesus by remembering his bloody, horribly death by crucifixion.
Listen, when we get hung up on the fact that the cashier at Old Navy wished us a "Happy Holidays" instead of a "Merry Christmas" and we try to steal Santa Claus away from children whose parents don't align themselves with any particular religion and we plaster city buses with atheist propaganda meant to poke at the perpetually sore ribs of a largely insufferable religious movement just to be assholes, it defeats the whole reason for the season. Now some of you may thing that's Jesus and that's fine. Others of you might believe Rankin-Bass' Rudolph the Red-Nose Reindeer special is the reason for the season and that too is completely acceptable. Whoever or whatever you feel is the reason for the holiday season, the holidays are a time when we can all stop with the petty bullshit and just get a long for a couple of weeks. So, can we just drop all of this War on Christmas silliness, turn off The O'Reilly Factor, and sing a few damn carols to the residents of an old folk's home, please? 2010 is just a couple of weeks away and we can all get back to hating one another soon enough. It's Christmas, can't we just...
Listen, when we get hung up on the fact that the cashier at Old Navy wished us a "Happy Holidays" instead of a "Merry Christmas" and we try to steal Santa Claus away from children whose parents don't align themselves with any particular religion and we plaster city buses with atheist propaganda meant to poke at the perpetually sore ribs of a largely insufferable religious movement just to be assholes, it defeats the whole reason for the season. Now some of you may thing that's Jesus and that's fine. Others of you might believe Rankin-Bass' Rudolph the Red-Nose Reindeer special is the reason for the season and that too is completely acceptable. Whoever or whatever you feel is the reason for the holiday season, the holidays are a time when we can all stop with the petty bullshit and just get a long for a couple of weeks. So, can we just drop all of this War on Christmas silliness, turn off The O'Reilly Factor, and sing a few damn carols to the residents of an old folk's home, please? 2010 is just a couple of weeks away and we can all get back to hating one another soon enough. It's Christmas, can't we just...STOP ALREADY?!?!?
