As has been their custom for the past few years, the American Atheists have put up their annual Christmas display, this year taking the form of a billboard in Times Square, imploring us to "keep the merry" while walking away from religion. Like the Atheists' previous holiday messages, I have a hunch that its main motivation is pissing off the Catholic League, but that's probably not relevant for now.
Religious disputes aside, I have a few smaller quibbles with the sign:
• Jesus = myth, but Santa ≠ myth? Or does Santa = okay myth and Jesus = bad myth?
• Even if you reject the religious accounts of Jesus, don't most scholars agree that, unlike Santa Claus, he actually walked the Earth?
• Even if both of them are myths, don't they basically serve the same function (be good, or else you won't get X)?
• It's Christmas; why are you using a Good Friday picture of Jesus? Not particularly merry.
I'm also a bit confused as to what parts of Christmas these folks want us to retain. I know plenty of people who celebrate Christmas in secular terms, and that's fine. A lot of the stuff we do for Christmas is hardly religious anyway (the Gospel is notably bereft of references to dead evergreens), and I think there is some value in setting aside a season to recognize the value of peace, charity, and family. But by using Santa Claus as the preferred symbol for the season, the sign seems to be uplifting some of the season's more negative qualities —namely, consumerism—over its nobler ones.
But the ultimate problem with this sign, I think, is not its argument's substance but rather its utter lack of substance; in short, its insistence that all that matters is being Right.
We can argue until kingdom come (or don't come) about religion's veracity, and we can argue in more concrete terms about whether or not religion benefits society. It would be another thing entirely if the American Atheists were arguing, as Richard Dawkins and others do all the time, that religion is inherently poisonous to society and must therefore be phased out.
That's not what they're doing here, though. The message here is that religion has produced/influenced positive cultural traditions, and that you should keep those. Just don't believe in the crazy stuff.
In other words, we are right, they are wrong, therefore you should believe us. Got it?
Sound familiar? This is the same self-assuredness, the same intolerance of belief, and the same obsession with being Right that has long characterized institutional religion—undoubtedly one of religion's worst qualities. If, as you seem to argue, there's nothing wrong with the cultural practice of Christmas, why does it matter to you that people don't think about it the same way you do?
It's annoying when people don't agree with you. And yes, I know that the American Atheists have plenty of concerns with religion's societal effects. It would just be nice if their messaging had a bit more nuance.
And, ultimately: the spirit of the season has been dragged down enough in recent years by the aforementioned consumerism, the overshadowing of Thanksgiving, the never-ending bickering over municipal displays, and Fox's timeless War on Christmas television marathon.
I want to keep the merry too. Maybe we can start by making merriness more important than rightness.
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