a note on the holiday season

[lauralh]

First of all, I'm not a huge fan of Christmas. I'm not going to get into all the reasons why now, just a couple of them. Last year I was going through my rabid atheism phase (which honestly hasn't calmed down all that much, but I interact with fewer Christians so I don't think about it much), so I had another reason to hate Christmas: it fucked up a perfectly good heathen holiday with the ideas of virgin birth and goodwill toward men and whatnot.

Not that I'm keen on the religious aspects of that thing, either. Sure I like sausages and hedonism as much as the next girl, but I'm not going to pretend it's because the Lord of Death slew the Sun or whatever. Basically I like the gift-giving traditions, but not enough to spend a lot of money (esp. not while unemployed), and I like the idea of celebrating the end of winter. Or beginning, whatever. Days getting longer, that indeed is worth celebrating, I think. Last year I simply meditated and watched the sunset (because it was actually sunny that day) as the afternoon turned into dusk. Somewhat solemn, and then afterwards the gluttony of food and drink. Probably try something similar here tomorrow. We'll see how the weather holds.

Comments

[heraclitus.livejournal.com]

True. Nonetheless, even the "Christianity" of the US is in my experience a mixture of crude superstition with deism rather than possessing a truly religious character. Memorise a few simple logical problems with the notion of God, make your contempt of the emotional argument apparent, don't get angry, and I find most religious people will become so terribly confused that you can avoid the pointless screaming matches that characterise so many religion-atheism discussions.