I know that many do generally because they always have and don’t want to change. Some even say that it should be replaced by a more inclusive, general holiday. Part of me feels that all such holidays should be ignored by atheists altogether.  A more humane holiday should be global and universal, equally relevant to all humans, regardless of their cultural heritage or where they live.

The idea that xmas is a purely christian holiday is actually a myth perpetuated by the majority that happen to actually be christians. (link to post on this here) Many atheists don’t believe that Jesus existed, and those who do don’t regard him as having been anyone special. No atheists are christians, so why bother participating in such a holiday? It’s arguable that participating makes christianity seem more popular than it really is, not to mention giving christians an unjustified ego boost.

                I feel that atheists celebrating xmas can often cause more harm than good by arming conservative evangelical christians with the perceived argument that America is essentially a christian nation. The more popular and important christian holidays are in America, the easier it is to claim that there is something about christianity which is fundamental to America’s culture. It’s not a very good argument and this isn’t very good support for it, but why offer them even this bit of help?

Long ago I lost the struggle being an atheist parent who celebrates xmas, weather or not to perpetuate the Santa Claus myth. This required me to lie to my kids. Yes, it is a lie. There’s not a nicer way of describing what one does when telling small children that Santa Claus visits every house on the planet delivering presents to children via a flying sleigh pulled by “magic” ruminants.  If I had it to do it over I would have left this out of my children’s lives Aside from the joy of engrossing oneself in pure fantasy I find no value in it. In fact in many ways I feel it may even be a mild form of indoctrination.  There are always very strong incentives to do what other parents are doing. Not celebrating xmas and not telling kids about Santa could have caused my children to be ostracized from others above and beyond what simply being an atheist tends to do already.  At the same time, though, the numbers of religious minorities who also don’t participate are increasing, thus increasing the numbers of kids who are “different.” Being different isn’t easy, but who wants to be a hypocrite just to fit in?

One possible reason for atheists to celebrate xmas is that it has become increasingly secularized over time and there is little sign of the process stopping soon. Arguments against xmas remain, but atheist participation in xmas actually helps serve the cause of removing it from its various christian and pagan roots. There are good reasons why many christians are upset over the current state of christmas, and those may be good reasons for atheists to keep the changes in motion.

Some folks will read this and think it is an attack on a cherished holiday. Others may take away that I am a hard-line non- conformist that wants to openly besmirch christianity in general.  Nothing could be farther from the truth.  I enjoy all the pagan, secular aspects of the holiday.  I just don’t like the feeling of being under fire that comes along with its observance.

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http://www.coopernundrums.com/2009/10/something-druid-this-way-comes/

Traditionally fall in general is a time of year when I post more than usual.  This is probably because it’s the time of year when I find myself the least busy. Today I wanted to start of this months posts with something I think you will find interesting related to witches.

Your basic haunted house witch is actually a creation of the commercial machine.  Real “witches” laugh at these images because of their inaccuracy and sheer ridiculousness.  Like all things commercial, these images do have some basis in fact and history.

Some scholars say is it possible that the witch’s hat is an exaggeration of the tall conical “Dunces Hat”, popular in the royal courts during the 15th century.  These pointed hats were a fashion icon seen all around the city of London when it was seen as the fashion capital of Europe. You have probably seen these hast in pastel pinks and blues usually with a flowing sheer cloth hanging from the point.  Since it took much longer for news to issue back in these times, it took a long time for fashion to trickle into the country. Usually by the time these fashion trends landed in the outlying villages they had already become out of fashion in the city.  City folk called Country folk “pagani” which means country dweller. This is a slang term that would be much the same as calling someone a “hick”, today.

As fate would have it, pointed hats soon became considered something only the pagani would wear. These folks were often herbalists or farmers wives who lived in the country and understood the land.  Since they were wise to the ways of nature and could grow and harvest herbs, the pointed hat became associated with the “Wise Woman” or “Witch”.  By Victorian times, the tall black conical hat worn by an old crone became readily identifiable as symbols of wickedness in illustrations of children’s stories and fairy tales.

During this same period the Christian church chipped-in and associated pointed hats with the horns of the Devil, by which time they frowned upon their use.  This served to further demonize this hat style.

Today most contemporary witches go bareheaded or wear ritual headgear such as headbands with a crescent moon or other religious symbols on it.  Normally the symbol is positioned on the forehead.  During rituals in which the Goddess and Horned God are represented, the high priestess may wear a headband or a crown, while the high priest may wear a helmet with horns or antlers.

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   I struggle every day, in a world that surrounds me with xstians not to become that “angry atheist” that causes their friends to leave the room or scares the children spouting off the facts they have never heard from their parents.  It is such a seriously hard line to walk.  I love all my friends and I don’t want to loose any of them.  I just hope every time I wade into the realm of debate with them that I don’t wind up alienating them.  On the other hand, I am not one that will back down from said debate.  I have very strong beliefs based on fact and reason.

    It’s tough when you live in a world with folks that are obviously intelligent and yet they pursue causes out of ritual or habit. People that no longer question the why of the world or want to know the truths all around them. People that you might see as incredible conversationalists or thinkers yet they choose to overlook obvious inconsistencies in logic and reason. Tough, living with the realization that these otherwise brilliant people will never change their minds, no matter how much science or proof you draw to their attention. Its super easy to become that angry, profane individual when you feel like you are screaming at the top of your lungs that the world is round not flat, and no one will listen to you.

…oh wait, that’s another story, isn’t it?

    Life is all just a matter of perceptions.  Some people think the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, when in fact, the sun never moves at all.

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  Ah, the middle finger, also known as the long finger or bird finger, and usually the longest finger, is the third digit of the human hand, located between the index finger and the ring finger. It is also referred to as digitus medius, digitus tertius, “digitus infamous”, or digitus III in anatomy.

    In many Western countries, extending the middle finger (either on its own or along with the index finger in the United Kingdom & Australia) is an offensive and obscene hand gesture, colloquially known as the highway salute, the bird, “flipping the bird”, “flipping someone off”, “giving the finger” (as in giving someone the finger), often meaning the phrase “fuck you” or “up yours.” It is performed by showing the back of the hand, extending the middle finger of the hand upwards while bending the other fingers down into the palm.

    Giving someone “the finger” is one of the basest violations in modern culture, but its origins date back over 2500 years. The first written record of the insult occurred in ancient Greece, where the playwright Aristophanes (the Adam Sandler of his day) made a crude joke in an ancient Greek comedy mixing up the middle finger and the penis. Even back then, the bird was considered an aggressive, phallic put-down.  Greeks began calling upon their substitute wieners by raising their own hands to mock, threaten, and humiliate others.

    The widespread usage of the finger in many cultures is likely due to the geographical influence of the Roman Empire and Greco-Roman civilization.  When the Romans imported the art, music, and culture of the Greeks, the finger came along, too. The Roman Emperor Caligula, a pioneer in perversity, frequently shocked his citizens by forcing them to kiss his middle finger instead of his hand. One of his subjects, Cassius, who Caligula often taunted as being too effeminate, finally had enough humiliation and assassinated him. Clearly, the bird was not to be taken lightly.

     During the Middle Ages, the finger went underground. It was still known, but the Catholic Church frowned upon its use, as the middle finger was supposed to be holy in the Mass. The unholy insult lurked deep within the hearts of filthy- minded folks everywhere, hiding from sight until the 19th century when it began to crop up again thanks to a new invention -photography.

    In 1886, Hall of Fame baseball pitcher Charles “Old Hoss” Radbourn slipped his little finger fastball into the Boston Beaneaters team picture. The split-second art of photography could turn the once-boring painted portrait into a spontaneous work of rebellion, humor and spunk. Americans everywhere quickly got into the act.

  The finger is a near universal insult that we can all use.  Men, Women, children, old folks, Farmers, bankers and even computer nerds like me can use the finger with virtually perfect understanding of its meaning.  In this fast paced day and age, who has time to formulate real, meaningful insults?

 We should embrace the finger since it is truly part of our culture and something to be respected.  So here’s to you.  Up yours!

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     I looked it up and there are several possible explanations why the day is interpreted as being unlucky or having a bad omen on it.  All of them are inherently silly like the belief that there is something wrong with the number 666.  Here are just a few for your brain to ponder.

-          Several theological scholars believe that Christ is thought to have been crucified on a Friday, which was a rather popular execution day among the Romans. (Yet, Christians don’t call it Bad Friday.)

-          Friday was known in Britain as Hangman’s Day on which execution by rope hanging were carried out.

-          In numerology, the number twelve is considered the number of completeness, as reflected in the twelve months of the year, twelve signs of the zodiac, twelve hours of the clock, twelve tribes of Israel, twelve Apostles of Jesus, twelve gods of Olympus, etc., whereas the number thirteen was considered irregular, transgressing this completeness.

-          There is also a superstition, thought by some to derive from the Last Supper or a Norse myth, which having thirteen people seated at a table will result in the death of one of the diners.

-          Friday has been considered an unlucky day at least since the 14th century’s The Canterbury Tales, and many other professions have regarded Friday as an unlucky day to undertake journeys or begin new projects.

-          Black Friday is a term that has been associated with stock market crashes and other disasters since the 1800s.

-          All the Knights Templar in France, a monastic military order founded in Jerusalem in 1118 C.E., whose mission was to protect Christian pilgrims during the Crusades were  secretly arrested Friday, October 13, 1307 – Friday the 13^th

     No matter how you interpret this it is still a pretty silly belief.  Although this one, unlike some others I won’t go into, is pretty benign.  In fact it’s pretty humorous.  Now go walk under some ladders behind black cats and don’t forget to throw some salt over your shoulder while you do.

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    Most folks know that the holiday we call Halloween is derived from the Celtic festival of Samhain.  This was one of the great Celtic fire festivals and marked the end of the harvest and the beginning of winter. The Celtic people believed that on this night the gates between life and death were open – or at least poorly guarded.  Part of the role of the Druid priests was to protect the people from the spirits who might cross over.   Placating such spirits is thought to have been the origin of the trick or treat tradition.

    Other information suggests a variation of this idea, that the souls of sinners who had died during the year were held in torment.  They could only be released and given peace if the gods were pleased by the Samhain offerings.

   Since the barrier with the spirit world was thin on this day, Halloween was the perfect time for divination.  The Druids have been said to have been called upon to predict everything from next year’s harvest to an individual’s marriage prospects.

    As said at the outset, little is known for certain about the Druids.  There are only a few contemporaneous textual references to the Celtic religion whose myths were mainly handed down through oral tradition.  Most of our modern image of the Druid is really just Romantic myth, like these.

They do not worship a pumpkin or death god called Samhain. There is no such entity

   Some people condemn the Druids for “human sacrifices”.  In fact there is little evidence of this. Animals were likely sacrificed place around the Halloween/Samhain bonfires.  The only references to any form of human sacrifice come not from the Irish texts but from the writings of the Greeks and Romans.  It’s likely that these were really just tall tales, exaggerated to stress the “barbarian” nature of the Celts.  Modern Pagans DO NOT sacrifice babies or animals on Halloween. The Wiccan Rede  states “Do what thou wilst, but harm none.”

    Druids DO NOT worship the Devil or Satan on Halloween.   NOT ALL PAGANS ARE SATANISTS. Today Pagans see Samhain as a time to honor the dead, not as the dead, but as the living spirits of loved ones and as guardians who hold the wisdom of mankind.  It is a celebration of the afterlife where we do not die but rest and continue to learn and prepare for our next incarnation.  Most modern day Wiccans and Druids have attempted to reconstruct as accurately as possible, Celtic beliefs, rituals, and other practices.  A typical celebration of Samhain might involve decorating an altar with autumn flowers, pine-cones, small pumpkins, and decorative gourds. They sometimes perform a ritual purification by taking a solitary bath. They do not perform séances, as do Spiritualists. They do not summon or order back the dead.  They do, however, believe that, if the dead themselves wish it, they can return to share in the love and celebration of the occasion. Pagan Druids often consecrate and share cakes and wine (or perhaps muffins and cider).

Many myths have been perpetuated by people who have seen too many horror movies and the Christian idea of horrific and mythical forms of Satanism.

Miller, Tara “Druidry: Knowledge of the Oak”.

Monroe, Douglas. The 21 Lessons of Merlyn: A Study in Druid Magic and Lore.
Llewellyn Publications: St. Paul, MN, 1992.

Official Web Site of the American branch of the Ancient and Archaeological Order of Druids. http://www.aoda.org/

Severy, Merle. “The Celts”. National Geographic. May. 1977, 582-632

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