About this time of year everyone tries to justify why they celebrate Christmas. I understand even the very vocal anti-Christian atheist Richard Dawkins likes to celebrate at Christmas.
I have to confess, though, that I stuggle with the idea of why any atheist would want to celebrate Christmas. Surely, even if you decide that Christmas is just a pagan festival it is still so full of religious imagery and ideas that any self-respecting atheist would want to avoid it.
Let’s think for a moment though about the festival. It is far from certain that the pagans first celebrated at this time of year, even the Romans didn’t have a festival this time of year till late on in their history (possibly even after Christians celebrated at Christmas although the evidence for this is circumstantial). All kinds of claims about pre-Christian mid-winter festivals are made but few can be backed up with hard evidence. However, even if we do say that the Pagans were the first in on the scene and that Christians took it over let’s think about what it is that we get at Christmas. Oh and by the way the tradition of giving presents at Christmas almost certainly comes from Christianity as does Saint Nicholas.
The Christian view of Christmas is a time for people to get together and celebrate the birth of Jesus. It involves singing carols and going to church. It involves thinking of others and spending time with people you love. It involves talking about peace and goodwill to all. Children are treated as special during this time and we talk about stuff that makes us happy, as well as paying particular attention to those who have less than we do. All this comes from the Christian celebration of Christmas.
The rest of it seems to have pagan origins and might I suggest that there is also plenty of non-religious stuff that gets added in for good measure. Things like overeating (Christianity teaches moderation), drinking too much, overspending on gifts people don’t need (granted the tradition of gift giving comes from Christians but it was never intended to involve over spending), commercialisation of everything to make us spend, etc.
Maybe Christians did take over the Christmas tree and Yule Log but what we gave such things was a meaning that speaks about the good news of God with us. Using a well known symbol as something that explains a good message is surely not wrong. I suspect if Christians hadn’t put such meaning to these things then they would have died out with the rest of the pagan stuff; like child sacrifice and religious prostitution.
Which one of these two Christmasses do you want?
It seems to me that the Christian view of Christmas is what we really want and not all the other stuff which we complain about all through Christmas and beyond. In my view you just can’t have a proper Christmas without Christ. If I had to lose anything about Christmas it would be the commercialisation of it – in essense all that non-religious and pagan stuff that gets in the way of the real celebrations. What would Christmas be if left to the atheists? More spending and more guilt no doubt – not for me I’m afraid.
You can’t have a proper Christmas without Christ I’m afraid.