What are HASSNERS doing to spread information about the real origins of Xmas?

source: London Atheist Meetup email 1 November 2009

HASSNERS.org highlights

Sue M at London Atheist Meetup group said today ' 
Only 54 days to Xmas - now is the time for a massive effort to spread information about the real origins of Xmas to people we meet, adults and children, on forums and message boards, letters in the press, calls to radio chat lines and internet networks etc.

Suggest better alternatives to 'The birth of baby Jesus' - the hackneyed religious promotional myth put on every year in schools instead of the more interesting and revealing reality of its origins in human history - pre-Christian star stories based on the astrological myths and legends and ancient sun-god's born of virgins.

Now is the time to ensure that atheists and others are clued-up to spread information now showing on 'Atheist Nation' about the real origins of the Christian 'Christmas' mythology

Barbara Smoker's Foreword to 'Our Pagan Christmas' by R.J. Condon that brings the rituals from ancient civilisations up to modern times. (?NSS publication)

'Did Christians Steal Christmas?' by John Stovold

'The Atheist's Guide to Christmas ' by Ariane Sherine

--
This message was sent by Sue M  from The London Atheists Meetup Group.
To learn more about Sue M, visit his/her member profile



This work by crabsallover is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike 2.0 UK: England & Wales License.

Sorry to disappoint, but it's nonsense to suggest we want to ban Christmas by Polly Toynbee

reposted from: http://richarddawkins.net/article,2055,n,n
Chris Street comments are in bright green;

highlights in yellow blockquotes.

Reposted from:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/christmas2007/story/0,,2230951,00.html#article_continue

The seasonal attack on secularists harbours a poisonous suggestion that 'our way of life' is threatened by foreigners


My thanks to the kind reader who sent me the programme from this year's Christmas carol service at the Old Royal Naval College chapel in Greenwich. It was written by the Rev Jules Gomes, chaplain of the college, and of Trinity College of Music, and also of the University of Greenwich.

Here is the good chaplain's Christmas message: "More Christians have been martyred for their faith in the last century than in any other period of church history. Yesterday's Herod is today's Richard Dawkins and Polly Toynbee, seeking the total extermination of all forms of Christianity. The great irony is that the greatest opposition to Christ comes from so-called broad-minded people who seek to ban Christmas so that people of other faiths are not offended."

Yes, it is that time of year when secularists, atheists and humanists become the Grinches who stole Christmas.

As an honorary associate of the National Secular Society and president of the British Humanist Association, here is my cue to offer you all a rattling good Christmas "Bah, humbug!". Except, of course, it's all utter nonsense. No one is out to ban Christmas or Christianity - not atheists nor other faiths. Yet every year the same urban myths are repeated about the banning of Christmas by some pantomime villain local authority suffering from "political correctness gone mad". King Rat Christmas wreckers are unearthed, and every year these turn out to be garbage stories, but they are stored in the attic for another airing next December.

I had at least five calls from broadcasters this year inviting me to say it would be a jolly good thing if Christmas were rebranded Winterval. That myth began years ago when Birmingham city council tried to spread the festive season across the long winter - though it never replaced Christmas, which came with official celebrations in the middle of it. But the Winterval myth lives on. This year it was joined by this: "God rest ye merry people all, Let nothing go to waste, So let us all this Decemberval, Recycle now with haste." Although written by a vicar for Warrington's Christmas recycling campaign, watch Decemberval enter anti-Christmas demonology.

Christmas opinion polls stir the same pot. Theos, the religious thinktank, found a quarter of adults and over a third of 18- to 24-year-olds couldn't say where Jesus was born. Over half didn't know John the Baptist was Jesus's cousin; over a quarter didn't know who told Mary she was pregnant; and 78% had no idea where Mary and Joseph fled to escape Herod. Even the faithful were ignorant: only 36% of regular churchgoers got all four answers right. I regard this as awful. The loss of classical mythology has made much poetry, art and literature incomprehensible to most people. The loss of Christian mythology would make most European history and painting impenetrable. Secularists do not welcome ignorance as a substitute for declining faith.

Pursuing their annual "atheists are stealing Christmas" riff, a Sunday Telegraph survey of 100 schools found only one in five had a traditional nativity play this year, which is odd considering over a third of primaries are Christian. The sad truth is that some did no play, but others did Scrooge, Arabian Nights, Hansel and Gretel, or the Snow Queen, all also cultural treasures.

British Christians yearn to be martyrs, but frankly atheists are a pretty toothless substitute for lions.

In a daft parliamentary debate this month on something called Christianophobia, Mark Pritchard MP accused the politically correct of banning religion from Christmas cards and advent calendars: "Many shoppers find it increasingly difficult to purchase greetings cards that refer to Jesus." Alas, market forces are probably rather stronger than humanist plots: with only 7% of people in church of a Sunday these days, Santa and the Snowman trump the nativity.

Evangelicals started a new myth this year that postage stamps with the Madonna and child are only sold under the counter: you have to ask for them, for fear of offending Muslims and Jews. Stuff and nonsense, retorted the Post Office. But you can bet this one will run and run - along with last year's myth that 70% of offices banned Christmas decorations for multicultural reasons. Another year it was the Red Cross banning cribs.

All this would just be seasonal silliness if it were not cover for a more sinister drumbeat. The right has taken to flying the "Christian" flag in ways that suggest none too subtly that foreigners - Muslims - are stealing our culture and traditions. "They" are stopping "us" celebrating Christmas and teaching Christian stories to our children. When Terry Sanderson, president of the National Secular Society, appeared on GMTV this week, although as usual he denied any atheist plot against Christmas, the theme in about 3,000 emails afterwards was: "We are not Muslims, our culture must not be silenced to avoid offending them."

The BNP has been quick to cash in. In the Christianophobia debate in parliament, the reported case of a BNP Christmas card was raised, "which portrays the holy family on the cover and inside are the words 'Heritage, Tradition and Culture'". Pritchard warned television firms: "The fear of violence from a particular faith group should not be grounds for hand-selecting or targeting other faith groups who may choose to protest peacefully." Fear of Muslim violence is killing off peaceful Christianity, he implies. But blaming mythical secular political correctness is usually a cover for more sinister suggestions that "our way of life" is under threat from foreigners.

Hastening to defend themselves against the charge, Trevor Phillips, chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, assembled imams, rabbis, Sikh and Hindu leaders to protest that they had no objection to Christmas, asserting that they sent Christmas cards, they liked cribs, and "it's a great holiday for everyone". Leave Christmas alone was the message, addressed again to the hypothetical politically correct secularists.

But we are innocent. It is the Christians who are stirring this dangerous pot, inventing non-stories, yearning for martyrdom - and worse, fermenting an outraged sense among the mainly secular population that they had better call themselves Christian because, as the BNP says, British "Heritage, Tradition and Culture" (read Kultur) are under threat from Muslims. While pretending to attack us, covertly these Christians stir resentment against immigrants.

As more faith trouble brews, it becomes ever more important not to ban religions, but to keep religion out of all functions of the state. It needs to be taught in schools, acted out in nativity plays, too, if they want - but without dangerously segregating children by their faith in sectarian religious institutions.

And at last we have at least one political party leader brave enough to admit, like most people, that he doesn't believe in God.

As for secularists and humanists at Christmas, Dawkins himself told a disappointed BBC interviewer that he loves singing carols. And so do I. Not just Away in a Manger or Oh Little Town nostalgic childhood tunes, but all the enjoyably rich and strange theology of "Lo! He abhors not the Virgin's womb ... Veiled in flesh the Godhead see, Hail the incarnate Deity", and other such quaint delights.

Is it hypocritical to sing songs with words whose literal truth you do not believe? Any such sad edict would leave most great love songs, hymns and arias unsung. If the royal family can trill, with solemn faces and gladsome minds, "What can I give him, poor as I am?" then anyone can

Richard Dawkins on Christmas

reposted from: http://richarddawkins.net/article,2044,n,n
Chris Street comments are in bright green;

highlights in yellow blockquotes.

Listen to Richard Dawkins talking about Christmas to Jeremy Vine.

Is it right to sing religious carols if you are an atheist? RD says "you can enjoy works of fiction ... and religous carols are just fiction."

The Santa delusion

reposted from: http://www.newscientist.com/channel/opinion/mg19626351.500-the-santa-delusion.html;jsessionid=NHDNBABANFND

Chris Street comments are in bright green;

highlights in yellow blockquotes.

The Santa delusion

• 22 December 2007
• NewScientist.com news service
• Gail Vines

AS CHRISTMAS DAY draws near, parents across the world set the stage for the arrival of Santa Claus. It is a time-honoured cultural conspiracy that most of us grew up with; a tradition that makes Christmas a magical time for youngsters. But is it really just harmless fun? Is it right to systematically deceive children, only to shatter the illusion later?

The deception may have been around for centuries, but these days it goes far beyond simple storytelling. There are still letters to Santa and visits to his grotto, but now kids can fly to Lapland for a private session with Santa, receive emails and personalised video messages from Santa's workshop, and use the internet to track his progress around the globe. Yet even as the Santa myth grows ever stronger, many modern parents are growing uncertain, says Dale McGowan, a "critical thinking" educator based in Atlanta, Georgia.

Tom Flynn, editor of the secular humanist magazine Free Inquiry, believes

it is unfair to trick children with stories of a magical gift-giver, reinforced by "evidence", such as empty glasses of milk and half-eaten mince pies by the Christmas tree. "Adults often stage elaborate deceptions, laying traps for the children's developing intellect,"

Flynn says.

Worse, parents may threaten youngsters with Santa's wrath if they misbehave, or punish them if they share their suspicions with their siblings. "It encourages lazy parenting and promotes unhealthy fear,"

he says.

To top it all, Flynn reckons

the myth makes children more acquisitive and selfish and he cites a study of children's letters to Santa, which were filled with demands for material things.

The only good thing, he concludes, is that

unmasking Santa might help to inoculate kids against supernatural beliefs.

In his best-seller, The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins makes a similar point. "Natural selection builds child brains with a tendency to believe whatever their parents tell them," he writes. Children should "toss God aside at about the same age that they toss Santa Claus aside".

The difference is, of course, that even children of religious parents are meant to figure out that Santa isn't real. So how should parents go about coming clean without scarring their offspring for life? "This culturally pervasive myth is designed with an expiration date,"

says McGowan, who edited a new self-help guide, Parenting Beyond Belief.

When children start to ask questions about Santa, parents should encourage them to air their doubts and reason it out for themselves. McGowan isn't convinced that uncovering the lie does children any harm. "My son was relieved when he'd worked it out - the world made sense again."

In fact, while children may seem gullible, they actually have a better grip on the distinction between fantasy and reality than most people realise, says psychologist Jacqueline Woolley of the University of Texas, Austin. "We found that from the age of 4 children use many of the same cues adults use to distinguish fantasy from reality."

So if children are so smart, why do they believe in Santa Claus, almost universally, from the age of 3 until they are 7 or 8? Woolley believes it's because the adults they count on to provide reliable information about the world introduce them to Santa. Then friends, books, TV and movies shore up that belief, along with the "hard evidence" planted by their parents.

Only when the adults stop reinforcing the story does it crumble, she says. "Children do a great job of scientifically evaluating Santa, and adults do a great job of duping them,"

she says.

"As we gradually withdraw our support for the myth, and children piece together the truth, their view of Santa aligns with ours," she argues. "Perhaps it is this kinship with the adult world that prevents children from feeling anger over having been misled."

Reassuringly, most children seem to cope with their disillusionment remarkably well, and may even experience a sense of achievement at having worked it out for themselves. It is the parents who feel sad when the truth is out,

says Carl Anderson, an educational psychologist also at the University of Texas, Austin, who interviewed 52 children who no longer believed in Santa Claus. In his study,

"parental encouragement for the child to believe was very strong, but children generally discovered the truth on their own at the age of 7".

It's when parents continue the deception for too long that trouble looms. "Children may be more ready to give up the Santa myth than their parents are,"

says Bruce Henderson, a child psychologist at Western Carolina University in Cullowhee, North Carolina. "Let the child provide the cues," he says.

Some researchers believe that

this festive skulduggery could actually benefit children. "Maintaining nice fantasies is part of a long tradition, part of growing up,"

says Pat Doorbar, an independent child psychologist based in north Wales.

"I don't think it is lying; it's making up a very pleasant story to help children enjoy an experience."

Belief in Santa can also be beneficial in helping children develop a healthy imagination,

argues Cindy Dell Clark, a cultural psychologist at Penn State University at Brandywine. She has studied chronically ill children and finds that they use their capacity to suspend disbelief as a means of coping.

John Kremer, reader in psychology at Queen's University Belfast in the UK, agrees.

"Santa Claus is part of the mythology of childhood, which is full of white lies," he says, and Santa may have a useful social role to play.

Kremer cites the work of the American psychologist George Homans, who argued decades ago that all social relationships are based on reciprocity and the balancing of rewards and cost. This is starkly revealed at Christmas, says Kremer. Each gift must be carefully matched in value with another, each card must be met with a card, or you risk embarrassment or worse. "Children find themselves in this intricate web of exchange without the necessary social skills, nor indeed the resources, to become active participants."

Santa is the perfect solution. "Because Santa gives presents to children but expects nothing in return, he protects them from the minefield of social exchange known as Christmas," Kremer says. "This allows children to learn the ropes of gift-giving, without having to play an active role."

Of course, it is probably no coincidence that the Santa myth - what Kremer calls "this unique secular product of western capitalism" - lends itself so neatly to materialism. Believing in a nice man who brings you expensive gifts is a neat introduction to the materialistic culture you will grow into. This, Kremer says, explains "the massive popularity of the story of Santa Claus, and the perplexing question as to why we should encourage those in our care to believe, often despite whispered misgivings".

It may seem depressing to start children on the road to materialism at such a tender age, but consider the alternative. You could resist the tide of commercialism and limit Santa's gifts to the traditional orange and sweets in a stocking. Trouble is, it may not bring you much in the way of peace and goodwill.

From issue 2635 of New Scientist magazine, 22 December 2007, page 36-37

The Four Horsemen: On Christmas

reposted from: http://richarddawkins.net/article,2038,The-Four-Horsemen-on-Christmas,RichardDawkinsnet

Richard Dawkins says "Freddie Ayer, the Philosopher said Grace at an Oxford College. He said "I wont utter falsehoods but I've no objection to uttering meaningless statements".

God rest you merry atheist by Libby Purves, Times Online

reposted from: http://richarddawkins.net/article,2037,n,n
Chris Street comments are in bright green;

highlights in yellow blockquotes.

Reposted from:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/libby_purves/article3065649.ece

What with all the crowds and the shopping and the formulation of complex family Christmas treaties, you may have missed the enchanting news about Richard Dawkins, author of The God Delusion. In a good mood Professor Dawkins dismisses all faith as "harmless nonsense... the great cop-out". In a bad mood he tends to call it a wicked, "infectious virus". He is not shy to air his views on the subject.

At which point I should say that - though not wholly of his mind - I actually have a lot of time for the Dawk. Organised religions do often abuse their position and their followers, and need to be told so; and his thesis is far more intelligently based than the infantile vitriol of Christopher Hitchens or the sneering cool of most media atheism. Moreover, Professor Dawkins' recent programmes on New Age superstition were more than welcome: the best TV moment of the year was the sight of a dishevelled woman earnestly explaining what DNA was - to the great biologist! - and then offering to "replace" the missing DNA from Atlantis, putting it into his cells by wiggling her fingers and blowing at him.

I could watch that clip all day, just for his face.

But the really fabulous news I mentioned is that Richard Dawkins, Prophet of Atheism, has said in a BBC interview that he is

not against "cultural" Christianity and "Yes, I like singing carols along with everyone else".

Which raises enough tantalising philosophical and ethical questions to keep us going till Christmas Eve. Dawkins sings carols? Does he sing all the words? Does he boom out lines about herald angels, holy nights, the tender Lamb promised from eternal years? Does he croon: "What can I give Him, poor as I am?" Does the polemicist who gave three eloquent pages to deconstructing the story of St Luke's Gospel happily warble O Little Town of Bethlehem and Once in Royal David's City? Does the man who says that religious education is tantamount to "child abuse" feel wholly comfortable crooning Away in a Manger?

Or does he censor the words? Do neighbours at Oxford carol concerts suddenly become aware that one pleasing baritone has abruptly dropped out before the first "O come let us adore him" and failed to return for the final fortissimo?

How can his famous, well-modulated voice choke out the word "adore", apropos a God he calls a "misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully"?

Well, you see the pleasure. Rewriting the Dawkins carol sheet could keep us all busy. "God rest ye merry Gentlemen, pass on your DNA/ For genes are strong and se-el-fish and will find out a way"... "Silent night, Science is right"... "Away in a helix, no crib for a bed/ The little Lord Genome laid down its sweet head..." It gets tricky; I am having some trouble with the scansion of "While Schrödinger watched his cat by night", but I'll get there.

But leave the poor man alone.

The point is that he obligingly raises the more general question of how the unbeliever, the half-believer and the ex-believer should treat the cultural heritage of Christianity, especially at Christmas.

As Aled Jones and Katie Melua averred on the Today programme yesterday, the carols are good tunes and fun to sing, and you needn't be immensely religious to enjoy them. I am certainly not naive enough to believe that everyone who sings them is burning with faith. Some are, and thus have no problem with the adoring, but I suspect that many approach carols in a spirit of cautious unexpressed hope - willing to leave the door just a crack open to the possibility that there might be something or Someone out there, beyond it all, incapable of being pinned down by science or reason but nonetheless wonderful and benign

. That, combined with a certain respect for the generations who went before and a wistful longing for the "hopes and fears of all the years" to be resolved one day, whether before death or after, is a reasonable spirit in which to have a good old sing at Christmas.

But if you loudly and repeatedly make a career of denying any possibility at all of the reality of God, how honest is it to sing? How easy to reconcile? How insulting to those who mean every word of it? One can obviously do a bit of sectarian tourism: once at supper with the Chief Rabbi I did sing along with the Yiddish grace-after-meals. But then I am broadly a deist, and if Jonathan Sacks was prepared to tolerate our inaccurate pronunciation and weak grip of the tune, it seemed fair enough for dinner guests to give it a spin. Likewise I admit that the two million of us who sang "Wider still and wider shall thy bounds be set!" on The Mall in Jubilee year didn't honestly want to reconquer India.

But there are limits. If I found myself at a Nazi rally I would not sing the Horst-Wessel-Lied; if I were with the Druids at Stonehenge I doubt that I would don a sheet and join in hymns to the rising sun or whatever, because I think it is all fabricated modern nonsense.

And if suddenly transported to that American church where they sing "God hates fags" (it's on Faith Central blog, click and see) and someone passed me a hymn sheet, I wouldn't join in. Not even hum along, however catchy the tune.

Well, it's something to think about in the pre-Christmas queues.

Can you sing something while meaning the opposite? Can Professor Dawkins be truly merry at a carol concert while publicly excoriating the "time-consuming, wealth-consuming, hostility-provoking rituals and anti-factual counter-productive fantasies of religion..."?

Or should he stay true to himself, and stick to a verse or two of Frosty the Snowman?

A Humanist view of Christmas by Margaret Nelson

reposted from: http://www.suffolkhumanists.org.uk/node/535
Chris Street comments are in bright green;

highlights in yellow blockquotes.

Submitted by Margaret Nelson on Wed, 24/10/2007 - 15:53. Humanism

We’re often asked what Humanists do at Christmas. It’s generally assumed that the festival based on the winter solstice (the shortest day) is Jesus’s birthday. That’s what a lot of people refer to as “the real meaning of Christmas”. What they may not realise is that:

• It’s highly unlikely that Jesus was born on 25 December;
• The Christian nativity story is very similar to other stories of baby deities born to virgin mothers; it’s not unique.
• The Christian Church didn’t celebrate Christmas until the 4^th century, as it took a dim view of all hedonistic hoo-ha enjoyed by the pagans at that time of year;
• There’s been a midwinter festival of one sort or another in Europe, Scandinavia and the Middle East for thousands of years, since long before the Christians claimed it;
• “Traditions” like Christmas trees, cards, gifts and turkeys are all fairly recent. The Victorians, particularly Prince Albert, had a lot to do with their introduction.

Some Humanists regard the festival as a time to enjoy good food and drink with family and friends, but without going OTT because they regard the commercialisation of the season as irritating and wasteful. Others prefer to ignore the whole thing, which is difficult. There used to be special get-away-from-Christmas holidays for Humanists, who’d go and stay somewhere Christmas-free – I don’t know if they still happen.

The President’s Mid-Winter Message - Terry Sanderson, National Secular Society

reposted from: http://www.secularism.org.uk/thepresidentsmid-wintermessage.html

Since I became President of the National Secular Society, I have been aware that some religious people, who know me only through this public persona, regard me as some kind of hateful monster who is trying to kill their faith.

People who know me personally, on the other hand, think I am an old softy, who is as anxious to please as an aged golden retriever waddling to fetch a stick.

Being aware of this dual perception, and how easy it is to misunderstand other people’s motives, I try not to jump immediately to the conclusion that those who criticise the NSS (sometimes very fiercely) are automatically crazy people who don’t deserve to be listened to.

I give them the benefit of the doubt, and if ever I get to meet them – which I do from time to time in broadcasting studios or on debating platforms – I usually find them personable, charming and friendly.

They, too, have a public persona and are obliged to summarise their ideas in sound-bites for the media, without much qualification. In those circumstances, it is easy to sound hard and unrelenting. When we get to talk, and expand our ideas and explain them, there is usually at least some area of agreement between us.

So, let’s get this right –

we’re engaged in a battle of ideas, not of people. We all know what happens when people don’t talk and discuss – they become suspicious of each other and they fight.

So, my New Year’s resolution is to talk, debate, discuss, explore and listen; to continue to struggle for a secular structure for society, but in a reasonable and rational way.

Secularism is about living together in peace and harmony, without exploitation and without coercion. It isn’t primarily about attacking religion or religious believers. Although we may have a lot of sympathy with the rationalism of Dawkins and Hitchens, we realise that the argument about the truth or otherwise of religion is separate from the struggle for secularism.

Whatever we may feel about religion – and I know that many NSS members have very strong anti-religious instincts – we have to be pragmatic and understand that religion is not going away. So, secularism tries to create a shared space where no-one can dominate. The veracity or otherwise of religious belief is a legitimate argument, but not one that is central to the creation of a secular society.

Secularism is about listening to other people’s point of view, but sometimes agreeing to differ. It goes like this: you do what you want (within the law) in your space (temple, mosque, church, home), and we’ll do what we want in our space (likewise within the law), and we’ll agree not to interfere with each other while within those spaces.

But in the space that we have to share – the public square as it has been called - there can only be democracy. The direction and shape of our society and culture must be agreed between us, believer and non-believer alike, not imposed by divine right or by superior strength. In that way, we all participate. We don’t always get what we want, but at least we have the opportunity to lobby to change things by argument and persuasion, rather than by force and fiat.

But now, as the holiday approaches, and the time comes for reunions with family and friends, for the exchange of presents and for the sharing of good food and drink, we can live in peace with each other, at least for these few days.

The churches are open for those who want them, and so are the boozers. Christmas carols will be sung and Monopoly played. Telly will be watched and snoozes taken. For those lucky enough to be in the warmth of good company, there will be a central feast and the sound of children enjoying what is, essentially, their special time.

Our friends from Muslim, Jewish, Sikh and Hindu backgrounds will be able to share in the excitement and enjoy the holiday, too. The mischievous forces that try to make life difficult for them should be challenged, but over the holiday time, we can try to put aside those human-made differences and just let it be. Let’s leave the point-scoring and the arguing until next year.

Despite the claims of some, this mid-winter holiday does not uniquely belong to one section of the community. Indeed, there is no reason why atheists can’t enjoy it with a clear conscience. I certainly will and I sincerely hope you will, too.

So, whatever your religion (or lack of it) and whatever your circumstances, I wish you a very happy Christmas – as well as a peaceful solstice time and a jolly holly-day.

Happy Newton Day! by Richard Dawkins, New Statesman

December 25th is a date to celebrate not because it is the disputed birthday of the "son of God" but because it is the actual birthday of one of the world's greatest men - Sir Isaac Newton!

reposted from:
Chris Street comments are in bright green;

highlights in yellow blockquotes.

Reposted from:
http://www.newstatesman.com/200712130029




O come, O come, Emmanuel,
And ransom captive Israel . . .

Advent, we learned at school, was a time of anticipation: of looking forward to the coming of the Messiah. But we boys knew better. Advent was looking forward to something a lot more interesting - Christmas. That great processional tune, played on the organ to announce the Advent hymn, still stirs my depths, fifty years on. It meant that Christmas, which was the main thing each boy had been looking forward to since his birthday, was really coming - and what bad luck on poor Jesus, having his birthday on Christmas Day.

The Advent hymn anticipated the excited sleeplessness of Christmas Eve, then the knobbly weight of the stocking, distended and crackling with promise of the "real" presents to come after breakfast or, in unlucky years, after church. That heraldic minor-key theme, on the trumpet stop, was a fanfare for Hamleys, for Meccano and Hornby Dublo, for overeating in a wasteland of coloured wrapping paper.

We knew little of the theology of Advent. "Emmanuel", we gathered, might be a rather daring misspelling, but it really was just another way of writing "Jesus". How else interpret the familiar words of Matthew (1:22-23)?

Now all this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying/Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel . . .

We never wondered why God would go to such lengths simply to fulfil a prophecy. Nor, indeed, why God would go to the even greater lengths of sending his son into the world in order that he should be agonisingly punished for the sins that mankind might decide to commit at some time in the future (or for the past scrumping offence of one non-existent man, Adam) - surely one of the single nastiest ideas ever to occur to a human mind (Paul's, of course). We never wondered why God, if he wanted to forgive our sins, didn't just forgive them. Why did he have to scapegoat himself first? Where religion was concerned, we never wondered anything.

That was the point about religion. You could ask questions about any other subject, but not religion.

We'd have been intrigued if our scripture teachers had come clean and told us that Isaiah's Hebrew for "young woman" was accidentally mistranslated as "virgin" in the Greek Septuagint (an easy mistake to make: think of the English word "maiden"). To say that this little error was to have repercussions out of all proportion would be putting it mildly.

From it flowed the whole Virgin Mary myth, the kitsch "Our Lady" of Catholic grotto-idolatry, the sub-paedophile spectacle of young girls in virginal white First Communion dresses, the goddess status of not just Mary herself but a pantheon of local "manifestations". Pope John Paul II thought he was saved from assassination in 1981 not just by Our Lady but specifically by Our Lady of Fatima. As I have remarked elsewhere, presumably Our Lady of Lourdes, Our Lady of Guadalupe, Our Lady of Medjugorje, Our Lady of Akita, Our Lady of Zeitoun, Our Lady of Garabandal and Our Lady of Knock were busy on other errands at the time.

Our scripture teachers could have gone on to tell us that Isaiah's "Emmanuel" verse was really nothing to do with Jesus, but referred to a temporary problem in Jewish politics seven centuries earlier. The birth of a child called Emmanuel was a sign to King Ahaz of Judah, to encourage him in his little local dispute with the neighbouring kingdoms of Syria and Israel.

It is typical of the religious mind to force a gratuitous symbolic meaning where none was intended. Christian writers later saw Judah's oppression as a symbol for mankind's enslavement to death and "sin", and ended up unable to tell the difference, like people who send Christmas cards to the Archers. An even funnier example is the late Christian gloss on the "Song of Songs", a frankly erotic document headed, in Christian bibles, by hilariously euphemistic epigraphs such as "The mutual love of Christ and his church".

The desire to fulfil prophecies is where our most heart-warming Christmas stories come from. There is no actual evidence that Jesus was born in Bethlehem, let alone in a stable. But he must have been born in Bethlehem, because the prophet Micah (5:2) had earlier said:

But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou
be little among the thousands of Judah, yet
out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel . . .

So, Luke has Mary and Joseph starting in Nazareth, but forced to go to Bethlehem ("everyone into his own city") to pay a Roman tax (ancient historians rightly ridicule this tax story). Matthew, by contrast, has Joseph's family starting in Bethlehem, but moving to Nazareth after returning from the flight to Egypt. Matthew turns even Jesus's relatively undisputed con nection with Nazareth into a strained effort to fulfil yet another prophecy:

And he came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets, He shall be called a Nazarene. (Matthew 2:23)

Mark, the earliest Gospel, doesn't mention the birth of Jesus at all. John (7:41-42) has people saying that he couldn't really be the Christ, precisely because he was born in Nazareth not Bethlehem, and because he was not descended from David:

Others said, This is the Christ. But some said, Shall Christ come out of Galilee?
Hath not the scripture said, That Christ cometh of the seed of David, and out of the

To add to the confusion, Matthew and Luke, though theirs are the only Gospels claiming that Jesus had no earthly father, both trace Jesus's descent from David through Joseph, not Mary (albeit through very different intermediates from one another, and very different numbers of intermediates).

Most but not all scholars think, on balance, that a charismatic wandering preacher called Jesus (or Joshua) probably was executed during the Roman occupation, though all objective historians agree that the evidence is weak.

Certainly, nobody takes seriously the legend that he was born in December. Late Christian tradition simply attached Jesus's birth to a long-established and convenient winter solstice festival.

Such seasonal opportunism continues to this day. In some states of the US, public display of cribs and similar Christian symbols is outlawed for fear of offending Jews and others (not atheists). Seasonal marketing appetites are satisfied nationwide by a super-ecumenical "Holiday Season", into which are commandeered the Jewish Hanukkah, Muslim Ramadan, and the gratuitously fabricated "Kwanzaa" (invented in 1966 so that African Americans could celebrate their very own winter solstice). Americans coyly wish each other "Happy Holiday Season" and spend vast amounts on "Holiday" presents. For all I know, they hang up a "Holiday stocking" and sing "Holiday carols" around the decorated "Holiday tree". A red-coated "Father Holiday" has not so far been sighted, but this is surely only a matter of time.

For better or worse, ours is historically a Christian culture, and children who grow up ignorant of biblical literature are diminished, unable to take literary allusions, actually impoverished. I am no lover of Christianity, and I loathe the annual orgy of waste and reckless reciprocal spending, but I must say I'd rather wish you "Happy Christmas" than "Happy Holiday Season".

Fortunately, this is not the only choice: 25 December is the birthday of one of the truly great men ever to walk the earth, Sir Isaac Newton. His achievements might justly be celebrated wherever his truths hold sway. And that means from one end of the universe to the other. Happy Newton Day!

Richard Dawkins, FRS is Charles Simonyi Professor of the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University. His most recent book is "The God Delusion" (Black Swan, £8.99)

Why Do Humanists Celebrate at Christmas?

Atheists, agnostics, Humanists and other non-believers are sometimes asked why they celebrate at Christmas time, or are even accused of being hypocritical for doing so.


source - Humanists.freeserve
The answer, which may be surprising to many uninformed Christians, is that they celebrate at that time for the same reason as the early Christians - because everyone else was already doing so, and had been for centuries before the time of the first Christians.

The last two weeks of December had long been a time of celebration throughout the ancient world in the northern hemisphere. It was associated with the Winter Solstice, the shortest day, after which one could look forward to Spring, to crops, regeneration and new life.

Almost all the customs of the Festive Season pre-date Christianity: the giving of gifts, decorating the house and tree, putting up holly and mistletoe, and eating the flaming round plum pudding - the most obvious solar symbol of all. And the familiar crib scene originated in ancient Egypt.

It was not until the 4th century that anyone claimed to know the exact birthday of Jesus. In 525 AD a claim was made by Dionysius Exiguus, a mathematician and theologian living in Rome. Christian scholars today are all agreed that Exiguus was wrong, and it is generally believed that Jesus was born between 7 BC and 4 BC. In the year 274 AD Roman Emperor Aurelian declared December 25 to be the Sun’s official birthday.

So those who have no religion and who may describe themselves as atheists, agnostics or Humanists, need have no qualms about celebrating at this time of the year.