What do atheists do at Christmas?
"Next week, five exceptional people from different fields will be guest-editing the Today programme. One of them is the musician, Jarvis Cocker, and one of his ideas was to find out how atheists celebrate Christmas. So does Britain's most famous atheist, Richard Dawkins, eat turkey and open presents - or is 25 December a day like any other?"
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Meglos -.-. ..- -. - ..-. .-.. .- .--. ..., Thu 25 Dec 2008, 19:16,
Reply)
One year
for atheist cred, I had an anti-christmas, I went to a halal butcher and got a nice fresh rabbit and made piella with it. Me and my wife listened to "summer breeze" in our overheated apartment in Chicago's bitter winter, and drank corona. It was actually awesome. A little injection of summer in the middle of the ninth circle.
(, Thu 25 Dec 2008, 19:39, Reply)
Halal meat cancels out any atheist cred you might have got, as it's blessed by a muslim iman.
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Mu Dinofiddler, Thu 25 Dec 2008, 20:43,
Reply)
ha!
where is your non-God now?
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the RAND corporation a.k.a. Kevin Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, Thu 25 Dec 2008, 21:51,
Reply)
How can it being blessed affect a piece of meat?
If you don`t believe, then surely it is still just a piece of meat?
Amendment:
halal or kosher meat isn`t just meat, it has been killed in a way handed down by people who lived in hot places before refrigerators and haven`t caught up, so the poor animal certainly does not appear to be "blessed" in its last few minutes of life.
(, Thu 25 Dec 2008, 22:38, Reply)
Done correctly
Kosher, and Halal, can be incredibly humane. Most of the videos of the mistreatment of animals in kosher slaughter-houses are generally made by observant religious types who disagree with how those places are run.
Also, there are other elements of kosher that are often overlooked, those being:
1. The Promotion of Vegetarianism, as seen in Genesis, and promoted in the laws of Deuteronomy;
2. The welfare of the animal leading up to death. Kosher goes beyond just the meat, but also on to principles of feeding one's livestock before oneself (otherwise you forget that they, too, are hungry), guaranteeing good living conditions for the animal, etc.
Sure, the method of stun then kill may be more humane, but I'm pretty sure herding them all in cramped conditions then rushing them through slaughterhouses where they see other animals die (also forbidden by many adherents of kashrut) isn't that humane or to be attributed to those that have "caught up with the times".
I'm not an observant religious type at all, but next time you see evidence against kashrut or halal maybe consider how this evidence was gathered and by whom.
Right about the refridgeration bit, though, that stuff is salted to hell (which would also have been very expensive back in the day, thus further discouraging the consumption of deaded animals).
(, Fri 26 Dec 2008, 0:34, Reply)
This place was pretty great.
We got to watch our live fluffy gray rabbit sit calmly on a scale, and less than five minutes later I was handed a plastic bag full of still-body-temperature rabbit meat. There were windows to watch the whole process. It was incredibly humane.
I wonder how the guy at the counter would feel if he knew he called an atheist "sister" however.
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coccyx approves this message, Fri 26 Dec 2008, 0:51,
Reply)
Ooh, sounds interesting, pray, do tell more
in a Gaz or whatnot, maybe.
Well, maybe not pray tell more... atheist and all that.
(, Fri 26 Dec 2008, 1:00, Reply)
I saw the videos on a muslim channel!!
They were showing how blessing the animal before slitting it's throat made the blood pour out faster and therefore the meat did not carry any bacteria.
What a crock of shit.
Given the choice I'd rather take a bolt on the head than have my throat slit.
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staz1000, Sun 28 Dec 2008, 12:50,
Reply)
Hmm
It's all very well for them to say that they partake in the festivities like everyone else but it would have been nice if they could have explained why. All it really seems to suggest is that they're happy to practise Christian holidays as long as it can be so devoid of any meaning they can't be associated with it.
Personally I believe that Jesus definitely existed and was a jolly good bloke - one who's words are worth listening to. I don't believe he was the 'son of God' as I don't believe in God in the traditional way. Christmas without acknowledgement of the birth of Jesus just seems a little hollow to me.
But none of you asked what I think :) Merry Christmas everyone!
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TIAL Four capital letters, written in gold., Thu 25 Dec 2008, 19:52,
Reply)
Is there anything else an atheist can do?
The whole country grinds to a halt for two days in december. Even if you wanted to, you can't have a normal day.
Though, if you want to go into semantics, christmas is seemingly derived from pagan practices, so technically isn't as Christian as first thought.
If thats true or not, why not celebrate christmas anyway? How many people never go to church, pray or read the bible, yet still have christmas presents and trees?
(, Thu 25 Dec 2008, 20:06, Reply)
You're right, it would be silly to suggest having the day as any other
and it does present people with the opportunity to be nice to each other and get together, which is always a good thing.
I'm not attacking any one person or even blaming anyone for having a bit of a knees-up, I'm just saying that it all seems a bit pointless to me if one forgets the reason it's all there. It's just all the extreme commercialisation that gets to me really.
Edit - also, 25th December is never claimed to actually be the exact day of his birth, it was chosen to represent it as there were various other days of celebration around that time from other religions, so it fits in with a generally 'festive' period.
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TIAL Four capital letters, written in gold., Thu 25 Dec 2008, 20:15,
Reply)
Exactly.
You could say "but what do Muslims do on christmas day?".
Well, fucked if I know, but its the principal that counts.
(, Thu 25 Dec 2008, 22:37, Reply)
Except
atheists don't need a special day to be nice to other people. We do it because we want to, not to avoid going to hell.
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coccyx approves this message, Fri 26 Dec 2008, 0:55,
Reply)
That may well be a fair enough point.
if it weren't for the fact that you are implying that all atheists are nice. They aren't.
Exactly the same way that not all Christians are nice people.
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Redsushi! Whoop! Whoop! Yes, that one!, Fri 26 Dec 2008, 1:03,
Reply)
Neither do Christians
Those who follow Jesus' words are likely to be nice to other people all year round too. It's never said that Christians should only be nice to people on Christmas day, more the whole year round. It's only the fucking idiots who take it too far and start being cunts.
I think your view of Christians is rather influenced by the extremities. I'm not one (don't believe in God) but I do think Jesus' teachings set a good example.
Does anyone not think it's a bit off of Dawkins to enjoy singing Carols? I can see why Atheists enjoy Christmas day, but surely singing Carols is a bit off for an atheist?
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TIAL Four capital letters, written in gold., Fri 26 Dec 2008, 3:58,
Reply)
^This kind of
Christmas is a mashup of loads of other celebrations from loads of different religions. It just makes sense to have a party when everything's cold and horrible. It's not particularly Christian, historically Puritans aren't big fans of it.
Grah I read something about Santa coming down the chimney being related to some pagan thing, googled it, and accidentally came up with this, which is very un-Christmassy.
(, Fri 26 Dec 2008, 1:50, Reply)
Culture
As an atheist myself, I think Christmas has some excellent cultural reasons for being such a big festival, and the secular traditions that surround it fulfil an important function. As an example, it's one of the few times in a year that families get together for a formal meal. To ignore it would be as absurd as rushing past the Elgin Marbles as they had non-existent characters on them too.
(, Sat 27 Dec 2008, 0:59, Reply)
