How Should Humanists Celebrate Christmas? (Dec 09)

Christmas is a strange time of the year for agnostics and atheists. One can be all in favor of celebration and ritual  but not much care for the baggage and bigotry that accompanies most religious festivals these days.

At our recent Winter Solstice Party we discussed the idea of  celebrating, not the birth of Jesus, but the birth of the UNIVERSE, some 14 billion years ago -- it's a bit difficult to identify the exact day (just as with Jesus's birth), especially when we can't be too certain about the nature of time in the early stages of the Big Bang!*

Instead of going to Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve, how about a little star-gazing, fireworks and champagne: is there anything more inspiring and thought-provoking than the night sky? And if it’s overcast perhaps one could feast one's eyes on photos from space from Hubble and the new Hershel telescopes.

Good to get some awe and wonder back into our lives and less of the ‘shock and awe’! We Humanists just don’t have enough rituals and celebrations!

*   The idea of celebrating the ‘Big Bang’ at Christmas comes from an article by Simon Singh in an interesting book, 'There's probably no God: the Atheist's guide to Christmas', edited by Ariane Sherine.