War on Christmas
gregladen | December 24, 2007What I've been looking for all morning .... a Link to the Twisted Chipmunk Christmas Song. Now I'm totally ready for the holidays!
gregladen | December 23, 2007Genesis 1
Boreded Ceiling Cat makinkgz Urf n stuffs
1 Oh hai. In teh beginnin Ceiling Cat maded teh skiez An da Urfs, but he did not eated dem.
2 Da Urfs no had shapez An haded dark face, An Ceiling Cat rode invisible bike over teh waterz.
3 At start, no has lyte. An Ceiling Cat sayz, i can haz lite? An lite wuz.4 An Ceiling Cat sawed teh lite, to seez stuffs, An splitted teh lite from dark but taht wuz ok cuz kittehs can see in teh dark An not tripz over nethin.5 An Ceiling Cat sayed light Day An dark no Day. It were FURST!!!1
6 An Ceiling Cat sayed, im in ur waterz makin a ceiling. But he…
gregladen | December 23, 2007... which is what most people who read my blog think. Turns out I'm wise, and I'm not alone...
From PZ Myers' Holiday Season Sermonette:
We're going to have to start calling ourselves the Three Wise Atheists of of Scienceblogs: as Revere reveals in his Sunday Sermonette, he, Greg, and I don't seem to have much difficulty with this Christmas stuff, and contrary to the Fox propaganda channel, most atheists [enjoy] cheerful holidays with our families and friends, just like Christians, only without the boring superstitious part.
PZ goes on with additional salient points, and I'm sure the…
gregladen | December 23, 2007Dispatches: More War on Christmas Idiocy
Regarding Pat Boone ...
What fucking universe do these people live in? I'd bet a month's pay that not once in Pat's entire life has even a single person ever objected to him saying "Merry Christmas" to them.
Pharyngula: We have a Problem ...
The archbishop of Wales thinks one of the greatest problems facing the world is "atheist fundamentalism"....
and we have presidential candidates pretending to talk to god, and getting standing ovations for it...Respectful Insolence: Deirdre Imus gives everyone some stupid for Christmas
I've mentioned before…
gregladen | December 21, 2007I have great respect for public school teachers. Hey, I married one! Mainly, of course, because I respect her. But they are not all good. Some of them are bad...
From the Internet Infidels Discussion Board:
My son just told me that his seventh grade teacher showed his public school class...the movie "The Best Christmas Pageant Ever." It is blatantly pro-Christian
...
My son just told me that in the movie the bad kids had NEVER read the bible and had never heard the Christmas story,... Those horrible non-believers turned completely straight and moral once they were told about Jesus. My…
gregladen | December 20, 2007Comedian Ricky Gervais has engaged in a debate about theology with the Archbishop of Canterbury - confessing at the end that he might have "blown his image" by taking life seriously.
Gervais is more concerned that religious indoctrination is a form of brainwashing, and he has an interesting reason for thinking this.
"Because I believe in evolution, I believe that a child's brain is a sponge, and it is meant to be because it believes everything it is taught because it has to to survive ... "I think if the first thing you are exposed to is that there is a God and you should do these things, I…
gregladen | December 20, 2007The uneasy alliance between Atheists and Wiccans in the War on Christmas paid off this week as a skirmish unfolded in Green Pay, Wisconsin.
A Wiccan symbol now stands alongside the Christmas manger scene above Green Bay City Hall's northwest entrance.
The new display is an evergreen wreath, about 3 feet in diameter, around a five-pointed star. It's called a pentacle, and it is a symbol in the Wiccan religion, which is associated with witchcraft. Wicca is a nature-based religion based on respect for the earth, nature and the cycle of the seasons.
The wreath and star are mounted on an easel…
gregladen | December 20, 2007He's no Bing Crosby. No, he's better.
...noted atheist Richard Dawkins is taking his first foray into the world of entertainment with "Merry Nothing," a decidedly dour holiday special scheduled to air on PBS this Friday night.
For Dawkins, the program represents quite a radical shift. In his attempt to rid the world of what he calls the "Christmas delusion," the man who has made a name for himself as a writer and formidable debater will have to play the role of enthusiastic host: "Next up, our friends from the ACLU are here to tell us how we can help spread cheer this year by filing suit…
gregladen | December 20, 2007THE front-running candidates in the 2008 US presidential election have released Christmas ads to voters, following the lead of one Republican hopeful who copped heavy criticism for his TV spot.
Mike Huckabee, a former Baptist preacher and state governor running for the Republican nomination, was the first candidate to release a holiday message to voters in state holding early primaries.
His offering drew criticism for having a bookcase in the background that formed a Christian Cross as the camera panned across. Mr Huckabee laughed off the criticism.
Now other candidates have followed suit.…
gregladen | December 20, 2007Little battles are forming everywhere on the internet. Some wacko nutbag who just noticed the War on Christmas for the first time gets all spitty and spatty on the blog. This is picked up by our intelligence services and passed on to a ration, thoughtful atheist blogger, who humiliates the self righteous moron. It is a little like the early days of the Evo-Creo debate.
Here's an example.
Nutbag Christian:
The war against Christmas began a few years ago. By last year the movement had intensified and become threatening. This year, it will be warfare. Merchants have begun to remove the word…
gregladen | December 19, 2007A conservative commentator recently editorialized:
For centuries, atheism has been the rake lurking around the edges of the Christmas party, but now it's slurping from the punch bowl in the middle of the room.
Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris are selling atheist manifestos by the bin, and teens are soaking up blasphemous bits on Comedy Central and HBO. The movie version of Philip Pullman's The Golden Compass is peddling a villainous Catholic Church to kids. And the Christmas concert at public schools has long since morphed into the Winter concert.
In terms of cultural…
gregladen | December 18, 2007This video has been removed becaus, I assume, THEY did not want you to see it...
So how about this one instead:
(an oldie but a goodie)
gregladen | December 17, 2007
Your Christmas is Most Like: How the Grinch Stole Christmas
You can't really get into the Christmas spirit...
But it usually gets to you by the end of the holiday.
What Movie Is Your Christmas Most Like?
gregladen | December 15, 2007I am amazed at the giddiness amongst Christian Fundamentalists that has fomented from the mere utterance of a holiday greeting by Richard Dawkins. The counter-insurgents in the War on Christmas ... the Red White and Blue, squeaky-faced smirking shits that call themselves commentators or preachers are creaming in their jeans. But they are also stepping over the line, and I'm calling them on it.
I do not really know or care what Richard Dawkins thinks, or said, about Christmas. I do know what I think and how my multi-canonical family celebrates the holidays, and I certainly know a…
gregladen | December 14, 2007... Nine Yahoos Dancing...
Flushed with Victory, Bill The Moron O'Reilly Adds One Day to Jewish Holiday:
Despite declaring "victory" in the "War on Christmas" this week, Bill O'Reilly continued to harp on his favorite subject last night with Focus on the Family's Carrie Gordon Earll. Discussing the group's "Attack on Christmas 2007" list, Earll mentioned that Old Navy's catalogue uses the phrase "holiday morning." O'Reilly then suggested the store may be trying to "incorporate the nine days of Hanukkah in the holiday morning description" as a "marketing tool."
Think Progress has the Video.