Simon Heffer has written a very sensible (damn, I hate that word) article about why atheists rooted in our culture should have no problem at all enjoying Christmas. I agree whole heartedly with that view but…
We atheists are supposed to feel bad about Christmas. After all, what is it to do with us? All the present-swapping, drinking and over-eating is merely taking advantage of someone else’s festival, isn’t it? I have always had my doubts about that analysis, all the more so since the Archbishop of Canterbury this week refined the Christmas story as “legend“. I start to wonder whether I am any more of an atheist than he is.
Oh Simon, Simon, Simon…really. You are talking about the head of the Church of England…of course he is more of an atheist than you are! Folks like you and I simply decline to believe on the whole beardy-guy-in-the-sky thing and that is good enough for us, no need to bang on any drums about it and generally be a tiresome crypto-fascist prat like Dawkins. Dr. Rowan Williams on the other hand drives more people into our way of thinking every time he opens his yap. Clearly he and Dawkin are batting for the same side no matter how much they pretend to not like each other.
So try to have a Merry Christmas one and all, even you Dr. Williams and Prof. Dawkins.
In that case Perry, have a very Merry Christmas:-)
What’s wrong with the word “sensible”
Of course atheists shouldn’t feel bad about Christmas, anymore than Christians should feel bad about taking a perfectly respectable party and glamming their stuff on to it.
Happy Solstice!
On that theme, there are two items of news this week. Nick Clegg has – it is said bravely – come out as an atheist. And Tony Blair has formally become a communicant of the Catholic church.
I like Clegg; I like Rowan Williams for his thoughtfulness, even if the results are mixed; I’m a bit bored by Dawkins; I will never tire of despising Tony Blair. What formal category of religion you take up doesn’t really come into it. It certainly doesn’t come into enjoying Christmas.
The word is redolent with Tory Party anti-intellectualism and Old Boy statism. Your don’t vote for a Tory because he has ideas or ideals, you vote for him because he is “sensible”. Fuck that.
“Archbishop of Canterbury this week refined the Christmas story as “legend”.”
Trust “Swampy” to do a Ratner on the product.
Isn’t the Head of the Church of England The Queen?
The head of the Church of England is Jesus Christ, its Governor is the Queen. Whether Rowan William’s authority is derived directly from the former or the latter is a moot point, though, presumably, in the first case, his paticular prelateship would then be a metaphor of some form.
Good point, Perry.
I have recently (like about half an hour ago) been motivated by Blair to come to the conclusion that even calling oneself an atheist is going too far. I am giving up atheism in favour of nothing in particular, just kind of normal, know what I mean?
Merry Christmas.
And Dawkins probably drives more people to religion every time he opens his yap.
I sort of remember reading somewhere, (but can’t be arsed to look it up), that whilst the CofE is shrinking, the more “meaty” versions of Christianity are attracting more and more converts. And the reasons given amount to a combination of disquiet at the emptiness of Atheism as exempified by the likes of Dawkins and despair at the vapidity of the established church as displayed by Williams.
Of course if you add in the numbers of Gaiaists about these days then religion is definitely on the up.
Actually Kevin I suspect the future belongs to ‘shoulder shrugging agnostics’.
Perry, as a ‘shoulder shrugging agnostic’ I hope you’re right, but the Gaia cult has me a bit concerned, since they tend to be so intense.
There are times when I fear them more than the islamofascists.
Why not just concentrate on the New Year? It was always the more important of the two in Scotland (no longer, although it’s still more celebrated than it is in England). As recently as the 1930s and ’40s, my father received his presents from Santa on Hogmanay. The 25th was an ordinary working day here until the 1950s, and I remember the local papers being published on that date well into the ’80s.
Kevin B: well put. As an agnostic, the one thing that keeps me from outright atheism is the thought that I’d be on the same side as Dawkins. On the other hand, the more frantically churches try to entice me through their doors, the less inclined I feel to succumb.
Kevin: nah, they just make more noise. I really do think that in the UK most people do not give a monkey’s about religion. They are not anti-religion, it does not seem important or ‘sensible’ enough to rate any of their time to think about it… and when they are forced to, it is usually when they think “damn, these weird looking beardy Islamic blokes marching down the street holding scary signs are fucking crackers!”
Bugger it! I will continue to put my cross in the box marked atheist (as usual API)
But I love a party!
Thank you Mr De Havilland for allowing me to amuse myself (and hopefully others) in your virtual domain for another year. Many more to come I hope.
So happy christmas, Saturnalia Winter festival or whatever you wish to call it.
Now I’ve got a crate of good wine by here, who’s got a corkscrew?
More years ago than I care to count, I had to fill in the mandatory AB64 for a new recruit to our colonial forces, a beautifully cicatriced black gentleman from way up north (not Glasgow). When it came to the space ‘religion’ the conversation through a handy interpreter was much as follows:
What you be then, Muslim?
No
You be Christian?
No
You be juju?
No
What you be then?
I savvy god dere for up.
Don’t think he was right…but he was getting there.
Happy Christmas to you all!
Most people haven’t grasped the fact that the C of E is not a religion at all but a political unit. Henry VIII set it up like that and although there are true believers among the congregations the UK hierarchs are definitely politicians – second rate ones ’tis true but weasly types all the same.
Perry’s description of Dawkins was priceless but we should grant pretty Dicky one thing – he does have some astonishinglt attractive tweeds.
Millie Woods:
I don’t know how things are in Canada. In the US, CofE members are the folks who think they’re Protestants but don’t feel too strongly about it. If you asked around my congregation about the theological points, whether they believe in free will or transubstantiation or whether we should reunify with Rome, most of us will probably shrug and stare and say “I’m just here because I think it helps me be a better person and it’s a good influence for the kids.”
RAB:
I’m sure I could find something. Happy Kwanzaa!
Perry,
I’m sorry that you are not willing to give Rowan’s words the kind of serious attention you give to other matters. Nothing he has said would even raise an eyebrow among student priests in a theological college. His position is as open to caricature as your own brand of libertarianism, but surely Samizdata has more grown-up things to do.
Perry, you’ve upset the true believers, you’ve upset the radical atheists. Your work is done, go have a beer mate.
Of course the CofE isnt “a religion” it is one part of the one holy catholic and apostolic church and differs not a whit from the other branches, except in so much as it rejects the usurping claims of various foreign Bishops to illegitimate authority, or maybe it is a heroic triangulation of Refromed and papistical doctrine, or maybe it is the last obfustication of prelateship thrown in our path before the millenium, or maybe the penultimate one.
I have often blogged about him when he ventures into political topics in a more serious tone.
Could be, but as a non-believer myself, when someone leaves an open goal, I am inclined to kick the ball.
Sure, people do it to us all the time. That is just part of the rough and tumble of the blogosphere.
Clearly you vastly overestimate us 🙂 A little unkind humour goes a long way to leavening an otherwise dreary diet of endless politics and economics. You wouldn’t believe the angry e-mails I got from a couple Dawkins fans who were far less polite than you.
“A little unkind humour goes a long way to leavening an otherwise dreary diet of endless politics and economics.”
I hope it goes a long way towards removing Williams as Archbishop of C. As someone mentioned he’s the sort of guy who’d be great as head of a theological college – but not the spokesman for the CoE in this country.
A bit like Dawkins – I feel for atheists having as their head spokesman a geneticist. .. brings back memories of the last great atheistic movement…
Rowan Williams strikes me as a fairly decent cove, albeit with the intellectual cutting edge of cotton wool. As for Dawkins, he is basically right, but on political matters he is boiler-plate Big Govt. left-liberal. Yawn.
I’m surprised nobody in this or the other religion themed thread has mentioned the obvious: sitting here this afternoon listening to the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols from King’s, I’m struck by the thought that any movement – religious or not – that can inspire such magnificent music and give us one day a year when people at least try to be nice to one another can’t be all bad.
Merry Christmas, folks!
“We atheists are supposed to feel bad about Christmas. After all, what is it to do with us? All the present-swapping, drinking and over-eating is merely taking advantage of someone else’s festival, isn’t it?”
Why should we feel bad about it? It’s exactly what the Christians did; Christmas is afterall only celebrated in December because the Christians hijacked the existing PAGAN mid-Winter festival.
Giles said “A bit like Dawkins – I feel for atheists having as their head spokesman a geneticist. .. brings back memories of the last great atheistic movement…”
And to what last great atheistic movement do you refer Giles ?