Having been dick slapped by the majority voters in the country, Bill O’Reilly is not content to lie down and die like a dead horse should. Last year he went on his idiotic rant about the “War on Christmas”, this year it’s the “War on Religion”.
As for the imaginary War on Christmas- it’s not even Thanksgiving yet and the stores are full of Christmas detritus already. Even Ikea, you know that godless, Swedish, commy store has sent out flyers advertising their Christmas baubles. The Kid brought me a list of things he wants yesterday and shoved it in my face like any demanding white male Christian child would (he was promptly put in his place by non-Christian, non-male me). Christmas is not in danger. Credit ratings, common sense, propriety and rationalism are in danger, but Christmas and the Ka-Ching sound we have all come to associate with the holiday are as firmly in place as that fruitcake your boss gave you last year that is now welded to the bottom of your cupboards.
Now to the War on Religion. I am an agnostic. Whenever this comes up in the company of religious folks, they assume agnostic means I “just haven’t been taught the wonderful ways of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ” and cannot come to terms with the idea that I have chosen to avoid dogmatic beliefs based on unproven ideas consciously. See, me and my types, agnostics and atheists (though I think most atheists are just as dogmatic as the fundies) only make up about 3% of the population.
People who call themselves Christian, regardless of denomination make up about 82% of the population. Now I know we all can’t be as cool as me (coolest cat in the litter box and all that) but even my vast coolness rays cannot influence the 82% of the people in this country who think the earth is only 6000 years old and that you can get knocked up by divine intervention. The truth is, rational thought is rarely as sexy as screaming dogma that lets you exclude large chunks of the population from your club.
Religion, for all the harm it has done many over the course of time, is in no danger from a culture war. Those who do not believe in the innate Christian-ness of our country may be in danger from those like O’Reilly who cannot fathom the idea that someone would rather think on their own and take responsibility for their own actions rather than give up individual thought for faith. Of course, I have to take responsibility for my own actions, fundy yahoos can blame God or the Devil, which ever one is trendy at the time.
So in honor of the holiday season I will once again change our little slogan. I still firmly believe that modesty is for people with nothing to brag about, but until New Year’s I think we need something seasonally appropriate.
Happy Freakin Holidays- I’m gonna get drunk and set a manger on fire. Of course I will then have to take responsibility for my manger arson, no blaming the Devil or the Catholics for it. It’s all me.
And just for fun- The Marines hate the Baby Jesus. It’s true.
Happy sauce to you.
I always chortle about o Rielly’s rant against secularism. In his world, the earth is the center of the universe. I am sure the studio he hosts his rants from was a divine gift from God almighty himself (sorry no chance of a goddess in his world).
You think I am a recluse most of the year. I go into total video game immersion and only come out of my filthy lair on New Years Eve. If someone dares wish me a M*rry Xmas, I turn on them like I am pitbull.
Yes, I still accept presents. Doing otherwise would just be stupid.
We still celebrate christmas. That and the Kiddo’s b-day are the only times of the year that Kiddo gets prezzies from me, and i am pretty restrained in my gift giving. I do like the sparkly christmas lights though, but i don’t think Joseph and Mary ever cut down a tree and covered it in sparkly bits.
You reclusive ass is still desired at Carb-fest 2006. Other people you like (rock goodess Ruth for example) will be there chillin and counteracting all colonialist, patriotic vibes.
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The real irony of last year’s “Christmas Wars” is that instead of critiquing the materialistic feeding frenzy the “Holiday Season” has become recently, as Christian folk used to in years past, the loudest mouths in “Christendom” last year demanded that the mass consumption be done with “our” name stamped on it, as if it were a copyright dispute…
As a Christian, I was profoundly embarrassed.
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Wonder- I am sorry that you were hurt,that was not my intention. But to be honest you (and your sis) are the lone exceptions in our ENTIRE family to not have tried to fob religion off on me somehow. This includes your mom- though I was 16 at the time and as an adult family member talking to a kid she gets a pass on that.
Every summer I spend weeks un-indoctinating my kid from Baptist bible school. My own mother has been trying to get me baptised into a church that I despise whole heartedly so that I won’t rot in hell and she’ll feel better. And when I was little our Grandma only paid attention to me when I attended church with her. Little heathen grandchildren got no love from B.
Because of my refusal to believe I am ripe for the prostelitizing from well meaning neighbors, employers, etc. If I were Jewish or Muslim, my faith might not be understood but it would be respected that I believe it. So I am bitchy when people are worried that christianity is not as ubiquitious in our country as it should be.
I’m sorry that christmas has lost it’s Christian message for alot of Christians.But I am not part of that problem. It isn’t one that I could even begin to worry about fixing. I’m too busy trying to explain to people that I don’t have any intention of joining their club.
i’ll be at carbfest (woohoo)
Can I get a Hurrah with that whohoo or am i asking too much.
The pathetic thing about O’Reilly is that it would be hard to find someone less “Christian,” what with his sexual harrassment and all. I’d be shocked if O’Reilly or Ann Coulter — those great defenders of the faith — had even a vague idea what is in the Bible.
lf-
We bear some responsibility in allowing these loudmouths to spout their rhetoric in public without offering a rebuttal. Our silence has implied that there is no Christian voice other than the rantings of the religious right.
The challenge is how to speak loud enough to be heard without shouting…