Reclaiming Christmas

Is an atheist christmas a contradiction in terms? It's a view many Christians appear to hold, rolling their eyes as they do, at the annual church-goers, the dilletantes who go through the motions, all the style but none of the substance. They must wonder what it's all about for them, perhaps assuming they venerate and worship in the temple of the God of consumerism. How very vacuous for them. Perhaps, they've got a point.

The idea that atheists do, in fact, have souls too, might be tough to swallow for some believers and indeed non-believers alike, but it's a question that becomes of particular salience at this time of year.

The non-believers who partake in all the cultural ritual and hold no moral objections to the religious symbolism but simultaneously reject it with a certain measure of distate and unease, are not immune to criticism on the basis of paradox and hypocrisy.

In an atheist or agnostic christmas, it is the one day a year we pretend to beleive or do so in solemn remembrance of a time when we ourselves once beleived, or in honour of devout ancestors and relatives. It as if we can beleive through our past selves, or through those others, in admiration and respect for the strength of their convictions. Beleiving in the name of others - as a strange somewhat disembodied demonstration of faith by proxy.

Upon reflection, it seems to me this second-hand belief is not sufficient. I would rather celebrate in the name of my own personal convictions.

In his review of some "bright ideas" that have emerged this year, Will Hutton argues:
"If 2006 was the year of the rampant secularists, Richard Dawkins assailing religion as the source of much evil, 2007 has seen the case for faith begin to make a comeback. A life well lived for many is helped by a sense of higher moral purpose. Human beings still require a sense of the sacred.
Even if there is no God, the act of faith, the sense of purpose and the belief in the sacred have illuminating spillovers on the rest of us."

Although the stark polarisation between the believer and militant atheist seems to me unlikely to correspond to the reality (and the substitution of religion for faith in the opening sentence worthy of note), overall I think Hutton might be onto something.

But rather than keeping their heretic heads down whilst engaging in passive participation in the usual ceremonies, perhaps atheists need to depart from the traditional religious model and ideology of christmas, and fashion a new kind of sacred.

So when it's no longer about believing in Santa Claus, nor in Jesus Christ, what to fill the ostensible void with if not materialism?

Perhaps we can look to the traditional substitutes for religion championed by those with faith in a more tangible realm - socialism, humanism, historical inevitabilty... Or in terms of a focus which shifts from Humans to nature. Admittedly environmentalism doesn't sound very spiritual, and paganism, with its overtones of occultism & witchcraft, might likewise be a tough sell.

Hutton supports those making a case for "non-fundamentalist faith as a source of spiritual good, [which] must be tolerated" while "Dawkins-style militant atheism only widens hostility."

Tolerance is of course as essential for atheists as for any other kind of believers (Because as Hutton rightly points out, belief is not limited to belief in God). For some even, tolerance is not enough. But for those non-Christians among us who will be celebrating Christmas this year along religious lines, singing from the same hymn sheets as our more devout counterparts, where should we look for spiritual nourishment? The litany of secular greeting card concepts: peace, love, goodwill & so on, are surely key components of a secular faith.

But beyond this, perhaps we should endeavour to re-claim and re-brand the so-called "arrogance" of humanism, with its inherent capacity for irrational and boundless optimism - something just as basic and just as vital as belief in a higher being. Hope that is not embodied in the form of such a being, but rather in existence itself. Faith in our environment, in ourselves and in each other.