Worst time of year to be an atheist?

[Travis]

I often find it strange how people assume that this is the worst time of year to hold an atheistic belief. As if you look around, see all the decorations and just get consumed with rage or something.

I mean most Christmas stuff is aesthetically pleasing. Do I really need to believe in baby Jesus to appreciate it? I don't think so. I do think it's dumb to get angry over the phrase "happy holidays" though.

Anyone else ever run into this attitude? Every run into someone that actually tries to console you?

 

[Twiler]

Nope.

It might be different in the UK.

 

[DC]

around here it seems Christmas has not much to do with any religion, its a time of big bussines for stores and a cool time to meet your family and eat far too much.
actually for me it is my favorite time of the year.

 

[Gord_in_Toronto]

This is the time of the Winter Solstice Festival. The turning of the Earth and the promise of Spring to come.

How can you be angry at anything or anyone?

I wish everyone a "Merry Christmas". These are only words.

Gord

 

[Humes fork]

I works perfectly fine to be an atheist here at this time of the year.

 

[slingblade]

I often find it strange how people assume that this is the worst time of year to hold an atheistic belief. As if you look around, see all the decorations and just get consumed with rage or something.

I mean most Christmas stuff is aesthetically pleasing. Do I really need to believe in baby Jesus to appreciate it? I don't think so. I do think it's dumb to get angry over the phrase "happy holidays" though.

Anyone else ever run into this attitude? Every run into someone that actually tries to console you?

Not really. I mean, I sort of hear about atheists in a general way through my still-Fundie relatives. The ones who think there's a War on Christmas. But there really isn't much of that, either.

Most people I know, outside the forum, don't know what my beliefs are, so it just doesn't really come up on a personal level. I hear the crap about "War on Christmas" on TV, but that's about it.

And I like Christmas, so I don't go into any rages over it.

 

[Mark6]

I never heard anyone claim that "Christamas is worst time to be an atheist".

 

[Lamuella]

why would a massive secular gift giving day with a special episode of Doctor Who be a bad time to be an atheist?

 

[Tatyana]

I really like Autumn and the wee bit of winter after the solstice, after that, the cold, dark and damp weather gets a bit tedious.

So no, it isn't a bad time of the year.

It is difficult in my career to get time off around Christmas, but one of these years I am going to be in a non-Christian country for Christmas.

The closest I have experienced thus far was Brixton, most of the major shops were still open on Christmas day.

 

[Dessi]

Christmas is the time of year when all faiths come together to celebrate the birth of our lord and savior: Money.

 

[IMST]

I'll be the one.
I freaking hate this time of year. I hate the decorations. I hate the weather. I hate that it's dark at 4 PM. I hate the music. I hate that my family'll try to pressure me to go to church with them when they know damn well that I've no interest. I find the constant "merry Christmas"ing to be presumptive and annoying. About the only saving grace is the resumption of the FW!C that one of my secular friends founded. W is winter. C is club. F is guessable.

 

[Lowpro]

Worst time of year to be an atheist? For me it's been Ash Wednesday during my high school years, but I was kinda being a dbag then. Oh how I've grown up...

 

[Floyt]

Worst time of year to have Christmas around here, definitely. You don't know the meaning of "out of season" until you've seen woolly-hatted Santa in a snow-covered sleigh providing the summer holiday visuals

 

[catsmate]

around here it seems Christmas has not much to do with any religion, its a time of big bussines for stores and a cool time to meet your family and eat far too much.
actually for me it is my favorite time of the year.

This. Christmas has damn all to do with religion.

 

[Marduk]

This. Christmas has damn all to do with religion.

christmas is derived from "christs mass"
for the people who invented all the various celebrations at this time of year down the ages, having a festival at this time of year was generally to ensure that the Gods returned, thats got quite a lot to do with religion
what you probably mean is xmas doesnt have to be about religion because the vast majority of religions who celebrated the period down through the ages are now extinct
now thats progress

 

[Craig4]

Really, how much religious freight does the holiday really carry anymore? Even the religious portions just come off as tradition vice devotion. I see no contradiction in observing the holiday and being an atheist. There's just not that much religion left in the season.

 

[Dunstan]

Christmas is the time of year when all faiths come together to celebrate the birth of our lord and savior: Money.

That's as much of an excuse as I need to link to some Tom Lehrer:

 

[Dancing David]

I often find it strange how people assume that this is the worst time of year to hold an atheistic belief. As if you look around, see all the decorations and just get consumed with rage or something.

I mean most Christmas stuff is aesthetically pleasing. Do I really need to believe in baby Jesus to appreciate it? I don't think so. I do think it's dumb to get angry over the phrase "happy holidays" though.

Anyone else ever run into this attitude? Every run into someone that actually tries to console you?

I like Xmas, I find easter just annoying "YAY lets us sing the Poptart has risen from the grave, hossana"

 

[ChristineR]

Christmas bothered me far more when I was religious. Now I just see it as a bunch of traditions, including some distasteful ones like spending yourself into debt and driving drunk in the wee hours of January first. The obvious pagan overtones bothered me as well, as did the wisdom of having a religiously diverse country take a whole week off of work. An atheist can take or leave whatever she likes from the season and if the week off bothers her she can be the one person who comes in and mans the phones in exchange for an extra week off in summer.

 

[gnome]

The only Christmas tradition I have distaste for are political hacks riling up Christians with the phantom "War on Christmas" and the idea that very act of trying to acknowledge other beliefs is somehow a "politically correct" attack on Christianity itself.