YOU DON'T HAVE TO BE RELIGIOUS TO ENJOY THE HOLIDAYS. JUST ASK YOUR FRIENDLY NEIGHBORHOOD ATHEISTS.
Photographs by Albert Yee
Santa is pissed. He's roaring abuse at the Christmas-stealing atheist grinches who've erected a "tree of knowledge" between the nativity scene and the Old Glory statue on the Chester County Courthouse lawn.
It's a comical sight. Pissed Santas always are. But it's more than that. It's symbolic. It's about Lyra from The Golden Compass with her gypsy and polar bear chums fighting against those God tells to bomb abortion clinics and fly planes into skyscrapers.
Unless you sympathize with those folks, of course. In which case it's about the ongoing campaign to rip America from God's bosom.
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| Courting controversy: The Freethought Society's tree of knowledge accompanies a nativity scene and an actual fake Christmas tree at the Chester County seat. |
You might have noticed that America's atheists have suddenly gone from being a despised, cowed and all but silent minority to a being royal pain in the ass. How exactly did that happen?
Earlier this month, when Mitt Romney dismissed atheists as un-American--"Freedom requires religion just as religion requires freedom"--seven shades of sensibilist shitfire rained down on his head from across the political spectrum.
Something has changed. In the last few years American atheism has grown from a furtive, eccentric fringe phenomenon into a civil rights movement with teeth. Perhaps unsurprisingly Philadelphia--birthplace of freedom (and the First Amendment), home of that first great American Christian-baiter Thomas Paine, and a city that prides itself on free thinking, bullshit detecting and straight talking--is at the center of the gathering atheist storm.
Philadelphia's atheist story has a cast of characters that wouldn't look out of place in a Robert Rodriguez movie scripted by a resurrected Tennessee Williams. We will meet a large-breasted exotic dancer and atheist intellectual who loves watching the Christians she debates try to maintain eye contact. And a little girl who, while the adults upstairs are holding a seance, bangs on the basement ceiling with a broom and flashes the lights on and off by removing and replacing the fuses. We'll meet right-wing libertarians and left-wing liberals, woolly agnostics and hardcore "nontheists," students, professors of philosophy, moms and dads and YouTubing, blasphemous T-shirt-wearing punk rock troublemakers. The only things they've all got in common are: a) they don't believe in God (or Santa or the Flying Spaghetti Monster) and b) they're your neighbors.
Motorists driving by as Philadelphia's atheists erect their tree in West Chester are beeping their horns and giving the thumbs up. One woman shouts: "Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!" But pissed Santa is having none of it.
"You people are being hypocritical!" he snarls through his gray beard, the white bobble on his red hat bobbing up and down in anger.
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1. maggie said... on Nov 19, 2008 at 12:01AM
“he revolution's great propagandist--wrote Common Sense, a blistering attack on the absurdity of regarding the Bible as anything other than bad history on great drugs. For this sin of intellectual honesty he was physically and verbally assaulted”
2. Prof. Faust said... on Feb 15, 2009 at 08:10PM
“You're right, we are intolerant -- of hatred, bigotry, and mass hysteria. I don't know about you, but I think I should speak out against misogyny, racism, violence, rape, murders... the list of atrocities religion justifies goes on and on and on.”
3. Artificial Christmas Tree said... on Nov 19, 2008 at 12:01AM
“he revolution's great propagandist—wrote Common Sense, a blistering attack on the absurdity of regarding the Bible as anything other than bad history on great drugs. For this sin of intellectual honesty he was physically and verbally assaulted”
4. Matt K said... on Nov 25, 2008 at 04:59PM
“Wow... In all of my life I have never read something that so accurately and eloquently sums up atheism and American Atheists... Really good work Steven Wells... Keep it up and you might just have a place in history; your writing is brilliant.”
5. maggie said... on Nov 26, 2008 at 08:08AM
“Merry Christmas Margaret Downey! ”
6. Jamie said... on Dec 14, 2008 at 02:55PM
“These atheists sound just like the people they are complaining about: intolerant. Sounds like two sides of the same coin. Aren't there more important things in this world to worry about? ”
7. D.W. said... on Dec 28, 2008 at 10:13AM
“I couldn't agree more with that. As one of two known atheists at my school, I am very well liked while the other one is generally disliked, made fun of, and threatened. Why? Because I don't bash the beliefs of my Christian friends constantly. Instead of driving them off with insults and stats before they got to know me, I accepted their right to believe what they want to, and they accepted mine.”
8. Brandon Johns said... on May 25, 2009 at 02:47AM
“Oh good grief. The atheists have complained for years about us bothering them, but now they are wanting to bother us. Leave us alone. They can't really call themselves rationalists or freethinkers either when they have decided that what they believe is the truth and nothing but the truth and won't consider anything else.”
9. Rozmarija Grauds said... on Jul 11, 2009 at 02:25PM
“Another December is coming up in under six months, and yes, atheists celebrate the axial tilt of the Sun as days grow longer. Your "Christ" dates from some time around two millennia past, no date given - but you latched onto the major holiday celebrating the coming of a new season for planting, and none of us want to take "Christmas" away from you. Just don't put creches on public taxpayer property. keep the icons on your private lawns and on your Churh property.You get church property tax exemp in order that we have the right to keep you off communal real estate. Pax.”
10. Eric Hamell said... on Aug 6, 2009 at 03:41PM
“One little correction: Thomas Paine's brief against revealed religion is titled The Age of Reason. Common Sense is his tract for American independence. Also, while there may be no Paine statue here yet, the plaza surrounding the Municipal Services Building is named in his honor.
I agree that there's a range of atheists from tolerant to intolerant, just as with believers. But far more people suffer from intolerant believers because belief is more socially accepted.”