“NOW, THEREFORE, I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and laws of the United States of America, do hereby proclaim May 6, 2010, as a National Day of Prayer.  I call upon the citizens of our Nation to pray, or otherwise give thanks, in accordance with their own faiths and consciences, for our many freedoms and blessings, and I invite all people of faith to join me in asking for God’s continued guidance, grace, and protection as we meet the challenges before us.”

But Mr. President, my (lack of) faith does not have any equivalent to prayer, I don’t have any God to give thanks to, or ask for guidance or protection. You “call upon” me to do what, then?

Even if we put aside the fact that prayer has not been proven to provide a result more consistent than the randomness that would occur naturally, even if we grant that some people “enrich” their lives with it (without questioning exactly how talking to themselves enriches their lives, of course), and even if we acknowledge the role in the history of the United states played by Christianity… I’m sorry, I mean, “a generic concept of religion without referring to any specific denomination or faith but slightly alluding to Christianity, so as not to blatantly exclude or offend anyone except atheists and agnostics”, then it still begs the question, what about those of us who DON’T pray, for whatever personal reason? Effectively, you’ve just told us to participate in a religious exercise, and no matter how much of a “universal” spin you try to place on it, the fact remains that it is not universal. The fact that it is fundamentally unique to specific spiritual worldviews indicates that the government should keep its hands out, or violate the freedoms of those who do not hold the worldview that includes the exercise.

This fact makes these words incredibly hollow:


Let us rejoice for the blessing of freedom both to believe and to live our beliefs, and for the many other freedoms and opportunities that bring us together as one Nation.

Yes, the blessing of freedom to live our beliefs. That implies that no government official ever tells you what you should be doing in your personal, private, spiritual life. EVER. Well, Mr. President, by issuing your Proclaimation “calling the citizens… to pray”, you are doing just that.

It appears to be more important to rail against a preconceived notion of a concept rather than engage the idea itself.  What do you think this ad is saying about those children in the image?  Why are they so happy?  Is the message based on who the children are?

No, its not.  It doesn’t matter who those kids are, the point is that they’re kids.  They could be happy, sad, cute, or ugly, and the message would stay the same.  It also stays the same regardless of what religion their parents are members of… which happens to be Christianity.

The  idea that somehow the fact that these kid’s parents are Christian undermines the message of the advertisement is absolute nonsense.  It wouldn’t be reinforced if their parents were atheists.  The fact is, those kids are way too young to really choose whether or not they believe in any religion, so as the ad says, DON’T LABEL THEM.  They are not “Christian children”, they are children of Christian parents.  It is not ironic in any way that their parents are Christians.  This ad is not about their parents, its about them.

Additionally, they probably chose happy looking kids not to make any statement on religion itself, but because a picture of a smiling person is better suited to advertising.  Why do you think soap and underwear and laxative advertisements have “smiling” people?  Same reason this ad does, it grabs attention.  Also, look closely at their faces, they’re not *really* smiling and happy–just like every other lame ad photo, they’re being told to smile for the camera.  Their smiles are insincere zygomatic-only smiles, not the sincere Ducenne smile, which also entails the involuntary contraction of the orbicularis oculi, which creates “crow’s feet” at the corners of the eye. Due to the fact this muscle contraction is completely involuntary and unable to be recreated at will (short of artificial stimulation with electricity) when people are genuinely happy, they can’t help showing it, and they can’t force themselves to appear happy when they’re really not.

So they didn’t REALLY choose genuinely “happy and free” children.  They chose children who LOOKED “happy and free” because they possess the ability to “smile” on command… just like every other model in advertising.  Look closely at the next few ads and magazine covers you see with “smiling” models, you’ll find this phenomenon of not-really-smiling universal.

(And before the inevitable accusation–it would be exactly the same if the parents were Muslim.)

Gay Jesus t-shirt from T-shirt hell

The Netherlands is one of the most progressive countries in the world. This small European country was the first in the world that allowed gay people to marry (since April 1st 2001), after having introduced registered partnership in 1998. Women have been allowed to get abortions in certified clinics and hospitals since 1981. In addition to these examples of liberal politics it is worth mentioning the legality of prostitution and drug use (under certain conditions). With these liberal politics in mind and the continuing decline of religious adherence in the Netherlands, one would not expect that there are still serious traces of religious infection found in Dutch jurisprudence. Only yesterday a majority of the government voted for the removal of the blasphemy law.

The blasphemy law is as follows (Article 147, translated to the best of my abilities):

Punishable by at most 3 months jail time or a fine of the second category is:
1. he who publicly, orally or in writing or depiction, expresses himself offensive to religious feelings by scornful blasphemy
2. he who ridicules a practitioner of religion in his permitted practice
3. he who abuses the objects dedicated to religious service where and when the practice of that service is permitted

This removal of this law was voted for to permit more room to free speech, which is always a good thing. It is not surprising that the only parties who voted against were all religious (and particularly Christian) in nature: The Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA), the Christian Union (CU) and the Reformed Political Party (RPP). These governmental fractions value the extra protection it gives religious people – extra protection the non-religious do not have and should not want. The minister of Justice Hirsch Ballin (who is a CDA member) is rooting for a circumnavigation of this decision by introducing an addendum to another law against discrimination. Luckily, most political parties are not amused by this, and I agree. We must not pamper everybody and provide them with a protective shell against anything that might be unpleasant. We live in a varied society and instead of hiding behind laws we must confront each other with our differences. We might actually progress and, God forbid, learn something.

These blasphemy laws are entirely unncessecary. In the last seventy years there have been only three cases of judges finding someone guilty of blasphemy, the last one being in 1965. It is absolutely ridiculous to prosecute somebody over hurting the feelings of others. Other than an unwanted reflection of reality for the easily provoked religious, blasphemy is an entirely victimless crime. So even if you do think there is merit to this law, it is entirely useless, which is another reason to abolish it.

The abolishment is a symbol for the progression of secularism, which has yet to rise to its full height. The public defacing and ridicule of religion is something to be welcomed after millennia of oppression. In this golden age of science snakes and burning bushes that talk, ressurections and boats that contain all animal species should be a thing of the past – a bad case of mental fleas that is shook off without too much trouble by common sense and rational inquiry. Yesterday, reason triumphed in the Netherlands.

Anyway, this article tries to reconcile some views and give a different perspective on generally accepted things.

I have been reading throughout this week a lot of discussions, arguments and articles regarding Christmas and what attitude should those “godless bastards” have towards this holiday. I even started a thread in the ACP group on last.fm on this, asking how people view it.

After these readings I have come to a conclusion. A sad one I might say. Some of us godless, unholy beings, are kind of striving not to have a good time on Christmas, to be “Grinches”, to pretend we are totally uninterested in this Christian bullshit, just because it supposedly it really is a Christian  bullshit. I have read a great deal of pages describing hints and advice on “how to survive Christmas as an atheist/non-christian”. Some of them even went as far as suggesting that, even if you don’t like it, you should go to work to prove to everybody (including yourself, I might add) that Christmas means nothing to you and neither does their Christ.

WHAT ???

Yes, what ??? I will now abandon all sorts of politeness.

For me, to take extreme measures- even measures that will make you do things you hate- in order to prove something to others, but infinitely more grave, to yourself,is a major sign of weakness, lack of  self-confidence, self-respect, in general the result of a closed and narrow mind (in this case, at least). Yes, to go to work on Christmas, or to do something JUST FOR THE SAKE OF SHOWING OFF YOUR ATHEISM/ANTI-CHRISTIANITY is NOT a sign of free-thinking, but a sign of intolerance and of a mind enslaved in dogmas, simillar to a Christian mind. It is also extremely childish. A person with an open mind is always true to itself .No exceptions ! So tell me: would you rather spend some time with your family, with your kids, with your loved ones, or go to work, disappoint everybody just for the sake of showing off your “independence” from false doctrines ?

Let us understand each-other. If you have no choice but go to work, because your job is of this nature, if it will benefit everybody if you do work on Christmas, if (for any possible reason) you MUST go on this day to work. Well, this is something else.

But to do this just to show-off or to confirm to YOURSELF the fact that you are free from Christian indoctrination (how free are you really if you need some confirmation for it ? ) is similar to the act of fasting, confessing and various other Christian bullshit I described in a previous article. It is also hypocrisy because, admit it, you would rather take some time off than work.

The same goes to all other fake and forced attempts to look indifferent, bored or really pissed off by the Christmas celebrations…It is more than childish, but is a frequent mistake some of us do at some point in our lives. And we should extirpate this mistake and widen our field of wisdom in this case too.

A small explanation and overlook

At this point you’re probably wandering what the title of the article has to do with anything. Well, you will find out by the end of it.

Now, I am not going to explain this here, but hey, if you can read this, than it means that you have access to something called “the Internet”. So you can always look it up. But I think I won’t meet any opposing views when I say that the figure of Santa Claus is a pagan symbol, a pagan tradition, that was later “Christianised”, turned into a “saint” by the sad examples of spiritual conquerors. At its origins it is a pagan symbol, that was celebrated long before the “virgin result” corrupted the minds.

Here I must admit that this former pagan symbol has turned into something more than a saint, over the centuries. It is now a sadder example and a grotesque cliche of our over-globalized world, a mesmerizer of consumerist minds. Santa has now become the employee of various multinationals that disgust us with their aggressive and bad taste campaigns that have arrived close to the point of forcing their way into a domicile and pointing a gun towards the owner’s head to BUY their products at any cost.

Anyway, I best leave this to the market analysts.

My point is that Santa is pagan and has nothing to do with Christ or his birthday.

Looking back, when I was a child, I loved Christmas more than anything, it was my favorite time of year. Looking even closer, I come to the conclusion that I associated Christmas with some elements. The most important were the Christmas tree, ‘Santa’ bringing presents to me- toys among which I would then play with for countless hours, playing some tapes with Christmas songs, being surrounded by family. As you can see, Christ was not among them. The first time I ever started hearing stories about god and his son were when I entered school. We had compulsory religion classes- I can remember the threats with hell, eternal damnation and all that scum.

But for me, during those days, Christmas meant singing songs automatically, for which I would receive candy. I didn’t know what they were all about, for me they were just joyous songs . Many of them were actually about Santa and winter fun in general. They were the most joyous. I didn’t know anything about any Christ, god, church, religion (and I wish I never knew). For me Christmas meant fun and presents.

And of course, Santa. During those years (early ’90s)- only a few years after communism had fallen (as you can see I live in a country that was hit by another grave and destructive plague in the past) you wouldn’t see “Santas” all around, in every store. Those days it was something sacred about it. You could really think of Santa as something personal which only belonged to you. And he was certainly a central figure for me. I wouldn’t have imagined Christmas without that surprise on the evening of the 24th of December. Anticipation, thinking about what he would bring me, the joy of seeing his presents. There was something heavenly in that childish naivety. And that was what Christmas was all about.

And, of course, that’s how every kid views Christmas. That’s what brings happiness in a child’s heart. It is more than ironic that a pagan symbol stands at the heart of a “Christian” celebration. That a pagan symbol is actually the boosting engine that keeps this holiday going. After all, many families do this for their children, as well as for tradition. Tree, songs, dressing some uncle as Santa just to impress your child. This is where all the happiness comes from.

Another fist in Yahwe’s face. How sweet !

Attempt to “ban” Santa

I have once took part at a Christian-protestant conference. Out of curiosity and at the invitation of a friend. It was a deeply religious conference. At a point, the speaker told about the concept of Santa. He said it was a dangerous concept. A concept that should never have access to a child’s mind. For him, Santa was a vile lie and telling a child such a lie was not only imoral but also dangerous for his development, as when the child would discover the truth he will lose all trust in his parents and will forever leave him frustrated. It is more than funny, if not revolting, that a figure who spreads the most hideous lie of all, the worst poison for one’s mind, should point to something and say “LIE” . He went on by saying that a child’s mind, as well as everybody else’s should be concentrated on the “real” reason, that is the birth of Christ. Later, not much later, I discovered that all present were in agreement, and, even more, every “true” and extreme Christian has the same opinion. Ban Santa, hail Christ !

Isn’t this very obvious ?

Let’s try a comparison

As kid, I always loved Christmas, but regarded Easter with indifference, and even a sense of uneasiness. (Easter, however you put it, has nothing pagan in it- it is a 100% Christian holiday).

Why ? Well, for once, as I have already stated, Christmas was all about lively colors, happiness, joyous faces, presents etc. But Easter was associated with suffering, pain, death, judgement, hell, dead man walking, corpses rising.(more of a horror movie than a holiday, eh?) Obviously,in those days I didn’t fully understand what Easter was about, anyway, it had no gifts, just a nice thing with eggs, which are one of my favorite food, but not much. The songs were sad ones, you would not go door to door, singing for candy.

And now, when I fully understand the Easter holiday and I analyse it, what do I see ? “The passion of the Christ”. That tear seeking movie. People crying their eyes out in cinemas. Shocked faces. Hearts broken in pity for the sufferings of Christ. Mass hysteria. People kneeling in fear before the idol. Faces frozen with terror.

Yes, this is the truth. The only thing that kept Christianity alive all these centuries is fear and shock. Impressive images, tales of terror. Weaklings spreading these elements hoping they can make for the lack of logic and rationality behind it all. But not for us ! Not any more !

So, as you can see, it is plain and obvious why the extreme Christians would want to eliminate Santa forever. It has nothing to do with their religion. It comes from “The pagan vastlands”  (Hail Behemoth !!!! ). But it brings joy and happiness. As opposed to the tears and terror that the crucified one(s) (Hail Vader !!!) bring(s).

We can all imagine how the Christian leaders would want us all during Christmas. Kneeling, with a serious expression on our faces, our minds set on “the birth of the savior”. Excessive joy comes from the Devil, therefor is wicked, celebrations should not be done in bright colors and family dinner, gifts and in general a joyful time. But in dark colors and by praying, by meditating about the grace of god, or whatever.Christ calls for abstinence, what’s in that head of yours, you ungodly fool ?!?!

Santa brings the smile, Christ brings the tears. Simple…and obvious.

So stop with the foolish acting

In conclusion, what we call Christmas has far deeper roots than “anno domini”. It used to be a holiday of joy and happiness. And it has remained to this day unchanged. Remove anything Christian in it(hell, call it by another name if you like), crush the ridiculous consumerism and multinational imbecility and you will be living one the best times of the year. Today I feel the same as I felt so many years before. I don’t know about any Christianity. I only know about a nice day, full of joy and happiness, gifts, happy music. There is nothing wrong in this, is it ?

So, my friends, stop worrying about how you should act on this day. What attitude you should have. What it means to you. What others think about how you act. Stop forcing yourself to have that angry look and stop destroying other people’s fun as well. Spend some time with your loved ones and be happy that you have them among you. Sure, you could say that you don’t need any special occasion for that, but looking at how everyone’s life has become in the “era of speed” (more like era of shit), you really don’t get many chances anymore to gather everyone in one place. So why not take this opportunity !

Christ is dead ! The pagan tradition lives on ! So let’s raise our glasses high and drink to that !

But, some really interesting aspects of culture can be derived from the definition. Culture is progressive, liberal even, in nature. It’s never static, not for a second. Culture is constantly evolving into something new. Visit deviantART and watch culture evolve in real-time. Culture is not a static definable object, it’s an everlasting process of creation fueled by creativity and man’s hunger for something new to identify himself by. As long as people are communicating with each other, this cultural process will thrive. There’s no need for anything else, just communication between people. If a person stands out by doing something different, and is successful in his attempts, people will mimic the abnormality until it becomes normal. When the numbers grow you can start defining certain branches of cultural development, each of them going it’s own way evolving further into something completely new. Even if you take a closer look into one of these branches you’ll discover a finer grain of subcultures. The branches will collide and interweave over time, split up again or merge with other branches. They don’t know about physical borders, the influences between branches are only limited by the amount of communication between them. The process of cultural development is a complex and highly dynamic one. There’s no way of telling what will change tomorrow.

And now, all of a sudden, cultural preservation pops up. People start defining culture as something static, as an object, instead of the process it really is. They see the process as a threat to the object they’ve defined. This cultural snapshot is usually the culture these people are comfortable with, and most likely the culture that provides them with great power. They take an aggressive conservative stance against culture and provide people with their static, crippled substitute for culture. They’ll do anything to preserve their position in culture, even if it takes culture itself down in the process. Culturally different people are looked down upon and oppressed. The cultural placebo is force-fed into the mouths of the innocent at gunpoint. The non-conformists are beaten into obedient good citizen. Cultural developments are set aside as evil, it’s practitioners as terrorists. Even the last cultural strongholds are raped by abusing tentatively free media to spread the conformist’s message into the homes of millions.

Sounds familiar? It’s the Christian way of doing things. Hijacking culture to stop it from evolving, to stop it from being what it actually is – an everlasting process. They have been quite successful at it too. The American elections are the latest prime example of the immense success of the Christian anti-cultural influence. Many of the hot topics during these elections are Christian ones, topics that aren’t even that important in the grand scheme of things. I see the effects in my own country, the Netherlands, too. Politicians on the conservative right of the political spectrum are talking about conserving our identity and culture. Opposers, among whom our crown princess Maxima, are mocked because of their criticism. The reduction of tolerance comes at a price. Two anti-culturalists have been killed and terrorist threats have never been so real. Politicians can’t walk across the street without fully armed bodyguards at their sides to protect them from the very thing they preach – forceful preservation of culture.

You see, cultural preservation isn’t just about the five hundred year old church around the corner that has to make way for a new mall. It’s a tool used by the powerful for preserving their power in a virtual substitute culture. The cultural preservation most people are familiar with, that of property ownership, is actually basically the same thing. Churches, especially Christian churches, often don’t have to pay taxes. Christian initiatives are subsidized and tax money is spent on preserving their places of worship, just because it’s of cultural significance. I do wonder though, why every church is treated like it’s historical influence is great enough to save it from demolition. Even in these times of heavily reduced church attendance. It seems the Christian influence upon the western culture has made it’s dominance stick, which is worrying, to say the least.

So what about it? What can we, the youth, do to save culture? The answer is quite simple, we should keep on doing what we do best. Non-conformance is the only way to save culture, pubescent behavior keeps it from dying altogether. So if you’ve got kids, and they’re rebellious, be proud of them. They are the real preservers of culture.

First you should know that Greece still does not have a clear separation of church and state. The state and the prime minister are pretty much prostrating themselves at the feet of the clergy at every chance they get and the church has quite a bit of political muscle. Furthermore, since all Greeks are baptised at early childhood as Orthodox, the church gets to claim that 99% of Greek population is religious and wants them in power. Lastly the clergy is paid by the Government and oh, did I mention that the church is fucking rich?

So, enough background, on to the story. This bishop then, has gone on a rant because a same-sex couple has gotten married and you know, the goddamn civilization is going down around our ears! Yeah…

His post begins by announcing that a same-sex partnership (he refuses to call them “couple” because that’s somehow reserved only for opposite sexes) was insidiously legalized by marriage, by the mayor of the island Tilos, who then proceeded to absolutely ignore the announcements of the Greek high prosecutor. How dare he! Of course, the law is on the Mayor’s side on this which has the church and the far-right crypto-fascists foaming at the mouth.

The Metropolitan Ambrosios then informs us that human rights are always claimed by the unlawful and then proceeds to complain, get this, that his own human rights are being assaulted because same-sex marriage annoys him! Since when is it a basic human right to not be annoyed? Oh right, ever since the Muslims made it a religious pastime, but I digress…

He also, predictably, claims that the children need to be protected (Will no one think of the damn children?) from this unnatural lifestyle and cohabitation. As if children are going to suddenly and spontaneously turn homosexual, once they realise gay people have made a legal bonding. “Oh look mommy! These two people are holding hands and a marriage ring and I like being assfucked”. Yeah, that makes perfect sense.

And then, then, he claims that same sex marriage will inevitably lead to bestiality and marriage between man and dog. Because, you know, two consenting adults are quite similar to an animal with IQ of 20 which cannot give consent to anything.

So what does our dear bishop make from all this. Well, Greece is becoming massively insane of course. He explains that this kind of unnatural behaviour always existed in society but has always been condemnable (I guess he never heard of the ancient Greeks then) and that now that it’s been “blessed by the state”, all hell will break loose. Why? Because it’s unnatural of course. Why is it unnatural? Apostle fucking Paul. The same Apostle Paul who declared women only fit to be sexual objects to men, which leads us to believe that Ambrosios must be considering women (and especially feminist women) to be unnatural as well.

And then, after a quote from Paul, the posts ends…but the fun only just began! Orthodox people started commenting and sharing their bigoted condemnation. They agreed on the unnaturalness of it all, how the world must surely be ending, how this is all the result of the left and so on and so forth. It’s all great fun if you can read it, as you can get a glimpse into the weird and twisted mentality of the average god-fearing neo-Greek for whom same sex marriage is as equal, if not more important, than horrible human rights violations, Government scandals left and right, and half the remaining forests of the country being burned to a crisp.

But family comes first!

In all of this absurdity, what gets me, what really really gets me, is the lame and absolutely sickening kiss-your-feet respect, all of those god-fearing Greeks are displaying when they start commenting. Almost every single one of them starts by saying something like “Please grant me your blessing, oh wise old one.“, as if by wasting all your life memorizing the New Testament somehow makes you wise. As if by playing the church political games (and believe me, it’s a dog-eat-dog world) to get to a high position somehow makes you holy.

It’s all enough to make you lose faith in humanity.

At least now you know that U.S. Americans are not the only westen country ones with the religious nutters in power.