How do Atheists grapple with Christmas?

December 15, 2009

Stuart Laidlaw

Relax and enjoy the holidays, maybe even sing a carol or two. It won't kill you.

That's the advice of the woman behind a how-to book for non- believers on surviving the holidays.

"We can all celebrate being with our loved ones," British comic Ariane Sherine says via telephone from her home in London.

Sherine coaxed 42 well-known atheists, including Richard Dawkins, to contribute chapters to her first book, An Atheist's Guide to Christmas, asking only that they reflect on some aspect of Christmas and that they not take themselves too seriously.

"Nobody would think it's too polemic a book," she says.

Her book makes public a private quandary atheists face every year as they grapple with how to take part in the biggest celebration of the year without looking like hypocrites.

"I want to stay true to my principles," says Justin Trottier, executive director of the atheist Centre for Inquiry in Toronto, who wonders each year what to do.

He says he'll probably be working through Christmas.

Sherine rose to international fame earlier this year by organizing a British campaign to buy bus ads saying, "There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life." The idea soon spread to cities around the world, including Toronto, Calgary and Ottawa.

The ads were initially criticized by hardcore atheists, Dawkins included, for the use of the word "probably."

They are, after all, sure there is no God. Sherine said it's only polite to leave open the possibility, and pointed out that the bus campaign wasn't meant to offend anyone.

Her cheerful civility won Dawkins over, and his contribution to the book is a lighthearted narrative about the life and death of Jesus, as told in the Bible.

Much of the book is like that, with several of the contributors declaring their love for the Christmas season, even if they don't believe the story behind it.

Some, like author and journalist Simon Singh, suggest finding something else to celebrate at this time of year that is equally miraculous – such as, maybe, the Big Bang.

"Christmas Day is an excuse to celebrate the biggest birth of all, namely the creation of the entire universe," writes Singh.

He even suggests listening to white noise on the radio, which is in part generated by electromagnetic waves leftover from the birth of the universe some 13 billion years ago.

This is, really, an ideal Christmas book.

With 42 very short chapters on such topics as science, philosophy and the arts, readers can dip in and out at their leisure between snacks and naps throughout Dec. 25 and the days to follow.

Novelist Jenny Colgan, raised a Catholic, confesses to being "enthralled by Christmas" all her life. She writes about trying to keep the magic of the season alive for her children despite her disbelief in the story at its heart.

"She feels unaccountably romantic for a life she never wanted," observes Sherine.

With no big festivals or rituals to claim as their own, most atheists keep a soft spot in their hearts for Christmas, she says. It is, after all, associated with many secular things beyond the birth of Jesus that few would have trouble with – peace, goodwill and getting together with friends and loved ones.

"Most atheists really do enjoy Christmas," says Sherine, who plans to spend the holidays with her grandparents and her boyfriend.

Trottier, who says Christmas means little to him, will debate the topic of atheists and the holidays this Friday with centre co-founder Jennie Fiddes, who plans to visit family in Uxbridge for the holidays.

"It's a discussion we've had many times in pubs over a few beers, and we just decided to take it public," says Trottier, adding the discussion will be entirely tongue-in-cheek.

Fiddes, who runs a support group for atheists raised in religious families, will argue that Trottier's intended hard line against celebrating Christmas is wrong-headed and likely impossible.

"Christmas is entirely entrenched in our culture," she says.

Atheists, she says, should find something about the holidays they like – seeing family, exchanging gifts, food, even pagan solstice beliefs – and celebrate that while others around them celebrate the Yuletide.

Such sentiment would find an easy home in Sherine's book, which includes several tips for atheists to make the holidays their own.

"Eat, drink and be merry," writes journalist Claire Rayner in the book. "And have a very humanist pagan Yuletide."

Rayner recounts a conversation with a neighbour that perhaps sums up how many atheists approach the season. Knowing Rayner is an atheist, the neighbour asked what her family had planned for Christmas.

"`Oh, the same as you do, I imagine,'" I responded sunnily. `Spend too much money, spoil the kids something rotten, eat and drink too much, and fight with each other's relations.'"

Certainly sounds a lot like Christmas, religious or not.