What’s in a name?

The lane from chez nous in rural Wales leading up to the nearby village

Greetings, and a happy Christmas, all! No, I don’t balk at using the word “Christmas”. What, as the Bard asked through Juliet, is in a name? That which we call a festival by any other name would be as merry – potentially, anyway.

I’m no apologist for Christianity. I recognise its role in Western history and what it has brought, culturally, to our way of life and the language we use. I also recognise that, without it, other influences would have come to bear, but humankind would still have built its moral code, because a moral code comes not from a religion, but from humanity.

That people attribute their moral code to their Christianity or their Islam or their Hinduism or whatever is entirely up to them, and that may be the top layer, as it were, of the articulation of what is their code of ethics and mode of living.

Beneath it, though, is that thing humanity. It was the human in us that devised the religion that in turn codified our outer persona, the one we present to the world, the principles we live by. Most people are probably essentially good, but with flaws. Some are essentially bad, but are so because of their belief in religion’s edicts and diktats.

Some, of course, are just bad. I have a few politicians in mind, but let’s not go down that road, tempting though it may be.

That said, if people find comfort in a belief system and don’t wish to dictate how others should live their lives, I’m OK with that.

So I’m no apologist for Christianity, but it’s given its name to the midwinter festival that punctuates the seemingly relentless darkness and (in the UK at the moment) coldness and misery of winter, and brings us hope of a new season on the way. Bit of a laugh in the UK, of course, where we don’t seem to get proper summers any more, but there you go.

I’m not one to go about saying “Happy holidays!” or “Happy Yuletide!” It would make be seem a bigger prat than I already am. So it’s “Merry Christmas and happy New Year!” That’s the expectation, and those who know me know that I use the term “Christmas” as a descriptor. Saying the word doesn’t make people believe more in the mythology.

I leave it to my learned blogging colleague George Broadhead, secretary of this blog’s parent, the Pink Triangle Trust, to tell us the true origin of Christmas, though.

Atheists, agnostics, Humanists and other unbelievers are sometimes asked why they celebrate at Christmas time, or are even accused of being hypocritical for doing so.

The answer is that they celebrate at that time for the same reason as the early Christians – because everyone else was already doing so, and had been for centuries before the birth of Christ.

The last two weeks of December had long been a time of celebration throughout the ancient world in the northern hemisphere. It was associated with the Winter Solstice, the shortest day, after which one could look forward to Spring, to crops, regeneration and new life.

Almost all the customs of the Festive Season pre-date Christianity: the giving of gifts, decorating the house and tree, putting up holly and mistletoe, and eating the flaming round plum pudding – the most obvious solar symbol of all. And the familiar crib scene originated in ancient Egypt.

Among the Romans, the Festival of Saturnalia, which began on 17 December, involved the hanging of greenery and laurel leaves, the lighting of candles and the giving of presents. Like the present Festive Season, theirs was a season of goodwill.

In the third century AD there was great rivalry between Christianity and Mithraism, especially among the soldiers, upon whose support the Roman Emperors depended. Eventually, early in the fourth century, the Emperor Constantine decided in favour of Christianity but, during the rivalry, the Christians could not afford to appear killjoys in December when Mithraic soldiers were celebrating the triumph of Good over Evil.

The 25th of December may be attributed to the fact that in the year AD 274, at a time when the Roman emperors were trying to replace the ancient Roman polytheism with sun worship, the Emperor Aurelian declared 25 December to be the Sun’s official birthday.

So those who have no religion (47% according to the British Social Attitudes Survey, January 2010) need have no qualms about celebrating at this time of the year if they wish.

And with that, here’s hoping for happy holidays, happy Winter Solstice, happy Christmas, happy whatever you want to call it to all of Pink Triangle’s readers, and we all hope you have a great New Year.

We’re putting our feet up for the rest of the holiday and will be back with a few choice entries early in the New Year, by which time we may have sobered up a bit.

How the BBC ‘offended’ Christians

Yeah, but where’s the halo?

I’ve been watching The Nativity on BBC1. Not bad as these things go. I like TV drama, and I don’t really care – when a drama is based on myth – which myth the said drama is depicting.

Note the word “myth”. Were it about, say, the ancient Greek pantheon or the stories in the Bhagavad Gita I’d probably still enjoy it – if it were well enough written and performed. The Nativity is OK – not brilliant, but watchable. So I committed four half-hours to watching it.

Now it seems that some Christians don’t like it. That may surprise you, until you learn that it’s because the so-called Virgin Mary is “portrayed” as a whore.

I happened on a Christian website called The Way the other day, and on an undated page one Amanda Hopkins writes a short post beginning: “Christians have reacted angrily to a BBC production which portrayed the Virgin Mary as a prostitute.”

She cites the Daily Express. Whether that was her only source, I can’t say, but just hang onto the word “portrayed” for a moment.

Now see what the Daily Express said on 19 December: “The BBC has angered Christians with a TV drama in which the Virgin Mary is branded a prostitute and sex cheat” (emphasis mine).

I fly no flag for abominable rags such as the Express, but it got it right – in that regard anyway, since we’ll for the moment put aside the notion that the BBC angered Christians, when it was they who chose to be angered (and then it was only Stephen Green and his nutcase Christian Voice outfit).

So you see the sleight of phraseology here. The Way says the production “portrayed” Mary as a whore; the Express says that, within the drama, she was “branded” such. And that’s the way it was: characters branded her a whore and spat on her and threw stones at her.

But such is the myopia of so many Christians and others of the Bewildered Herd that they can’t separate the doings of characters from the intentions of a television network. I left a comment pointing out the misleading nature of the intro, but, predictably, up to the time of writing this it had not been used, yet some that came after had been used.

Chances are that, if there was such a girl who gave birth to the guy who was eventually portrayed as the Messiah, she’d have been bonked by a Roman soldier or passing goatherd. One pundit a few years ago put forward a similar theory, anyway, in a docudrama on TV about Mary.

But it does raise an interesting question: what if she had had a bit of nookie on the side and then found she had a bun in the oven? She would lie about it, probably say she was raped.

And then the entire Christian world would turn out to have been based on one teenage girl’s lame and pathetic excuse for not having kept her hand on her ha’penny when some hunk in a tunic happened by and gave her the wink.

“It was the Archangel Gabriel, Joe, honest. He says I’m carrying the Light of the World in my womb.”

“Oh, all right, then.”

Ratzo goes unchallenged in flagship news prog, NSS not too pleased

The National Secular Society is not a happy bunny today. Understandably, it’s up in arms over the fact that Ratzo the Vile is getting an unchallenged slot tomorrow – Christmas Eve – in Radio 4’s flagship Today programme.

It’s actually in that programme within Today called Thought for the Day, a slot that allows people with weird views to rabbit on about invisible entities, sky fairies and what other people should be doing with their lives.

Ratzo – hot on the heels of his controversial visit to the UK in September – recorded his slot yesterday in the Vatican.

The Daily Mail quotes the NSS’s Terry Sanderson as saying: “The Pope has a lot of questions to answer about the failings of his church and its guilt in covering up child abuse.

“I doubt whether any of this will be addressed in Thought for the Day and nobody will have the opportunity to ask him for clarification.

“Rather than giving the Pope an uninterrupted platform, why won’t he be invited to take the 8.10 interview slot on the Today programme with [anchor] John Humphrys to ask the awkward questions that the Vatican constantly sweeps under the table? Instead we’ll just get the usual whitewash and the Pope rewriting history.”

But, then, the BBC’s director general, Mark Thompson, is one of the more prominent members of the Bewildered Herd – and a devout Catholic to boot. He had a cosy little visit to the Vatican in February, where it’s believed this dodgy little deal was born.

If any ever doubts that religion gets privileges, this ought to put them straight. One of the most controversial figures in the world gets to speak in what is often a hard-news programme and not one question will be put to the evil bastard.

The alpha and the omega

This may surprise you, but I’ve already selected next week’s four-part BBC drama The Nativity on my DVR. I watched that Passion thing, too, the other year – the one with Joseph Mawle as JC.

I like dramas. Whether they’re based on facts or myths or entirely made up from scratch, it doesn’t matter. The Passion – JC’s personal omega, if you like – was not challenging and, like the curate’s egg, good in places. Mawle was good.

I suspect The Nativity – his alpha – won’t challenge me, either, although it is written by Tony Jordan of Ashes to Ashes and Hustle fame. So good form.

But will it be mawkish and Christmas-card-ish, or will there be something new brought to it? Who knows? Suck it and see.

I suspect I’ll end up preferring this video below, which is amusing. Not sure whether it’s sincere or a piss-take, but it’s a hoot, and tells the story of the supposed Nativity in emails, social networking and other forms of online communication – including trying to book tickets to Bethlehem.

Enjoy.

Poor Christians! Always getting it in the neck – or not!

Christians and Christmas, as we know, are under attack. The forces of political correctness, evil militant atheists.

Well, one of my favourite comics, Marcus Brigstocke, has been having a go at those who think Christians are being badly done to. Have a look at the video below.

Unfinished business

It’s always interesting to look back and compare then with now. All too often, it’s hard to tell the difference. In matters gay, there’s still a lot of “unfinished business”, and that’s reflected in an article of that name in the latest issue of Gay & Lesbian Humanist.

It’s in a regular feature called “Out of Print” – i.e. out of the print edition of the magazine (in this case one that appeared in winter 2002) – and in it Antony Grey looks back to the days of the Homosexual Law Reform Society and the Albany Trust; he was secretary of both of them.

Grey concludes:

Maybe I’m still too trapped in the battles of the past. In these more relaxed days, younger gay folk’s open pursuit of hedonistic pleasure is all very well, but more widespread commitment to passionate campaigning is still required – not just for ourselves, but for the sake of the many adolescents growing up gay who are still faced with homophobia at school, and sometimes at home, too.

Half a century on, there is still much unfinished business for gay rights campaigners.

Read the full article by clicking here. There’s also the usual fascinating mix of news and views.



Things will be a bit quieter on the blog till 4 January, but we’ll post the occasional link to an article in G&LH.

Hope you’ve been enjoying Christmas. And here’s wishing you a Happy New Year!

Kill Bill!

Many would like to see the Ugandan Anti-Homosexuality Bill killed off. But will it happen? And why are so many Christians silent on the issue – with the Archbishops of Canterbury (belatedly) and York (very belatedly) speaking out only after worldwide clamour?

In the latest Gay & Lesbian Humanist, the Christian writer and activist Symon Hill looks at the issues in an article written before the two archbishops finally realised they couldn’t not say anything and hope to hold onto their credibility.

“When Ugandan politician David Bahati proposed his Anti-Homosexuality Bill recently, he may have given little thought to the effect it would have on his allies in Britain,” Hill writes. “But, in seeking to respond to the Bill, antigay Christians in the UK have shown themselves to be confused, divided and plainly out of touch with Christian, as well as public, opinion.

Those British Christians who regard all homosexual activity as unethical have long insisted that they are not prejudiced. They say they are criticising a behaviour, not a group of people, and that they do not want gay people to be persecuted.”

However, he says, the sincerity of that stance “is now being put to the test”.

Read the full article by clicking here. There’s also the usual fascinating mix of news and views.



Things will be a bit quieter on the blog till 4 January, but we’ll post the occasional link to an article in G&LH.

Hope you’ve been enjoying Christmas. And here’s wishing you a Happy New Year!

Is it Christmas, Yule, the festive season or just the holidays?

Was Christmas Day good for you? Do you, indeed, call this time of the year “Christmas”, or do you prefer a name that doesn’t connote religion?

American Zack Ford loves Christmas.

“I can’t help the fact that I was raised by a Christian family in a Christian home,” he writes. “What I can help is what I believe (or in my case, what I don’t). And, even though I don’t care at all about virgin births or any other such nonsense, there is a lot of cultur around the holiday season that I can and do appreciate. In fact, I love Xmastime.”

So, although he’s a fervent atheist, he loves all the stuff that surrounds Christmas.

You can read his article here. And you can also read my own article, “Yule be sorry”, from last Christmas, in which I make some similar points, concluding that we should keep the “Christ” in “Christmas” – but only as a syllable.



Click the logo above to get to the magazine’s cover, which has a great image that sums up the “God-damned” theme of this issue.

Hope you’re having a great Christmas (or Yule or holiday time or festive season), everyone, and accept our best wishes for a very Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas, folks!

Pink Triangle will be a bit quieter over the next few days, but we’ll be keeping you updated on a few features in our sister publication, Gay & Lesbian Humanist, the latest issue of which went live before Christmas.

The theme is “God-damned”, and the message is clear: we are.

God-damned, that is.

The lead article is by Roy W Brown, who is the immediate past president of the International Humanist and Ethical Union and IHEU’s main representative at the UN, Geneva.

His message is that Islam wants to take over the world. He examines how our freedoms are under threat as creeping Islamisation demands more and more, putting our very way of life in jeopardy.

All in the name of God – or in that case Allah – of course. However you look at it, we’re God-damned.



Click the logo above to get to the magazine’s cover, which has a great image that sums up the “God-damned” theme of this issue.

Have a great Christmas, everyone, and accept our best wishes for a very Happy New Year!

God in our bloodstream? Pull the other one, Rowan!

Oh, so the common people of the UK have God in their bloodstream, do they?

This is what the Archwizard of Cant, Dr Rowan Williams, would like us to believe.

According to a story in the Telegraph, ministers are wrong to think that Christian beliefs are no longer relevant in modern Britain and he has criticised Labour for looking at religious faith as a “problem” rather than valuing the contribution it made to society.

“The Archbishop also suggested that the ‘political class’ was too remote from the concerns of most people, who still had God in their ‘bloodstream’,” says the paper. “In his only interview in the run-up to Christmas, he called on ministers to be more willing to talk about their own beliefs.” The story goes on:

His comments risked reigniting the public row between the Church of England and Labour over the state’s treatment of faith groups. A Cabinet member was recently forced to deny there was a “secular conspiracy” to silence them.

The Archbishop’s claims that religion was seen only as something for minorities echoed those of a Church-backed report, which accused the Government of paying “lip service” to Christianity while “focusing intently” on Muslims.

Asked if he believed political leaders should be more open about their religious beliefs, the Archbishop replied: “I don’t think it would do any harm at all. I think part of establishing their human credentials is saying, ‘This is where my motivation comes from. I’m in politics because this is what I believe.’ And that includes religious conviction.”

Despite the Church of England’s influence and its position as the established religion in the country, there have been repeated claims in recent years that Labour has tried to keep faith out of the public sphere.

Oh, really? How come we have an abundance of “faith schools” at taxpayers’ expense? How come national events are always accompanied by religious mumbo-jumbo, thus alienating huge swathes of the population who would rather celebrate or mourn without it?

How come prayers are said before Commons sessions? How come schools are required by law to have a broadly Christian act of worship? How come kids in schools have to be sixth-formers before they can opt out of religious indoctrination without their parents’ consent?

How come the National Health Service pays for hospital chaplains, rather than letting the churches and others of the Deluded Herd simply provide their own chaplains, which is, after all, a part of churches’ ministry and in principle no different from home visits by preachers?

Come off it, Archbish.

The paper says that Williams’s claim that religion is seen “only as something for minorities echoed those of a Church-backed report, which accused the Government of paying ‘lip service’ to Christianity while ‘focusing intently’ on Muslims”.

It then cites fears over the development of home-grown Islamic terrorism, which has led the UK government to put more than £50 million into projects aimed at preventing radicalisation in mosques.

Yes, it has. Rather than going into mosques and rooting out those who would do harm to the community (and we’ve seen what happens in some mosques, haven’t we?), it pours our money into “initiatives” and “schemes” (see also this and this).

But is this the only reason the archbishop believes Christianity is being marginalised? Perhaps he just perceives that people aren’t that bothered about it any more. They joke about it. They use it in name only at times such as this, Christmas, while patently not believing in all the fairy stories – pretty stories, some of them, but fairy stories nonetheless – that we are urged to believe as true, such as a virgin birth and a wandering star.

And there’s no wonder why MPs are reluctant to talk about their “faith”. We saw it with Tony Blair after his spokesman, Alastair Campbell famously said, “We don’t do God.”

Religion-infested Blair has since admitted that he was reluctant to talk about his “faith” while he was in office lest people should think him a nutter.

My own MP is a religiou nutcase, and, after a response I got from him on the question of cruel religious slaughter of animals – a response in which he defended it for religions, clearly believing the suffering of the animals to be less important than religious maniacs’ wish to inflict cruel deaths on the creatures – I shall not be voting for him next year.

Perhaps other politicians fear the same. Religion has a lot to answer for, and I don’t think I’d be too ready to admit to being a Catholic at the moment, if I were one, after the outrage in that particular section of the Deluded Herd.

You can hear the interview Williams gives to the Telegraph below:

Christmas paedomouse

Following on from the Ann Summers story that we reported on earlier today, something else Christmas-y has caught our eye.

A “Made in China” novelty toy mouse dressed in a Santa hat has been withdrawn from sale in the UK by the company that distributes it, following claims that the filthy rodent sings the words “paedophile, paedophile”.

The Sun claims in its Mouse toy in “paedo” song ban story that one mother said, “When I squeezed its tummy I couldn’t believe my ears. I recognised the tune, but the words were certainly not traditional. Luckily my children are too young to understand.”

Apparently, the £2.99 toy is meant to sing “Jingle Bells” but, as reported in the Sun, according to a spokesman for the distributors, Humatt, of Ferndown, Dorset, the man providing the voice had been unable to pronounce certain sounds and the recording had become garbled after it was speeded up to make it high-pitched. He said, “We’ve slowed the song down and it definitely says ‘Jingle Bells’. But we have recalled them now just in case anybody might take offence.”

However, a number of the toy mice have been put up for sale as “Rude Singing Christmas Mouse” on the online auction site eBay, by the seller jewishcowboy2.0, who describes the toy as:

Genuine “Not so squeaky clean Mouse” as seen in the Sun Newspaper

This is your chance to be one of the few to own a genuine “paedophi**, paedophi**” singing christmas mouse. This 4inch plush soft toy warbles out the Chrismas classic “Jingle Bells” when squeezed.

However as reported in the Sun newspaper 07/12/09 the cheeky like mite sounds like it is singing something completely different indeed!

The “Not so squeaky clean Mouse” is fast becoming a cult classic toy for Christmas this year and is a perfect and hilarious stocking filler.

This product was recalled by the maker after complaints of a “distasteful nature” were made. I purchased the Mice direct in bulk and can therefore guarantee that I am the only seller of this Item on Ebay.

Thanks to the Guardian, you can decide for yourselves by clicking here to hear!

What’s wrong with a horny Christmas?

Planning to have a horny Christmas this year? At least one person doesn’t like the idea – well, he doesn’t like the idea that such a concept is being incorporated into a display that, horror of horrors, Christians might see and be offended by.

He’s a priest, of course.

He’s Chris Dalliston, Dean of Newcastle, who’s objecting to an Ann Summers window in the city’s Grainger Street.

The City Council received a complaint about the display. But officials there say that, although they have deemed it “inappropriate”, they have no powers to force the shop to take it down.

And why on earth should anyone force the shop to take it down? And on what grounds does the City Council deem it “inappropriate”? Because it’s at Christmas, and mentions Christmas?

So we’re back to claiming midwinter festivities for just one section of the community, are we?

Ah, but, this dog-collared chappie might say, it’s the use of the word “Christmas”. Well it was your lot who foisted that word on the rest of us when Christians imposed their own festival on existing midwinter festivities. You can’t have it both ways. We now call it Christmas. Be happy with that.

If Ann Summers had a shop window saying have a horny midwinter festival, you can bet your bottom the Christians would be bleating about how they’re taking the Christ out of Christmas and calling it something else.

No, for better or worse, and by historical convention, it’s called Christmas. We’re used to it. Most of us – atheists included – are happy with that name. And, as a season, it belongs to us all, not just Christians, so Mr Dalliston has no claim on it other than within the context of his church.

If he wants to object to any perceived misuse of it among his flock, he can take it up with them.

_ _ _ _ _ _ mas

Oh, dear! Poor Christians – well, some bishop geezers, anyway – are worried that the Christ is being taken out of Christmas again.

They conveniently forget, of course, that Christ wasn’t there in the first place. Oh, it wasn’t called Christmas back then, of course, but the midwinter festivities, as we all know (and as Christians know only too well, also), were pushed to one side by the cuckoo in the nest that was Christianity.

It made sense. Get people to drop their traditions in favour of a new set of celebrations? No way! But infiltrate and you’re in. If you can do it fairly seamlessly, well, hey presto, you replace the old with the new.

According to the Daily Telegraph link we’ve provided above, the Bishop of Croydon, Nick Baines, has written somewhere that the language used in some traditional carols risks turning the nativity into “just one more story alongside the panto and fairy stories”.

The story doesn’t make it clear (and it ought), but I assume he’s referring to “inclusive” or “acceptable” words that have been substituted for the old in some traditional carols.

But, whatever, the irony obviously escapes him: “panto and fairy stories”? Er, yes, Bishop, you’ve hit the nail right on the head.