Time to wish everyone a Happy Christmas, I reckon. Note that I’m not averse to using that term (and the link here tells you why), even though this is a blog that looks towards a nonreligious view of our universe.
And that brings me to Christmas cards. We see a story in the Daily Mail (where else?) whingeing about how stores are “ashamed” to sell religious cards, “but obscene ones litter the High Street”, the headline concludes.
“Christian leaders” are once again wheeled out to complain about this – but, you know, I can’t say I’d noticed. I’ve seen religious cards on sale in several places and never given them a second thought.
The “ashamed” tag above seems to come from one such “Christian leader”, our old friend Stephen Green of Christian Voice. He says he believes there’s anti-Christian prejudice; there’s “militant atheism and nasty secularism” (there are some nasty Christians and those of other religious persuasions about, Mr Green, too, you know, but you think it “nasty” only because it doesn’t agree with you).
Then we get Don Horrocks of the Evangelical Alliance, who says supermarkets “appear” to be ashamed to sell religious Christmas cards.
So, a scientifically carried-out statistical study, then? Seems not. I can’t prove them wrong, but I think we need more rigorous evidence than that these gentlemen have seen some saucy cards and not many religious ones. Let’s face it, they’d ideally wish to see all Christmas cards as religious, because they can’t see that Christianity took over the festivals that we had at this time of year.
As for your humble blogger, well, I don’t buy religious cards. I don’t especially object to receiving them. I look for cards that are Christmassy, in all the ways that word sums up joy and friends and some relaxation and maybe a bit too much to eat and drink. Cards with reindeer, with Santa, with lots of snow, village scenes – these are the sorts I’d buy. I used to buy humanist ones, but felt I was preaching (Christians, take note).
Right, then. Happy Christmas to all those who’ve looked in on the Pink Triangle blog over the past year. Have a Happy New Year, too. We’re closing down from today till the first week in the New Year.
gay and lesbian matters, rationalism, atheism, freethought, secularism — this is the weblog of the Pink Triangle Trust, the only gay humanist charity
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Saturday, 24 December 2011
1 comment:
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As the Pink Triangle Trust's secretary, I'd like to thank Andy for maintaining such a lively blog on its behalf.
ReplyDeleteRe cards, I prefer to send non-religious ones, so the word 'Christmas' is eschewed in favour of something like 'Festive Greetings'. After all, as Andy points out, the Christians highjacked the festival from the Pagans, so why should non-believers implicitly endorse it as one which celebrates the supposed birth of the religion's 'Saviour'?
Also, as an unashamed evangelical Humanist (that's what my ebay identity is!), I sometimes buy cards that publicise Humanist organisations simply to show solidarity.