It’s been a tough end to the year. There are some fairly major changes happening at work that will affect myself and numerous other supervisors in the new year. One of those supervisors, a friend and mentor, died unexpectedly at the start of December – quite young but also getting very close to retirement, having […]
Also: For our kids To spend time with extended family Because it’s part of our own personal history and tradition Because it’s become a secular holiday as much as a religious one Because atheists know Christmas started as a pagan solstice festival and early Christians adopted many rituals to help convert people to their new […]
I had a few ideas of how to wrap up this series of Atheist Advent posts – a look at how politics and religion intersect, a review of my theories of why people (really) are religious, a disclaimer about the nature of offense in general. I will spend some time on that last point. My […]
There was a method to my madness in posting a Tim Minchin song as my Music Monday selection for each of the past few weeks during my “Atheist Advent” series. It was all to lead up to Minchin’s ultimate achievement and one of the best non-traditional Christmas songs I’ve ever heard – funny, insightful, wistful, […]
Every December, the stories about “The War on Christmas” pop up once again, like mole heads in a fair game – how various people in society – the politically correct, civil libertarians, atheists – are oppressing Christians by trying to neuter Christmas, make everyone say “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas”, and forego the holiday’s religious elements for commercial/secular ones (read […]
Or on a similar note… Or this…
I’ve posted a lot of Christmas songs over the years, mostly as Music Monday posts, but I don’t think I’ve ever tried to make a list of my favourite Xmas songs, at least until now. So what makes a great Christmas song in my mind? Weirdly with how joyful the season is, my favourites mostly […]
At my library branch, we’ve had lots of interesting conversations around the “Happy Holidays/Merry Christmas” dichotomy that always happens at this time of year in western society. We talked about how to balance the library’s responsibility to be inclusive and respectful of all faiths, cultures and beliefs but also how Christmas is the holiday most […]
May your resident librarian recommend a book to help you pass the next few weeks? 😉
I’m not so strident in my atheism that I can’t acknowledge that Christianity (and most religions in general) have decent principles behind them, have done a lot of good in the world, and that many religious people are to be commended for how they move through life – generous, understanding, kind, compassionate, etc. My problem […]
