My Obligatory Christmas Essay

Right now, I am evaluating my philosophical journey--where I was and where I am now in the past 6 years, from virulently anti-religious bigot to a more understanding and respectful(-able) philosophical disposition.

One thing continues to bother me. A part of me feels as though I am making a concession. This notion has been gnawing at the back of my mind after someone made a remark at work a few months ago. It was a harmless indication of acceptance, but a kind of unilateral acceptance that made me a bit uncomfortable: "He's OK. He knows the Bible." It's a kind of strange tribalism, where it takes someone truly unique to move past the ideological barriers that divide people.

But I wonder... Would it be possible that someone could take the time to understand that atheism does not lead automatically to nihilism? That actually quite few of us godless heathens are Dmitri Karamazov or his father? Even Dostoevsky himself understood that there was merit to rationalism, setting Ivan and Alyosha up as equals in a debate which forms the entire purpose of the novel.

But there are two problems with this notion of a concession: What about the people I know and respect? Can't I use them as the standard by which I judge the respect I feel I deserve and ignore the rest of the population in this matter? Doesn't the fact that I have people who are able to reciprocate and appreciate the effort I invest into learning about religion satisfy me? And, more pressing, who am I doing this for? Am I doing this for myself, or for the kind of people who pay attention to the Religious Right, and wholly ignore Jesus' message in the first place?

First and foremost I am doing this for myself, and in a way I feel that my previous treatment of religion and the religious was somewhat unfair. I say "somewhat" because I still believe that fundamentalism deserves to be hammered into the ground.

I also believe that individual religions--especially Islam, which I wrote about previously--are misunderstood, and I want to play a role in rectifying that situation. I promise I will eventually read the Koran.

I feel that atheists, for their part--much like I find myself--could play a role in improving relations between major religions. Instead of trying to attack everyone (though it is understandable because we often find ourselves under attack), by virtue of being outsiders, could illuminate the similarities of the different religions in a way that is constructive and leads to greater understanding between them. However, I readily admit that gaining the trust of these religions is a daunting task, as we are the most reviled minority in existence and have been for a long time. Equally difficult, if this is any consolation, is their earning of our trust as a group because of this truth.

The more I consider the mechanisms by which tribes such as religious communities operate, the more difficult--nay, impossible--my utopian pipe dream becomes. "Utopia" actually means "nowhere" in Greek.

There is one major thing we would have to change about how we operate, and this goes back to what I said in a previous essay. We would have to look at religions not in a way that renders them true or false, but whether they are accomplishing what they claim to want to accomplish. We would have to look at their holy texts not as actual accounts of history, such as fundamentalists do, but how we would want them to be examined, as literature.

I've taken up all this time and I haven't said a word about Christmas.

Is there anything that needs to be said about Christmas? Should I give space to the imaginary campaign of the War on Christmas, which contradicts everything Christians should be working toward? Or should I give space to Congress, which actually had to fight to pass healthcare for 9/11 first responders (about which Stephen Colbert had quite a lot to say1), and congressmen who continually complain that they will have to work between Christmas and New Years?

No, I don't have to elaborate on any of that. None of that will ever change for the better. I will, however, share with you that, using Nicholas Kristoff's editorial as a guide, I donated $20 to Fonkoze to send a Haitian girl to elementary school for a year2. That's a pretty good Christmas present for a child over there, I think. Of the options listed, I chose the one which I believe would have the greatest impact.

Happy holidays!

1) "If this is going to be a Christian nation that doesn't help the poor, either we've got to pretend that Jesus was just as selfish as we are, or we've got to acknowledge that he commanded us to love the poor and serve the needy without condition and then admit that we just don't want to do it." ~ Stephen Colbert http://www.casadeblundell.com/jonathan/the-genius-that-is-stephen-colbert/

2) http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/19/opinion/19kristof.html?_r=1&ref=nicholasdkristof