The Real Root of Atheists' Anti-Christmas Rage

Townhall.com ^ | December 2, 2012 | Doug Giles

[Kaslin]

Why do some atheists embarrass themselves year after year trying to eradicate Christmas from American culture? Why do they make themselves societal hemorrhoids during this hallowed season? Is it because they are crusaders for equality, secularism’s saviors and humanism’s heroes? I’m sure that’s what they tell themselves when they’re pouting on their couches all alone on Christmas Eve after every single one of their friends has dumped them for being a rabid jackass.

I believe, however—and I could be wrong—that the reason some rage against the machine is that they hate God and love their sin, and bringing up Jesus in December is not the way they wanted to finish off the year. Indeed, Christ really rains on their parade … and they love their parade.

Christmas, if you really get down to the brass tacks of it, isn’t about reindeer, elves, iPhones or Lindsay Lohan punching a gypsy, but about mankind’s sin problem and what God did to remedy it by sending His Son.

I know the chief facet most people focus on regarding Christ’s birth has been the peace on earth and good will toward men stuff, but if you dig around in the gospels a tad you’ll quickly see that the “peace on earth” thing is an ancillary perk to the main reason the second person of the godhead donned an earth suit and decided to hang out with us dunderheads. The core cause that necessitated Jesus’ incarnation was our jacked up carnality. Yep, Hambone, it was our sin. There, I said it. Sin. Yours, mine and ours.

Transgression was the reason for the season.

This is why El Diablo didn’t pass out cigars at Jesus’ birth. Happy he was not that the Son was not only going to address our sins but He was going to eternally and temporally salvage those who believe from sin’s fetid effects. This is why slewfoot energized Herod to put a hit out on the Nazarene when He was a wee little baby and why Satan’s demon inspired ilk are anti-Christmas to this day. Jesus’ birth equated to Satan’s demise.

This is not good news to some, though. Indeed, many atheists are up front about it and don’t want to leave their wantonness. As Jesus Himself said, they prefer darkness to light and don’t like to be reminded of their personal accountability for their sin—and thus their need for salvation—and therefore we should not expect them to be stoked about Jesus’ birthday party.

This is easy math, folks: A person who has no remorse and thus no desire to repent from their sins is probably not going to be a big advocate for the celebration of the person who reminds them they’re wrong and calls them to repent and believe.

Call me goofy, but I’m forever grateful for Jesus’ birth, His attesting miracles, His sacrificial death, burial and resurrection. While most atheists this Christmas will be drinking to forget, I will, as Martin Luther said, drink to remember the One who was and is and is to come.

[Notary Sojac]

I was raised in a household with no religious belief. My parents however were not hostile to any religious faith or to its members. (In other words, they were not rabble-rousing atheists).

[wardaddy]

I don’t knowanyone who has no religious doctrine in their background somewhere.

Your grandparents?...were both your folks adopted?

pure atheism just 40-50 years ago was very very rare

someone somewhere dropped the ball of either Christianity or Judaism is my guess..or maybe both

but that is fine..as long as you are not on the offense against my traditions I am glad to have you and yes i do think you can be conservative wihtout being Christian

in fact...socially speaking..several non Christian religion practitioners should be socially conservative if they adhere to teachings including the big boogie bear religion

which brings up a point doesn’t it?

why did Muslims here vote 95% (like tropical africans) for Obama and his pro gay and pro abortion crap?

because identity as a “minority” trumps everything ...for any minority today...well..maybe not Vietnamese but who’s counting

[firebrand]

If you were to give your whole heart and soul to Jesus, believe me I would notice the change having seen you before and after.

We become totally obnoxious. We can’t wait to tell everyone about it. We’re wide-eyed and . . . well, we’re just different. Then we start growing up in our new role.

I should apologize too, because when I said you would have to change your life, I was thinking of the habitual sinners that I know, and I don’t know you at all. So maybe your behavior would remain the same in terms of morals.

[Notary Sojac]

firebrand, your original comment was "gave up atheism" not "give your heart to Jesus".

There are many other options out there.....and billions who are neither atheist nor Christian.

I should apologize too

I appreciate that. There are some Christians here who appear to think that the only reason atheists don't immediately convert is that we would have to stop smoking rock, diddling cub scouts, and knocking over convenience stores. I am glad to see you are not of that company.

[DBeers]

You are of course referring to the one mention of a creator in our founding documents. In my opinion, Jefferson was looking for a way to de-legitimize the authority of the British crown over the colonies, and he hit upon this construction. (Not that it would have made much difference if we had lost the war).

One mention is all it takes. You seem to attempt to de-legitimize a nation and its history by de-legitimizing a moment and a man. Jefferson was but one of many men

It's also interesting that the British state, made up of people who were nearly all believers in a traditional, trinitarian Christianity based on an inerrant Bible, were opposed to a loose association of colonial leaders - some clearly deists and others with their own freelanced views of God and the Bible - and God, if he indeed took a side, was apparently on the latter.

God did not take our side -we took His.

Leftists often claim that America is not a Christian nation -more precisely, America is not a nation that recognizes God and His authority and or that God is not premise in our founding. This effort because the leftists consider the State supreme and God and His laws get in the way of tyranny for Utopia efforts.

One method used by the left is to claim that some founders were Deists, Unitarians, etcetera...

Well, the leftists make a distinction without a difference.

Unitarianism is a Christian theological movement, named for its understanding of God as one person, in direct contrast to Trinitarianism which defines God as three persons.

Deism is the belief that reason & observation of the natural world are sufficient to determine the existence of a creator.

Regardless the whining and gnashing of teeth from the leftists who attempt to argue terms rather than substance -it seems self evident and I would say that all the founders apparently believed in the Creator. The One that endowed all human beings with inalienable rights and the human experience with absolute truths --those that the left implies are endowed, defined, and modified by the government du jour as elected by the mob du jour.

Which leads to another question. If God wants people to be free citizens, and if He intends them to have inalienable rights which no state can extinguish, why did nations based on that "endowment" not come into being with the start of the Christian era? What was it about the founding generations of Americans that made them different, not just from all other nations but from all preceding Christian nations??

Free will can lead to good or bad.

People of faith willing to shed blood for what they believed in was what got us here. We are right NOT because God is on our side but because we are on the side of God -at least we were very much so in the beginning...

[Notary Sojac]

Was the United States founded by men who expressed belief in God?

You'll get no argument from me that this is true. It was a rare person who admitted to atheism or agnosticism in the 18th century.

Was the United States founded by men who believed in the Christian God, revealed in an inerrant Bible as a triune Godhead?

In our founding public documents, there is no evidence of this, and in their private correspondence, the evidence is mixed.

[Notary Sojac]

The Founding Fathers were brilliant men. They spent months and months working on the Constitution. They were very, very careful about what they wrote, discussing and debating every passage at great length. It seems to me that if they had intended this to be a Christian nation they would have said so somewhere in the Constitution. The Founding Fathers had no reason to be vague. There was no ACLU, no 'Activist judges.' If they had wanted a Christian Nation they could have written:

God Almighty, in Order to form a true Christian Nation, establish Divine Justice, insure adherence to His Laws, provide for the defense of His Church, promote His Word, and secure His Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, has led us to ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Instead they wrote:

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

-James Huber

[DBeers]

The Founding Fathers were brilliant men. They spent months and months working on the Constitution. They were very, very careful about what they wrote, discussing and debating every passage at great length. It seems to me that if they had intended this to be a Christian nation they would have said so somewhere in the Constitution. The Founding Fathers had no reason to be vague. There was no ACLU, no 'Activist judges.' If they had wanted a Christian Nation they could have written.

The author is tilting at windmills. One could say he employs a straw man argument -much like the leftists. The Constitution limits government and as such where exactly does it state that America is NOT a Christian Nation? Where does it state that government can censor religion and or impose rules to prevent a Christian Nation? The government is NOT the Nation.

Referencing my quote below -clearly the US was founded premised upon a belief and acknowledgment in the Creator regardless any leftist arguments to the contrary:

Leftists often claim that America is not a Christian nation -more precisely, America is not a nation that recognizes God and His authority and or that God is not premise in our founding. This effort because the leftists consider the State supreme and God and His laws get in the way of tyranny for Utopia efforts.