I was raised Christian, I suppose. But we didn’t do things like go to church or read the Bible. There was that one summer where my mother let my great-aunt take me to Vacation Bible School at her (Lutheran) church. I don’t remember much about it other than thinking some vague, “that ain’t what they said on 3-2-1 Contact,” kinds of thoughts.

I’ve told this story before, but according to my mother, around age 5 or 6, I said, “Mommy, I don’t believe in God” or some such. This was in the aftermath of an earthquake, maybe a bombing or something somewhere in the world. She was a little bit horrified, but she couldn’t really argue with my logic: God makes bad things only happen to “bad” people, so explain to me how this school full of innocent kids my age could die like that. I’m sayin’; I watched a lot of PBS.

I’m not sure at what point Christmas started to suck, but I’d guess it was some time between junior high school and high school. My paternal grandparents moved back to their native South Carolina. I experienced my first major depressive episode. I had outgrown toys, so my mother switched to gifts of clothing and jewelry.

I went through six solid years of my Christmas lists looking like this:

• Leather jacket
• Knicks tickets
• Islanders tickets
• Mets tickets
• Big Daddy Kane tape
• B52s tape
• Nailpolish
• A Tribe Called Quest tape
• A camcorder
• An easel and some paints
• A popcorn machine
• A Walkman
• An SLR camera

My mother, on the other hand (she did the Christmas shopping, after all), bought me things like this:

• Black and white houndstooth checked pants
• An argyle sweater vest
• A white shirt with a neck bow
• A gold chain (which I broke)
• Gold earrings (lost)
• Black slacks
• Plaid pants
• Golden yellow turtleneck

The SANTAISAWESOME!!1ONE!! feeling of my childhood had given way to Thanks?. My ungratefulness hurt my mother’s feelings as well. Now this could have been avoided if she had just bought me that leather jacket or the Big Daddy Kane tape, but the damage was done. Disappointment had become the new ritual.

That, I think, is when I started to feel a deep sense of apathy about Christmas. My expectations for it were never met. And I don’t think fun times with family, a good meal, one kick-ass present that I actually wanted, and some hot cocoa or cookie baking was too much to ask. After a while, I just gave up hope.

Now as an adult, I am more comfortable living a secular life and saying, “I am an atheist.” I even happily volunteered to work Christmas Day one year. Between relationships, I didn’t celebrate it at all. I spent it by myself watching whatever non-Christmas-themed entertainment was available.

It wasn’t sad either. I was relieved. It feels particularly odd to celebrate a Christian holiday, even if it’s in a way that isn’t all that Christian. I’m grateful for the downtime, but in terms of significance, Christmas is now like Arbor Day to me, but colder.

This is not, however, the case for just about everyone else I know.

Ever been to dinner with an overbearing grandmother (or uncle, or cousin in my case) who — despite your protests about being full — puts another helping on your plate? If you eat it, you feel resentful for capitulating. If you don’t, grandma is insulted, and you feel a like a jerk.

That’s my Christmas in a nutshell.

Then I began comparing the least religious U.S. states with the most religious states. The result of this ongoing analysis has been the overall finding that godless people and godless societies fare better on almost every sociological measure than religious people or religious societies.

From a speech by Phil Zuckerman titled “The Top Ten Things About Being Godless” at the 32nd annual convention of the Freedom From Religion Foundation.

What else stuck out? This quote:

It’s also the more religious states that tend to have higher infant mortality rates and teen pregnancy rates. The nation’s Bible Belt is also its STD Belt. The Bible Belt states (those with the highest percentage who have strong faith in God and attend church most frequently) have the lowest rates of adults with a college education.

The speech was intended to be lighthearted and humorous which explains why Zuckerman’s reasoning seems like a stretch at times. But his findings are definitely interesting and good ammunition for the next time you need to take down a theist blowhard.

(Via Friendly Atheist)

The pairing of “Islam” and “fascism” has no parallel in characterizations of extremisms tied to other religions, although the defining movements of fascism were linked to Catholicism – indirectly under Benito Mussolini in Italy, explicitly under Francisco Franco in Spain. Protestant and Catholic terrorists in Northern Ireland, both deserving the label “fascist,” never had their religions prefixed to that word. Nor have Hindu extremists in India, nor Buddhist extremists in Sri Lanka.

No really: watch the clip. Or read the quote:

I have opponents in this race who do not want to change the Constitution. But I believe it’s a lot easier to change the Constitution than it would be to change the word of the living God. And thats what we need to do is amend the Constitution so it’s in God’s standards rather than trying to change God’s standards so it lines up with some contemporary view of how we treat each other and how we treat the family.

And what scares me even more is that the majority of the Christians in this country wouldn’t see one thing wrong with doing so. The same folks who cower under their blankets fearing ‘Islamofacism’ — a buzzword that denies our effed-up neo-colonial policies as a contributing factor to the current rage against us — are completely okay with making the rest of us conform to the Jesus-loving variant* that I’ll call Christiofacism.

As an atheist with Buddhist leanings who would be one of the first victims of a Christian Society**, this scares me.

*Mind you, Jesus-loving is not the problem. The problem is when we argue that Christianity should be the single, universal moral basis for making laws.

**No, we are not currently a Christian Society or a Christian Nation. We are a society and a state with a predominantly Christian population. There is a difference. Our founders were clear about the role the state in religion and religion in the state, though they were clear that their religion guided their politics.