Actually, Damon Vix is no friend of mine and I certainly do not go along with his personal war against the Santa Monica nativity displays.
A series of 14 Nativity scenes had been a mainstay in the park since the 1950s. But in recent years, Damon Vix, a local atheist who objected to the religious scenes’ presence on public property, began to erect his own signs in the park with messages like “Religions are all alike — founded upon fables and mythologies,” a quotation from Thomas Jefferson.
Last year, though, Mr. Vix organized a larger protest. He and other atheists applied for dozens of spaces in the park to set up displays. To deal with the increased demand, the city held a lottery; a majority of spots in the park went to the group of atheists, while the churches were left with only a few spaces.
The fight briefly placed Santa Monica at the center of a nationwide controversy over religious expression. Many of the atheist displays were vandalized, and in June, the Santa Monica City Council voted unanimously to ban all unattended private displays from city parks.
Presumably Mr Vix is proud of his petulant little victory. The Nativity is, indeed, based upon myth, fable and legend. It is a legend that gives many people the world over a warm feeling in the depths of winter. So what? Who, in their right mind cares a hoot? Those of us who do not believe it (any more than we believe in the birth of Mithras which is remarkably similar) can get on with our lives without being affected by the pleasure this celebration gives to millions the world over.
I don’t celebrate Christmas, but I wouldn’t dream of trampling on the festivities of those who do – that would be mean spirited in the extreme. And mean spirited is exactly what Mr Dix is. Be clear here, he does not speak for other atheists, he speaks for himself and himself alone. What an arsehole.
H/T Dick Puddlecote.
It’s not the fault of Damon. He’s entitled to have his little bit on the park. Where it’s gone wrong is with the city and the religious nutters who vandalised his display. The religous lot brought it on them selves by doing the damage and then being surprised that the authorities have acted like all authorities do – punish everyone because they can’t be bothered to punish the culprits.
Collective punishment, the first and last resort of the can’t-be-arsed state functionary…
The question is whether the state should give a space to a particular religious view, and why?
And when one, they ALL must be included, if they so desire….
Aye. Better to ban ALL of them, or the place would end up looking like a gypoe camp. All kinds of tacky rubbish, spread all over the place.
Given that celebration of Christmas tends to be broader than mere religious belief, why not?
I’m an atheist, and I worship at the altar of Christmas booze and food and days off!
I doubt you are alone… 😈
If it was a depiction of Santa coming down a chimney, or Ebeneezer Scrooge, you might have a point as it would be “Cultural Christmas”.
As it’s angels, it’s “Religious Christmas”.
Santa is the modern embodiment of Saint Nicholas, so has religious connotations. The whole shebang is a religious festival that pre-dates Christianity, so you cannot escape the religious undertones. The cultural and religious aspects are intertwined.
Frankly, given that the iconography of the festival gives a great many people a great deal of pleasure regardless of religious belief, it takes a degree of mean spiritedness that I do not posses to complain about it.
If nothing else, because kids love the nativity and it gives them at least some sense of what Christmas is supposed to be about apart from getting free stuff. I’m not religious, but think it’s one battle that atheists would be better served to ignore.
Unless you’re arguing for Christmas to be treated equally with Eid and Passover, of course, in which case I think you may have quite a battle on your hands. 😉
Glad you took that article and ran with it, LR. If I had Iain Dale levels of free time for comment, I’d so so for all of them myself but can’t.
Likewise.
YULE!
[ Midwinter / Solstice ]
Hic
Burp
Yup! EXACTLY.
A party is a party.
The trouble is, LR, that he’s not alone in his vindictiveness. The left are well known for it.
I think that the point here is that the US has this constitutional thing about the Government having to be uninvolved and completely neutral with regard to religious matters. This has been generally been taken to mean that religious symbols of any kind are not allowed on public land, which is supposed to be a shared space that is available to everyone regardless of what, if any, religion they have. At the time when their constitution was drawn up, many of the colonists were fleeing from persecution by religious majorities. Having been on the receiving end of mistreatment didn’t seem to make them think twice about persecuting other minorities whenever one sect got the upper hand. For this reason, I think that the rule was probably a good idea at the time.
In the modern era, it maybe doesn’t seem as important, but Christians in the US must know the law, it’s just that, being that they are in the majority, they just seem to think that it doesn’t apply to them. So a part of me sees this guy as the one who stood up to the playground bully, and the bleating Christians as the bullies that ran off crying when he did so.