Tuesday, April 10, 2012

No Holidays For You


No Holidays For You

Easter is another good time to witness first hand the bombardment of Christian culture on Australian society. It is inescapable and pervasive.

As a non-believer, I have been challenged by theists to justify why I take part in Easter celebrations. Typically this involves the particularly banal and pathetic statement that I should be working on the public holidays dedicated to Easter celebrations.

Straight up I will admit that I don't want to take part in Easter celebrations. Especially in the religious sense. I feel that the whole Jesus story is bogus, disgusting and not worthy of any celebration.

The idea that an innocent person was punished for the crimes of humanity is disgusting. I say it again, an innocent person, tortured and murdered, for the crimes of others. I've said it publicly, it makes no sense. Imagine a modern justice system that decrees the allocation of punishment to the innocent on behalf of the guilty.

Never mind the related story of a the same guy rising from the dead, leaving his tomb empty and visiting people in a zombie like fashion. At this point, the kitchen sink of impossibilities can be thrown into the equation and as with most religious stories, evidence and common sense are the last things that cross your mind. A supernatural being is obviously the only explanation for what occurred. Obviously.

God could have invoked flood version 2 and savagely and heartlessly drowned the vast majority of plants and animals, including us, to death. Maybe life rafts and food reserves would appear for the believers and the sin free. Another option is to smite the ungodly masses using a Godly lightning bolt to the head. Instead, God chose a bizarre and brutal crucifixion ceremony with a twist at the end.

So why do I take part in Easter celebrations? In my mind, I don't. In body, it is the social, family and cultural pressure. People react poorly when their baseless beliefs are questioned (I will post more on this later). Basically, I could be doing something more productive than spoiling their day of mythical worship, which means I will miss out on that glorious opportunity to be lambasted by those loving, compassionate, tolerant Christian types. All of the pressure aside, people know how I feel, I just don't bring it up.

Actually, most of what we do on Easter these days isn't even of Christian origin but has been co-opted by Christians to boost the popularity. Rabbits and chocolate eggs? What have they got to do with Jesus?

Now, right back to the start to address the public holiday question. Do Liberal voters get to take the Labour Day holiday (See: Australian Labour Movement). Do non-citizens deserve to take the Australia Day holiday? Can republican thinkers take the Queens Birthday public holiday?

All of these holidays can discriminate by means of their meaning or origin, but the state, who determines public holidays, does not discriminate. Good luck to the religious if they attempt to oppress and exclude participation in Easter based on religious affiliation. It would be relevance suicide on a grand scale.

To be true to the holiday, I do make an effort to at least think about the meaning and origin of Easter. Unfortunately, I didn't get the opportunity to read the Bible, which I usually do on religious days. I also didn't get the opportunity to read anti-religion publications such as God Is Not Great. Instead, I was lucky enough to watch Richard Dawkins and George Pell on Q & A. The entire hour simply acted to re-enforce the worming and weaving that religion and in particular the institutions of religion have to do to justify themselves.

One dimensional arguments from cultural non-practicing Christians are pathetic. The biggest objection you have against my Atheism around Easter is that I shouldn't be able to take the day off?

Take a good look at yourselves and your beliefs. Grown adults, believing a story that is thousands of years old, disgusting at it's core. Unproven, improbable, poorly represented by those who hold the highest chairs and most importantly, absurd.

1 comment:

  1. Another thought prvoking post.

    I think the pressure to take part in ‘presents under tree’ and ‘rabbit chocolate egg’ day is too great. I love that it brings families and friends together, but I resent that I feel bullied to only do that on certain day’s of the year. People look at me weird when I throw a party on 9 November (birth date of Carl Sagan). “I am sorry…but what is so unusual with me celebrating the birth of a TRUE saviour of science, reason and human rights when you are celebrating the birth of a fictional freak of nature who has superpowers, whose father is a psychotic murderer with a child torture fetish and who is now a zombie…MIND YOUR OWN BUSIENSS!!”

    Flood version 2? What about the meteorite/comet impact that wiped out thousands of animal species, and mostly large mammals. Perhaps it can be argued that God, sorry, I mean god, didn’t have a sufficiently intelligent species to delegate the blueprints of bunkers or orbital spacecraft to save a pair of each animal from the annihilation of most of the lower atmosphere.

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