I'm an agnostic atheist and I'm out for about 8 years now. How I handled the shock that the people spewed upon me is a story for another day. Today, I want to talk about Christmas. Been feelin' it for a week or two now knowhatamsayin? The Christmas cheer man. There are twinkling lights and everythang round malls and stuff, beautiful Christmas trees reaching several stories high, this cold wind outside right now that's crippling my fingers making it hard for me to type. Jose Mari Chan songs playin' in every street corner. With families and their kids on the sidewalks, yeah busy sidewalks. Suddenly, people have money you know, with their bonuses and all that. It's all over round you man, people are getting extra happy and sh**. And it's all good yaknow. And the Christmas parties, maaan they don't end. I mean, I haven't prepared any meal for myself lately, just been hoppin' from one party to another. And it's all good yaknow, everything is.
And this is also the time when my believer friends ask me, 'So, you're an atheist. You guys should not celebrate Christmas right?'. And I'm like, 'And miss all the drinking, the food and the presents? Nah maan, I'm atheist, not stupid.' So ya, I think this is what Christmas really is: it's one massive commercialization season. It's all about shopping, spending sh** with Santa Claus as the main mascot. He is the face of corporate manipulation. I mean look a him all fat and smiling, surrounded by lots of material stuff, stuff the G Man wants you to buy. And he has all these workers and laborers who are much smaller than him. These could be children in forced labor disguising as adult elves for all we know. Santa Claus the the archetypal greedy capitalist!
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| Image source: www.wthsc.com |
Christmas isn't even Christian to begin with. It started out as an ancient Roman festival. The festival of the winter solstice was celebrated annually in honor of one of their gods Saturn. This week long festival is called Saturnalia. The festivities was only associated with the birth of Christ when Christianity became a state religion and people in higher places back then had to find ways to gradually imbue this new religion with the traditional, polytheistic one so the people wouldn't get so shocked about it. So basically, this whole December 25 (even the Advent Wreath) thing has very strong pagan roots ('Pagan', you don't like that word very much, do you believers?).
So, what I'm trying to say in this article is that c'mon fellow Filipinos, let's stop being so hypocritical about Christmas about being a religious celebration. This whole baby Jesus aspect of Christmas is not working at all. And no, don't try to bring that Simbang Gabi thing up. That too is bullcrap. I mean who do you see attend those masses anyway, huh? lovers trying to get some alone time to make out in the darker corners of the church, groups of young people who do not strike anyone as the religious type by the looks them; who just think it's sort of cool going out with the gang in the early morning. And finally, there are also the real religious types, who firmly believe they get a genie if they complete the whole 9 masses.
Perhaps it's high time for us to drop the whole nativity thing because for all we know, that's also one of the corporate symbolisms that urge people to spend, something that creates a psychological effect on you to put all that money in your hands back into the circulation. In fact, this season is so busy it's hardly a religious celebration. A time for family and friends perhaps, if you're one of the sentimental types, but a time for traditional Christian prayer and all that hypocritical purity? hardly. Seriously, let us stop squeezing in the religious agenda in this season, they don't fit, not anymore, and it's making us, as a culture, look funny. But like I said, it's all good yaknow, everything is.
