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If you're an atheist one question will crop up with predictable regularity
at this time of year, and that is: "Why do you celebrate Christmas?"
Well, I can't speak for other atheists, but I celebrate Christmas
not because it's a Christian festival, which it isn't,
and not because it's a Pagan festival, which it is if it's anything,
but simply because it's a great excuse to celebrate something
and to drink a few beers in the dark days of midwinter.
If Christmas didn't exist I would personally invent it for that very reason.
Of course I'm not crazy about the phoney Christian mask it's forced to wear,
but that won't last forever, and in the meantime if there's any chance
that it will offend some loudmouthed Islamist toerag
or some self-hating multicultural PC thumb sucker
then I'm more than happy to celebrate Christmas with all the bells and whistles I can muster,
Baby Jesus and all.
So you could say that I celebrate Christmas, at least in part,
for religious reasons, and I never thought I'd hear myself say those words.
Well, all right then, cultural reasons, but these days
it's so hard to tell the difference, isn't it?
Having said all that, I do have to wonder why Christianity
is allowed to hog the entire religious cake at Christmas.
What happened to diversity and mutual understanding
and cultural awareness and respect and bridge-building
and blah blah etcetera etcetera?
Don't tell me these are all just empty buzzwords.
Surely somebody's got to get the ball rolling here,
so I've decided that this year I'll be having an Islamic-themed Christmas,
although I'll call it a multicultural Christmas so that nobody gets too alarmed.
Besides, between you and me, I heard a rumour that Santa Claus has
converted to Islam and everyone is getting a fatwa in their Christmas stocking.
I don't know how true it is, but frankly the last thing I need
is to get on the wrong side of an Islamic Santa Claus.
You know what these converts can be like.
So, although I will be getting in some beer, obviously,
because Christmas without beer is like Eid without blood - it just wouldn't work -
I'll try to make up for it in other more Islamic ways.
I'll see if we can find a homosexual-looking angel for the top of the tree
that we can all stone to death when we've had a few.
And I'll try and get hold of some of those Islamic balloons I heard about
that blow themselves up. It should be quite a party.
If we decide to play a traditional Christmas board game -
say Trivial Pursuit or something like that -
then it goes without saying that a woman's answer will be worth half that of a man.
Not that it will really matter, because the women will have their own separate game
in a smaller room in a less comfortable part of the house,
while the men sit around stroking their beards and congratulating each other
on how important they are. What a wonderful harmonisation of cultures.
Of course Christmas is not just about celebration and frivolity,
it's also a time for reflection,
which doesn't mean wearing mirrored sunglasses, no,
it means thinking about stuff - unless that's against your religion,
in which case I'd probably go with the sunglasses.
This year I'll be taking time to spare a thought for those less fortunate,
which would include all those poor long-faced Islamists
over at the Muslim Council of Britain.
There'll be no alcohol for them this Christmas, poor sods.
Well, not in public anyway, eh, lads?
The same goes for the suit-and-tie jihadis at the Hamas front group
hilariously known as the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
As it's the season of goodwill, I thought about sending both these groups
a little gift token for some Gillette products
so they could tidy themselves up for the holiday season,
but then I thought they might take it the wrong way,
and I didn't want to cause offence, because that would make me a racist,
and nobody wants to be a racist at Christmas.
What would Little Baby Jesus think?
So instead I'll settle for a simple friendly greeting
and say merry Christmas, boys. I wish you all the very best
of mental health. In other words, get well soon.
To everybody else I'd like to say that Christmas is a cultural festival
that's a long standing tradition in the western world,
and I think it should be actively preserved and actively asserted
for cultural reasons, because we all know how important they are.
I don't think it matters that Christians insist it's all about Little Baby Jesus
because I think most people realise that Christianity imposed itself
on an older religion by hijacking its festivals,
changing their names, and assiduously persecuting its followers,
and that, frankly, Christianity's claim on Christmas
is nothing less than an affront to human decency,
but, because it's Christmas and we're all in such a good mood
we don't really care.
Personally, I think it's a good idea to celebrate the solstice
because we know it's actually real.
And, of course, it reminds us of the greater reality that this earth
is, in fact, flying through space in an annual orbit around the sun,
itself just a star among billions of stars
in orbit around the black hole at the centre of our galaxy,
itself part of a cluster of galaxies, and that some time in the future
our galaxy will collide with the Andromeda galaxy
which is presently hurtling towards us at a quarter of a million miles an hour.
And there's nothing that God or Allah or Little Baby Jesus or anybody else
can do about that, no matter how many times we prostrate ourselves
or how many prayers we offer from now until it does happen
about five billion years down the line.
And that's only if our sun hasn't already swollen up to a red giant by then
and incinerated the entire inner solar system,
along with God, Allah, Little Baby Jesus,
and all the other assorted pantomime characters of the human imagination,
which itself will no longer even be a memory.
Oh well, easy come easy go.
Peace, and merry Christmas.