The MMR vaccine hoax, which is still having repercussions in the UK and other countries, is now just the tip of the iceberg. The most disreputable papers, of whom the Daily Mail is clearly the vanguard, recently went to DefCon one when a teenage girl died on the same day she had the cervical cancer vaccine. Leaping to a conclusion faster than an Olympic athlete villager with a pitchfork, they immediately started blaming the vaccine, the government, 'Big Pharma' and demanding the programme be immediately stopped.
Of course, they've been against it all the time, so at least they're consistent.
....Well, except that in their Irish edition they were for it, because the Irish government weren't and their readership seems to be people who don't really care what they're complaining about as long as it's irrational.
Now it's one thing to believe that 'Big Pharma' - i.e. the pharmaceutical companies - are corrupt and sociopathic. In fact, this is probably true of just about every big company. I personally would think you'd be quite mad to believe any big money-making operation had the world's best interest at heart. They don't exist to make the world a better place, they exist to make shareholders rich.
But that doesn't make everything they do evil, or the people who work for them. There is an adage for that: 'Throwing the baby out with the bathwater'. I for one rely daily on a couple of the products of Big Pharma to keep me alive.
The worst of the vehemence towards governments and Big Pharma seems to revolve around vaccinations. Partly, I'm sure, because of the very nature of having a needle stuck into you, or your tiny little vulnerable baby. I'm sure there wouldn't be anything like the opposition to vaccination if they were administered in some less invasive way, like the Polio vaccine on a sugar cube that was the preferred method of delivery when I had it some 40 years ago.
There has now built up a kind of very amorphous conspiracy theory about vaccines, the basic thrust of which is that the government (whichever country you are in) has colluded with the big pharmaceutical companies to throw a lot of poisonous chemicals together into a vaccine which we don't really need as the diseases they prevent aren't that bad or aren't a threat. Almost any kind of symptom can and has been attributed to side-effects of these vaccines if you just take anecdotal stories (such as "My son had the vaccine and 2 weeks later had symptom X")
As a result of this, the diseases which had almost died out are now making a comeback: Measles, Mumps, Polio and Pertussis are all occuring at huge rates compared to a few decades ago and children are dying and being mentally and physically disabled because of it. Meanwhile the problems alleged to be caused by the vaccines are remaining at the same levels they always have been.
The 'big' problem with the MMR vaccine was supposedly autism, yet the rates of this don't differ between countries where the triple vaccine was used and where the single vaccines where used, nor within countries before and after the triple vaccine was introduced. The evidence just isn't there for these theories, yet still they persist, multiply and continue to convince people.
It's hardly shocking that so many people can end up believing in what is actually utter nonsense. Here in the UK we have a programme on TV called 'QI' and every week, the show highlights how much perceived knowledge in the public domain is just plain wrong. Lemmings don't commit suicide en-masse, Tomatoes were 'known' for a long time to be deadly poisonous, Richard Gere had nothing to do with Gerbils ....ad nauseum.
Partly, I think the problem is that we prefer simple answers and scientists can't always explain things in a few sentences. Some things just are very complicated. The idea that a girl gets a vaccine and a few hours later, dies is a coincidence seems wrong to us - "surely there must be a connection?", we think.
In fact, all across Britain people died that day after doing something completely unrelated: eating Kitkats, kissing someone, reading the Daily Mail - yet we don't jump to the conclusion that one caused the other. It's because of this conspiracy theory, that uninformed members of the public and irresponsible media continue to spread, that we single out vaccinations as the smoking gun of medical problems.
In fact the press are the real villians of the piece. Though some 'alternative' therapy peddlars stand to gain by spreading this conspiracy theory, and several celebrities are building their career on it, the gutter press always seem to take the lazy approach and, perhaps through a lack of scientific understanding, not check the facts.
So it's fantastic to see an article about vaccination which is rational, sticks to the facts and bucks the trend:
Wired recently published this article about how bad the anti-vax movement is getting in the US and it's a scary (if edifying) read.
Thursday 29 October 2009
Tuesday 20 October 2009
Daily Mail - scum, scum, scum
I'm part of an orchestrated campaign (apparently), because that's what Jan Moir of the disgusting rag the Daily Mail says is behind the record number of complaints to the Press Complaints Commission about her sick article about the death of Stephen Gately, the former Boyzone member.
In the article, which is basically a homophobic rant and a chance for her to have a pop at gay marriage, she darkly hints at all manner of things, and basically accuses the Spanish coroner who pronounced the death to be due to pneumonia of covering up something, choosing instead to blame it on him being gay.
Let's hope that more advertisers pull out their campaigns in the Daily Mail. Marks and Spencers have insisted their ad is pulled off that page where it was showing as a rotating banner. I'm just about to write to them congratulating them on that decision and suggesting they take it further.
Then I'm going to take it further, by writing to every advertiser that I see on the Daily Mail's site, suggesting they might want to disassociate themselves from this paper.
Not that this article is unique, the Daily Mail have been willing to publish just about any old trash if they think that's what their readers want. In this they're no different from the obviously trashy papers like The Sun. You won't get far not giving the readers what they want - "Yes CJ" (sorry, Reggie Perrin reference - oh look it up!).
I've always suspected that a lot of Sun readers don't actually expect to get news in that particular organ though. They know it's a 'bit of fun' and don't expect much enlightenment, and actually it's surprising rational about science and health stories. At least compared to the Mail, which has a long inglorious history of reporting cranks and panicking its readers. This was never more so than the recent case of the teenage girl who coincidentally died on the day she had a 'cervical cancer' vaccination.
The Daily Mail was against this vaccine from the start - claiming it would encourage promiscuity. Except for in its Irish edition, strangely enough, where it was just as rabidly FOR the vaccine, presumably because the government there was against it.
This time, they've really outdone themselves though, managing to piss off not only Boyzone fans, but gays, the Irish, Twitterers and well, me.
I'm going to compile a list of DM advertisers tonight and see if I can't persuade some other people to complain to them too. It's not a very well orchestrated campaign, but I imagine 1000s of people all over the country are doing some small thing to get back at the Mail for this filth. It all adds up.
In the article, which is basically a homophobic rant and a chance for her to have a pop at gay marriage, she darkly hints at all manner of things, and basically accuses the Spanish coroner who pronounced the death to be due to pneumonia of covering up something, choosing instead to blame it on him being gay.
Let's hope that more advertisers pull out their campaigns in the Daily Mail. Marks and Spencers have insisted their ad is pulled off that page where it was showing as a rotating banner. I'm just about to write to them congratulating them on that decision and suggesting they take it further.
Then I'm going to take it further, by writing to every advertiser that I see on the Daily Mail's site, suggesting they might want to disassociate themselves from this paper.
Not that this article is unique, the Daily Mail have been willing to publish just about any old trash if they think that's what their readers want. In this they're no different from the obviously trashy papers like The Sun. You won't get far not giving the readers what they want - "Yes CJ" (sorry, Reggie Perrin reference - oh look it up!).
I've always suspected that a lot of Sun readers don't actually expect to get news in that particular organ though. They know it's a 'bit of fun' and don't expect much enlightenment, and actually it's surprising rational about science and health stories. At least compared to the Mail, which has a long inglorious history of reporting cranks and panicking its readers. This was never more so than the recent case of the teenage girl who coincidentally died on the day she had a 'cervical cancer' vaccination.
The Daily Mail was against this vaccine from the start - claiming it would encourage promiscuity. Except for in its Irish edition, strangely enough, where it was just as rabidly FOR the vaccine, presumably because the government there was against it.
This time, they've really outdone themselves though, managing to piss off not only Boyzone fans, but gays, the Irish, Twitterers and well, me.
I'm going to compile a list of DM advertisers tonight and see if I can't persuade some other people to complain to them too. It's not a very well orchestrated campaign, but I imagine 1000s of people all over the country are doing some small thing to get back at the Mail for this filth. It all adds up.
Friday 16 October 2009
Medicine and religion
There have been a number of stories lately about people putting their faith in prayer as an alternative therapy. As the line goes in the Tim Minhchin beat poem 'Storm' "You know what they call alternative medicine that's proven to work? - 'Medicine'".
The cult-like movement, "The Body of Christ" has been in trouble recently for a series of posters claiming that prayer alone can heal a whole variety of ailments, but there is a specific act, called "The Cancer Act" which specifically prohibits these kind of claims when it comes to cancer. Complaints are in with just about every authority so these posters will change, but there's nothing to stop them claiming anything about other illnesses.
The saddest case of all was a little girl of 11, Madeline Neumann, who died on the floor surrounded by members of her parents prayer group.
The disease she had needn't have been terminal. It's a disease millions of people all over the world cope with and live long and fairly normal lives despite of. Including me in fact. Diabetes has, thanks to science, been very effectively treatable for over 80 years. These parents though were very religious, and believed that getting her medical help would be against what they understood of the bible and believed. When their prayers didn't seem to be working, they decided that they just needed more people praying. Meanwhile she became steadily worse and suffered incredibly until she died.
Of course, those of us who think rationally don't believe for a minute that prayer will work. Even most people of a spiritual bent don't realy believe it will work. Sure, they might pray they or someone else will get better - but they'll almost certainly back that up, like a lightning rod on a church steeple, with proper actual proven-to-work medicine.
The reason they don't rely on faith entirely is that they ignore most of the bible as the outdated and muddled nonsense which it is. They certainly don't believe in an all powerful god who will, if you have enough faith, give you what you want as the bible states. Believing in such a god and relying on him to change what nature does is mostly unthinkable in this day and age. When medicine was in its infancy that was actually a reasonable way to deal with illnesses, because there were periods when being treated by a doctor gave you a far worse chance than doing nothing for many medical problems. If you got better, which of course many people do quite well on their own, then you would thank god for intervening and if you didn't - well you didn't pray hard enough.
Nowadays if we need water for our crops, we use irrigation, if we need help, we call the fire brigade, and if we are ill, we go to the doctors. Over the years, science has eroded away at religion: Darwin explained to a large degree how we got here, Astronomers made it clear we're an insignificant speck in a mind-boggling massive universe that is governed by rules and psychology has even given us several possible reasons why so many people are religious.
If you do come across someone who believes in healing through the power of prayer, or faith-healing or in some supernatural way in which a 'higher power' has healed someone, cured cancer or whatever, you might want to ask them about amputees. People have claimed all sorts of medical problems have been cured by the power of the lord over the years (sometimes the lord performed this miracle while doctors were treating the patient too, but clearly it was the lord's input that did the trick).
The lord is especially good at treating things in an invisible way, especially illnesses which are somewhat nebulous. However, not one single instance is ever offered up as proof of his power of someone regrowing a limb. Or even a digit, ear nose, eyelid or tooth.
He can, apparently make the dead come back to life even, as well as the more mundane stuff like curing cancers, making the lame walk, making spots disappear etc. But he's mysteriously ineffective, no matter how hard you pray when it comes to regenerating limbs. Except for starfish. There must be a special place in his heart for them, because they do it all the time, apparently without anyone even praying for them. Unless there are special echinoderm masses held in secret in the Vatican - (Dan Brown, there's surely a book in this, I want a mention in the foreword).
Of course, those true believers will have an explanation for this, either one of the incredibly complex made-up ones, like the Wandering Jew, or they can always fall back on the good old 'God moves in mysterious ways' blanket explanation.
The cult-like movement, "The Body of Christ" has been in trouble recently for a series of posters claiming that prayer alone can heal a whole variety of ailments, but there is a specific act, called "The Cancer Act" which specifically prohibits these kind of claims when it comes to cancer. Complaints are in with just about every authority so these posters will change, but there's nothing to stop them claiming anything about other illnesses.
The saddest case of all was a little girl of 11, Madeline Neumann, who died on the floor surrounded by members of her parents prayer group.
The disease she had needn't have been terminal. It's a disease millions of people all over the world cope with and live long and fairly normal lives despite of. Including me in fact. Diabetes has, thanks to science, been very effectively treatable for over 80 years. These parents though were very religious, and believed that getting her medical help would be against what they understood of the bible and believed. When their prayers didn't seem to be working, they decided that they just needed more people praying. Meanwhile she became steadily worse and suffered incredibly until she died.
Of course, those of us who think rationally don't believe for a minute that prayer will work. Even most people of a spiritual bent don't realy believe it will work. Sure, they might pray they or someone else will get better - but they'll almost certainly back that up, like a lightning rod on a church steeple, with proper actual proven-to-work medicine.
The reason they don't rely on faith entirely is that they ignore most of the bible as the outdated and muddled nonsense which it is. They certainly don't believe in an all powerful god who will, if you have enough faith, give you what you want as the bible states. Believing in such a god and relying on him to change what nature does is mostly unthinkable in this day and age. When medicine was in its infancy that was actually a reasonable way to deal with illnesses, because there were periods when being treated by a doctor gave you a far worse chance than doing nothing for many medical problems. If you got better, which of course many people do quite well on their own, then you would thank god for intervening and if you didn't - well you didn't pray hard enough.
Nowadays if we need water for our crops, we use irrigation, if we need help, we call the fire brigade, and if we are ill, we go to the doctors. Over the years, science has eroded away at religion: Darwin explained to a large degree how we got here, Astronomers made it clear we're an insignificant speck in a mind-boggling massive universe that is governed by rules and psychology has even given us several possible reasons why so many people are religious.
If you do come across someone who believes in healing through the power of prayer, or faith-healing or in some supernatural way in which a 'higher power' has healed someone, cured cancer or whatever, you might want to ask them about amputees. People have claimed all sorts of medical problems have been cured by the power of the lord over the years (sometimes the lord performed this miracle while doctors were treating the patient too, but clearly it was the lord's input that did the trick).
The lord is especially good at treating things in an invisible way, especially illnesses which are somewhat nebulous. However, not one single instance is ever offered up as proof of his power of someone regrowing a limb. Or even a digit, ear nose, eyelid or tooth.
He can, apparently make the dead come back to life even, as well as the more mundane stuff like curing cancers, making the lame walk, making spots disappear etc. But he's mysteriously ineffective, no matter how hard you pray when it comes to regenerating limbs. Except for starfish. There must be a special place in his heart for them, because they do it all the time, apparently without anyone even praying for them. Unless there are special echinoderm masses held in secret in the Vatican - (Dan Brown, there's surely a book in this, I want a mention in the foreword).
Of course, those true believers will have an explanation for this, either one of the incredibly complex made-up ones, like the Wandering Jew, or they can always fall back on the good old 'God moves in mysterious ways' blanket explanation.
Thursday 8 October 2009
Tony Blair Rambling again
Tony Blair, never one of my favourite people, has been preaching again, he spoke recently at Georgetown University in Washington about faith.
In his speech he called on Christians and Muslims which he claims make up half the population of the world to unite against 'secularism'.
Now it could (and has) been argued that by supporting the Iraq and Afghanistan wars - and few leaders did more lying and dodging to support it - he has hardly been putting his money where his mouth is. Those wars have served as an immense recruiting exercise for Al Queda and radical muslim extremists everywhere, which in turn has fuelled anti-muslim feelings everywhere.
But telling you he's a hypocrite is I suspect (if you'll forgive the ecumenical reference) preaching to the choir. He's a politician after all, and a successful one at that, in that he's now worth quite a few million pounds.
No, what made me audibly scoff (so much so that the first aiders here where I work, all looked up hopefully) was the idea that religious-types should band together against a common enemy - secularism.
Just in case there's any confusion about what secularism means I'll go off on a tangent for a moment. Secularism isn't atheism, it's simply the disconnecting of church and state. I believe that in the christian mythology, 'Jesus' is supposed to have supported that - "give unto Caesar that which is Caesars".
Every religious type in the 'democratic west' hates religious states - where it's another religion. So we look on Saudi Arabia with its Sharia Law, stonings, beheadings, whipping of adulterers and are quite clear that it's a bad thing. While at the same time calling for our own state to bring in laws or otherwise act in accordance with the wishes of our own pet cult. The Catholic Church recently, by way of an example, wanted the law changed so that they could continue discriminating against homosexuals. Bishops in the Church of England even form part of the government, having an automatic seat in the house of lords.
Plus in a multi-cultural country, if you don't have secularism, which religion do you allow to dictate the laws? The majority religion? That's a recipe for persecution. Also, it's building-in intolerance in the society - religious believers haven't, generally, come by their opinion on many matters from a rational viewpoint, based on research, studies, expert-thinking etc. They just 'inherit' their opinions from their religion. If you believe your opinions are heaven-sent, then it's much harder to take someone else's viewpoint, because basically they're going against the word of god, and I mean, how wrong can someone be?
And of course, when I say the majority religion, you'd imagine that it was an homogenous organisation with clear objectives and beliefs, but of course, that's far from the case. Almost all religions have schisms, some of them, as in Iraq, between Sunni and Shia Muslims are deadly. So how do you get a consensus from them? By asking the hierarchy to decide? That's hardly democratic. Even if you asked the whole congregation of a certain religion to decide, that's simply excluding the other members of society who don't subscribe to that religion - again very undemocratic.
In fact, if you want to include everybody in society in the decisions about how society is run, then there's a tried and trusted way to do that - it's called the democratic process. Now alright it's not perfect, but it's better than giving a subsection an unfair advantage, which in the end, is what they want when they complain about 'secularism'.
In his speech he called on Christians and Muslims which he claims make up half the population of the world to unite against 'secularism'.
Now it could (and has) been argued that by supporting the Iraq and Afghanistan wars - and few leaders did more lying and dodging to support it - he has hardly been putting his money where his mouth is. Those wars have served as an immense recruiting exercise for Al Queda and radical muslim extremists everywhere, which in turn has fuelled anti-muslim feelings everywhere.
But telling you he's a hypocrite is I suspect (if you'll forgive the ecumenical reference) preaching to the choir. He's a politician after all, and a successful one at that, in that he's now worth quite a few million pounds.
No, what made me audibly scoff (so much so that the first aiders here where I work, all looked up hopefully) was the idea that religious-types should band together against a common enemy - secularism.
Just in case there's any confusion about what secularism means I'll go off on a tangent for a moment. Secularism isn't atheism, it's simply the disconnecting of church and state. I believe that in the christian mythology, 'Jesus' is supposed to have supported that - "give unto Caesar that which is Caesars".
Every religious type in the 'democratic west' hates religious states - where it's another religion. So we look on Saudi Arabia with its Sharia Law, stonings, beheadings, whipping of adulterers and are quite clear that it's a bad thing. While at the same time calling for our own state to bring in laws or otherwise act in accordance with the wishes of our own pet cult. The Catholic Church recently, by way of an example, wanted the law changed so that they could continue discriminating against homosexuals. Bishops in the Church of England even form part of the government, having an automatic seat in the house of lords.
Plus in a multi-cultural country, if you don't have secularism, which religion do you allow to dictate the laws? The majority religion? That's a recipe for persecution. Also, it's building-in intolerance in the society - religious believers haven't, generally, come by their opinion on many matters from a rational viewpoint, based on research, studies, expert-thinking etc. They just 'inherit' their opinions from their religion. If you believe your opinions are heaven-sent, then it's much harder to take someone else's viewpoint, because basically they're going against the word of god, and I mean, how wrong can someone be?
And of course, when I say the majority religion, you'd imagine that it was an homogenous organisation with clear objectives and beliefs, but of course, that's far from the case. Almost all religions have schisms, some of them, as in Iraq, between Sunni and Shia Muslims are deadly. So how do you get a consensus from them? By asking the hierarchy to decide? That's hardly democratic. Even if you asked the whole congregation of a certain religion to decide, that's simply excluding the other members of society who don't subscribe to that religion - again very undemocratic.
In fact, if you want to include everybody in society in the decisions about how society is run, then there's a tried and trusted way to do that - it's called the democratic process. Now alright it's not perfect, but it's better than giving a subsection an unfair advantage, which in the end, is what they want when they complain about 'secularism'.
Monday 5 October 2009
Keeping Christmas Christian
Came across a press-release from 'Theos' - a religious think tank, whose raison d'etre is, in so far as I can make out, denying the inevitable trend towards secularism. They do surveys which are brazenly biased and then issue press-releases, which the Daily Mail and Express just copy and paste, throwing in some bits about 'muslims', 'house prices' and 'immigrants'.
Their latest press release is entitled "The public vote to keep Christ in Christmas".
Which is stretching the truth more than a little. When you're creating a survey, there's always the chance that you introduce bias, so you have to be very careful about how you ask the questions. That is, if you want to be objective and don't have some kind of axe to grind. If, like Theos, you do have a very dull axe, then famously shown in an episode of 'Yes Minister', you can lead the person being surveyed right into the answer you want.
What about this survey? Well, they state "84 per cent of those interviewed disagreed with the statement that 'Christmas should be re-named to reflect our multi-cultural society'. 85% agreed that 'Christmas should be called Christmas because we are still a Christian country'."
What we keen arguers will recognise there is, of course, a 'straw man' argument - you make up a target which everyone can and will shoot down, instead of the real argument. No-one is actually calling for 'Christmas to be renamed". Some Americans do now say "happy holidays" - but it's purely a politeness thing, because at around the same time, Jews celebrate Chanukah and someone's invented a 'Black Christmas' festival - presumably out of pure spitefulness.
Muslims generally aren't offended by Christmas in the same way that Christians aren't offended by Ramadan, EID, Chanuka, the midsummer solstice or the Feast of St Obi Wan Kenobi. In fact, religous types are extremely wary of criticising each other's festivals and more extreme religous practices. As Christopher Hitchens pointed out in 'God is not Great' When the Ayatollah Khomeini issued the fatwah against Salman Rushdie, the archbishop of Canterbury and the Chief Rabbi rushed to attack Rushdie for upsetting muslims, rather than doing the decent thing and roundly condemning the Ayatollah.
So if it's not other religions calling for Christmas to be renamed, then you have to assume that it's the 'Atheist and Secularist lobby'.
Athiests and secularists generally (and I can't speak for one single other atheist - we've not got a doctrine, that's kind of the point) enjoy Christmas - even, it has to be said, something of the "spiritual" side of it - in the sense of being with your family, showing love for other people and perhaps being a bit more charitable, rather than getting up early, going to draughty church and singing 'Away in a manger' (Actually I must say I quite like some hymns - but not that one, too much like a Pear's Soap commercial).
Not one single person I know, and certainly not the 'leading' secularist thinkers' - people like Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins - are calling for Christmas to be renamed. The very idea is just plain stupid. Neither is anyone calling for Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday to be renamed, Churches to be pulled down and the word 'Goodbye' to be outlawed, in an attempt to remove all traces of religion from our daily lives.
Notice how loaded the statement 'Christmas should be called Christmas because we are still a Christian country' is - it sort of implies that someone is trying to make us into a Muslim country or a Buddhist country and so of course, people get defensive about it.
So they've made up a target and got people - understandably - to shoot at it. However, that's still no justification for their headline. "Keeping" Christ in christmas is something that Theos and their religious backers are concerned about, but they're really in a tiny minority.
If you asked those same people which christmas symbols were the most important, they'd probably mention in something like this order: Christmas Trees, Father Christmas, Snowmen, Holly/Ivy/Mistletoe, none of which are in any way Christian. OK, you could just about argue that our very pagan Father Christmas is now synonymous with Saint Nicholas - Sinterklaas - Santa Claus, who was originally a bishop, but who actually knows that?
Christmas is a good thing, it's about love, family life, appreciation, good food, a sense that the winter is half over - all very nice things to celebrate. There's a nice fairy story to go along with it, and that's fine too. As long as you don't expect people to believe it. Practically nothing about the nativity is true, and can easily be shown to have been fabricated.
He wasn't likely to have been born in a stable, nor in Bethlehem (what sort of crappy census has to have everyone go back to the town in which they were born - what would be the point? Well anyway, it never happened, the Romans kept quite good records).
Mrs Christ only became a virgin 100s of years after he was born. Most of these 'facts' are all to either fit in with the legend of Mithras, who was the god of a rival religion very popular with Roman soldiers (a great demographic to have on your side) or so that an earlier prophesy about the jewish messiah could be said to fit the story of Jesus.
Their latest press release is entitled "The public vote to keep Christ in Christmas".
Which is stretching the truth more than a little. When you're creating a survey, there's always the chance that you introduce bias, so you have to be very careful about how you ask the questions. That is, if you want to be objective and don't have some kind of axe to grind. If, like Theos, you do have a very dull axe, then famously shown in an episode of 'Yes Minister', you can lead the person being surveyed right into the answer you want.
What about this survey? Well, they state "84 per cent of those interviewed disagreed with the statement that 'Christmas should be re-named to reflect our multi-cultural society'. 85% agreed that 'Christmas should be called Christmas because we are still a Christian country'."
What we keen arguers will recognise there is, of course, a 'straw man' argument - you make up a target which everyone can and will shoot down, instead of the real argument. No-one is actually calling for 'Christmas to be renamed". Some Americans do now say "happy holidays" - but it's purely a politeness thing, because at around the same time, Jews celebrate Chanukah and someone's invented a 'Black Christmas' festival - presumably out of pure spitefulness.
Muslims generally aren't offended by Christmas in the same way that Christians aren't offended by Ramadan, EID, Chanuka, the midsummer solstice or the Feast of St Obi Wan Kenobi. In fact, religous types are extremely wary of criticising each other's festivals and more extreme religous practices. As Christopher Hitchens pointed out in 'God is not Great' When the Ayatollah Khomeini issued the fatwah against Salman Rushdie, the archbishop of Canterbury and the Chief Rabbi rushed to attack Rushdie for upsetting muslims, rather than doing the decent thing and roundly condemning the Ayatollah.
So if it's not other religions calling for Christmas to be renamed, then you have to assume that it's the 'Atheist and Secularist lobby'.
Athiests and secularists generally (and I can't speak for one single other atheist - we've not got a doctrine, that's kind of the point) enjoy Christmas - even, it has to be said, something of the "spiritual" side of it - in the sense of being with your family, showing love for other people and perhaps being a bit more charitable, rather than getting up early, going to draughty church and singing 'Away in a manger' (Actually I must say I quite like some hymns - but not that one, too much like a Pear's Soap commercial).
Not one single person I know, and certainly not the 'leading' secularist thinkers' - people like Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins - are calling for Christmas to be renamed. The very idea is just plain stupid. Neither is anyone calling for Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday to be renamed, Churches to be pulled down and the word 'Goodbye' to be outlawed, in an attempt to remove all traces of religion from our daily lives.
Notice how loaded the statement 'Christmas should be called Christmas because we are still a Christian country' is - it sort of implies that someone is trying to make us into a Muslim country or a Buddhist country and so of course, people get defensive about it.
So they've made up a target and got people - understandably - to shoot at it. However, that's still no justification for their headline. "Keeping" Christ in christmas is something that Theos and their religious backers are concerned about, but they're really in a tiny minority.
If you asked those same people which christmas symbols were the most important, they'd probably mention in something like this order: Christmas Trees, Father Christmas, Snowmen, Holly/Ivy/Mistletoe, none of which are in any way Christian. OK, you could just about argue that our very pagan Father Christmas is now synonymous with Saint Nicholas - Sinterklaas - Santa Claus, who was originally a bishop, but who actually knows that?
Christmas is a good thing, it's about love, family life, appreciation, good food, a sense that the winter is half over - all very nice things to celebrate. There's a nice fairy story to go along with it, and that's fine too. As long as you don't expect people to believe it. Practically nothing about the nativity is true, and can easily be shown to have been fabricated.
He wasn't likely to have been born in a stable, nor in Bethlehem (what sort of crappy census has to have everyone go back to the town in which they were born - what would be the point? Well anyway, it never happened, the Romans kept quite good records).
Mrs Christ only became a virgin 100s of years after he was born. Most of these 'facts' are all to either fit in with the legend of Mithras, who was the god of a rival religion very popular with Roman soldiers (a great demographic to have on your side) or so that an earlier prophesy about the jewish messiah could be said to fit the story of Jesus.
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