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.