Every year, for the past 60 years, Santa Monica has been home to Nativity displays along its Palisades Park, overlooking the beach. The scenes are built on 14 individual lots, each one sponsored by a local church or other organization who had entered the city raffle for the spots.
This year, several atheist groups, including Atheists United, put their names into the raffle and ended up winning all but three of the spots. As a result, Palisades Park this year has three scenes related to the Christmas story, a giant menorah made out of PVC piping and spray-painted gold and a bunch of signs like this one that tells everyone who believes there is a God that they are a bunch of morons:
The whole thing has gotten a bunch of attention, including an article in the New York Times.
If Thomas Jefferson said it, it must be true.
“Just the other day, I was walking down the street and I saw a sign that said all religions were based on myths and I thought to myself, maybe everything I’ve ever believed is just a fabrication and I should really reconsider the world view I’ve held sacred for my entire life.”
I’m going to go out on a limb here and say those words have been spoken zero times in the last month that these displays have been up. Actually, I would probably say that number of people that signs proclaiming God is a myth have converted is probably equivalent to the number of Nativity scenes that have converted atheists to the path of righteousness.
Someone might protest and say, “But Jason! Those signs aren’t there to convert believers. We put those there to stand up for the rights of atheists! We’re tired of these oppressive Nativity scenes popping up every year!”
Behold! Grand Inquisitor Fake Baby Jesus! If you do not bow to him, he will throw you in one of Santa Monica's myriad underground dungeons whither religious prisoners of all kinds go and are never heard from again.
I grew up in Santa Monica. You can’t throw a stone in Santa Monica without hitting someone who considers him or herself an atheist, or at least agnostic. I know because I spent most of my childhood throwing rocks at people who passed by my house.
Santa Monica is actually a community that is generally tolerant of people with a wide variety of religious (or anti-religious) beliefs. It’s a safe place to stand up for your rights and voice your opinion. No one is going to ostracize you if you proclaim loudly that there is no God. I know, because when I wasn’t throwing rocks, I would often go around shouting about the eternal void that awaits all of us after death.
I was a weird kid.
Santa Monica’s Nativity scenes are not exactly the world’s biggest threat to religious freedom, nor are the suburban, liberal Christian churches who put them up every year. I think perhaps people like the Ayatollah in Iran might have an edge in that category. Or the late, beloved Leader Kim Jong-Il. With so many legitimate threats to religious and political freedom in the world, it comes across as just kind of stupid to attack a bunch of chintzy, decorated mannequins.
Though, I might accept an argument that the atheists were just trying to save us all from the threat of gauche.
So, what do the anti-Nativity displays in the park actually accomplish, if they aren’t converting people nor really doing anything to seriously advance religious freedom in the world?
“Daddy, why are they saying Santa Claus is a myth?”
Well, these signs have definitely help raise the community of atheists to a level of equality, certainly. I now consider them more than ever equal to those annoying guys in ties who come to my house in the middle of the day and ask me if I have seen the light and then, when I tell them that I belong to the esoteric sect of Zoroastrianism, they just look at me funny and tell me I’m going to hell.
I’m not really Zoroastrian. Are there even still Zoroastrians?
To be perfectly honest, I’m not sure whether there is a divine creator-being that exists beyond our realm of comprehension. I was raised a devout lapsed Catholic by parents who are not much more religious than apparently ol’ Tommy J was, according to the signs.
If we are going to solve this debate once and for all, we should ask someone who knows for sure whether or not God exists.
Oh, wait. We can’t do that, because THERE ARE NO SUCH PEOPLE IN THE WORLD.
No one can say with absolute certainty that there is or there isn’t a God, because pretty much by its very definition God is not a thing that can be understood or discerned in our physical world. Believing with certainty that God does not exist requires as much a leap of faith as saying that it does.
“But, Jason! Science!”
Science can prove and disprove a lot of things, like the fact that the world isn’t actually about 4 billion years old (and not 6,000), though I have to say, she doesn’t look a day over 3 billion, and the Red Sea probably wasn’t parted by Charlton Heston. Though if anyone could part the Red Sea, he damn well would be the one. But science isn’t equipped with the tools necessary to answer the larger, metaphysical questions that have been debated by philosophers and theologians for centuries, like whether or not such a thing as a soul exists or if Kelly Clarkson is, in fact, the greatest American Idol of all time.
“But Jason, you do realize that you’re condemning these atheists for being preachy by writing a long, preachy rant, right?
Ok, fair point.
But I get it. We all have opinions and we all want to say them and because the people who founded this country believed that everyone was born with rights endowed by their creator to say whatever the hell they want, atheists can go ahead and put up signs that say religion is stupid at Christmas time.
It is definitely their right, of which no state nor individual can ever deprive them.
It’s also my right to think they are annoying.
{ 9 comments… read them below or add one }
“No one can say with absolute certainty that there is or there isn’t a
God, because pretty much by its very definition God is not a thing that
can be understood or discerned in our physical world”
you, me, scientist, atheist and even the religious agree with that statement. But we all have to come to some agreement of how we should live with each other.
the problem is that religious people know in their heart that god exist, and further more they know how we should live because the god told them how. the same god whose existence we all agreed can’t proven one way or the other.
and, they think they deserve a privileged position in society because they are able to communicate with a god who by its very definition cannot be understood or discerned in our physical world.
atheist aren’t interested in denying their right to believe what they want, we just feel that when it comes to deciding how we should live with each other everyone should have an equal say.
also, the displays it help preventing the brainwashing of young people who should grow up realizing that as far as we know jesus is no different from santa, leprechauns or superman.
I like your laid back approach to this topic, I can tell you really don’t seem to have a dog in this fight. As an atheist, who is himself weary of atheists being too vocal, and garnering the ire of people like yourself, I think there is a fine line between enlightening people and annoying people. I do agree with these atheist groups that Christianity is a harmful myth; much like the early Christians believed paganism was a harmful myth, and that potential irony is not lost on me. But if in the future there was a system of thinking that could show that both theism and atheism were harmful to human progress, I would get behind that new system. As a physicist, I look for the simplest explanation of the phenomena that I observe, and in every case the idea of a god intervening has been so far, superfluous to our understanding of the universe. Does that mean gods do not exist? No, but it is an impediment to our understanding and to our progress. I know I share the minority opinion; some atheists want us to be one of those vocal minorities, and some are content to remain in the shadows. My hope is that people become more understanding of our position, not turned off by those looking to make you feel stupid. Remember, most atheists feel that believing in God is like believing in Santa Claus. Imagine if all your adult peers still believed in Santa Claus, you would be angry at times too.
You have two big errors. First, Atheists United did not enter the raffle. When the winners offered us a spot, we accepted and put up the messages of love and good wishes. The more confrontational messages are not ours.
Second, what makes you think that atheists have some absolute certainty that there is no god of any kind? Atheism is a lack of belief in any god. As I don’t believe in a tea kettle orbiting the moon, I have no certainth that none exists. As Penn Jillette says, correctly, that to be an atheist “all you have to be able to say is ‘I don’t know.’”
I apologize for the confusion. I meant to refer to American Atheists. I’ll try to get that fixed.
I can be just as loud and annoying as a stereotypical “atheist activitist” but I try to do it when it counts. While this has gathered a lot of attention, it’s not the type the majority of the atheists would have liked to see. I think the better, more supported stance would have been to festively decorate each display to represent something that celebrates this time of year.
You know how us atheists get death threats all the time online? And then some theist scolds them. This is that, in reverse. I’m all for getting the message out there, but you really don’t have to be so tacky in the process my fellow atheists.
I notice all the atheist’s displays are in protective plywood and wire fence enclosures. Were the Christian displays likewise protected? And if not, why not?
I try not to meddle with the beliefs of others. Some people need to have an invisible sky-buddy to help them through life’s journey; I do not. I was raised in a family of non-believers, surrounded by hostile and aggressive Christians. We celebrated Christmas every year, partly to avoid standing out, but partly because as an allegory the Christmas story is a positive one.
I just wish Christ’s “followers” would try to be a little more like Christ.
All the displays were protected, including the Christian ones.
I am so pleased to see Americans who don’t believe in the various Godly fantasies. For a while I wasn’t sure if there were any. Jesus is an interesting study. Christians would believe that there was a God who was into child sacrifice – having his son crucified – not unlike the other primitive cultures that Christians would otherwise dismiss.
How extraordinary that Christians believe that a god would come to earth, live for 30 years prior to passing on any words of wisdom, then die 3 years later not having written even a single word. Why would he bother coming to earth for such a short time rather than hanging around for a few thousand years to guide those who would not believe the gobbledegook?
Then in the absence of Godly proof, this nasty god would have people suffer eternally in hell. How do Christians consider this to be a compassionate, forgiving or loving God?
Happy solstice and enlightenment to all.
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