The Atheist’s Guide to Christmas Read Online Free PDF

nothing I can do about it: it’s the one great truth, that we all die—you just have to accept it. I hope that when I do die, it’ll be at a point when I’m completely ready for it.
    I quite like the Atheist Bus Campaign slogan, “There’s probably no God.” I didn’t like it at first—I thought it was too nice. I thought they should have been harder, and wanted them to say, “There’s no God, so forget it! You’re living in a dream world!” But then it made sense to me, because probability is one of the things I really believe in, in a scientific sense. It’s quite healthy to have an open mind.
    Religion helps people cope with many things. It helps them deal with death. And I believe in marriage—I doubt the institution of marriage would have existed without religion. To some extent, religion has upheld essential morals and modes of behavior. There are some really important values in all religions.
    However, I think human beings go through different stages. As a child, you have someone looking after you. And then you start to break away from that, and eventually you achieve a degree of independence from your parents. Maybe humanity needed a parent and that was the part religion played. Maybe we’re at a stage now where we are growing up and ready to achieve a greater degree of independence.
    Although it’s very tempting to defer responsibility to God, I would like to see humanity taking responsibility for its own actions. There’s a certain bravery in standing up and saying, “We are alone, there’s no one looking after us.” It’s a kind of liberation.
    Despite having lost my faith, I still celebrate Christmas and I love church music. I go to church to listen to the music. But there’s a definite school of thought that says, “If you don’t believe it, you can’t celebrate it. If you don’t believe in God, you can’t have Christmas. Sorry—you’re excluded!”
    To me, it’s important that people can believe whatever they like. I’m a liberal; I’m just not religious. If someone else wants to believe in God, they have every right to. I always felt I had the right to believe when I was a Christian.
    Most atheists and agnostics feel the same way—we say, “Okay, if you want to believe that, that’s fine.” Everyone must discover and develop their own beliefs.
    Part of me would like there to be a God, because part of me wants there to be a parent looking after me. Someone to say, “Hey, it’s okay, it’s all under control. No matter how much you mess up, I’m here to save you.” That’s a very natural feeling, very normal. But on the other hand, I don’t think it’s enough. I’ve found I’m more responsible, freer, and more liberated living a life without God. And I love my freedom. I think we all overestimate our freedom. In reality, the freedom to think, to feel, and to experiment is one of the few freedoms we have left.

Chapter 7
Hark the Herald Villagers Sing
    Z OE M ARGOLIS
    My first encounter with religion was when I was six years old. At school one day, my teacher told me that I couldn’t be in the Christmas Nativity play because I wasn’t the “right religion.” I remember returning home, crying, devastated that all my friends were going to be having fun in rehearsals, and I would be left alone without their company at break time. And, more importantly—to a six-year-old wannabe actress—I would miss out on the fame and stardom from acting in the play, which was to be performed in front of the entire school. Not to mention not receiving the free sweets used as bribes by the staff for good behavior; I would do anything for a strawberry cream, me.
    Brought up in an atheist household, I didn’t understand what my teacher meant by “religion”: for some reason I thought it suggested I had the lurgy or that something was wrong with me. If I was the “wrong” religion, then surely I could try to become the “right” one and then be part of the school play?
    That