I was always meaning to ask this....I can't help but wonder if they do or not??


I lived beside an athiest, and weird thing was...he had his christmas tree up and I saw him out christmas shopping...thought it was strange!!!

Oh yeah, I've also wondered. Though I just can't come up with an answer. I mean come on. They're just making up an excuse for buying presents. Since christians celebrate christmas, shouldn't athiests have some sort of wierd holiday? Where they can slack off, and buy presents?

Yea they are called -- Birthdays

I have a friend who was born in communist bulgaria where religion was not allowed and she is an athetist as a result. She celebrates Christmas, not because of the religious connotations but because Bulgarians are very traditional. They see Christmas as a traditional getting together of the family of which they embrace.

Hmmmmmm....even the athiests are united because of the accomplishments of religion, pretty cool

I find it really strange how everyone has kinda adopted Christmas & all the trimmings as their own holiday. And yes, I am aware that the tree etc all have pagan historical significance... but these people (that I know) actually celebrate Christmas (minus the Christian stuff).

I used to work in company in which everyone else was Muslim. They had a big Christmas party with santa hats and a tree and presents etc.

Partly because muslims accept Jesus as a great prophet, may I point out

Thats true..from what I hear

You see all the time Muslims taking their kids to sit on Santas Lap. Its all about tradition and exceptance. You dont have to believe in the religion behind something to respect the fun and happiness that it brings. Im sure its hard to children to come to this country and see all their mates getting toys from Santa while they get nothing. Now that I think of it, they probably dont associate Santa with christianity at all due to the bastardisation of santa by commerical companies.

I'm not an athiest, and I don't celebrate christmas

Im not an athiest but I celebrate Christmas, but for all the wrong reasons. I love being able to buy people gifts and too see how pleased it makes them. Oh and for my mums christmas roast!

This atheist does, but not as the birth of Jesus. It's just a traditional holiday to me. It started out as a celebration of the winter solstice, then the Christians "borrowed" it and turned it into Christmas, and now a lot of it is pretty secular. So, I don't have any problems celebrating this time of year.

Yes, lets all forget about all the pain and suffering that humans have gone through because of lies...

i always thought that each religion had its own holidays. Like Christians have Christmas, Pagans celebrate the solstices, and i as a satanist celebrate Walpurgisnacht (april 30) i never thought about atheists until one of my friends whos an atheist invited me to a christmas party. i thought that was kinda weird.

First of all, please Rambo, I don't want to start an arguement in this thread too, so just let me make my point. I'd just like to point out that religion has only become a source of pain and power in the hands of MEN. That's all I have to say. Thank you, come again.

yeah, im atheist, and i celebrate christmas. for most of the reasons stated by rachealM, but also because, even though i dont believe jesus was anything special, his philosophies of peace are noteable.(even though his followers didnt stay peaceful)

What is Walpurgisnacht and why do you celebrate it. Oh and how do you go about celebrating it. I know absolutly nothing about satanism, so if there is a site you would like to give me instead that would be ace.

I like people that always ask questions, congrats. If you never ask, you'll never know

Walpurgisnacht: April 30th, Day of lust and indulgence. also in Germany Walpurgisnacht is the night when allegedly the witches hold a large celebration on the Blocksberg and await the arrival of Spring. Also it was on Walpurgisnacht in 1966 when Anton LaVey founded the Church of Satan

Also another big holiday for us is all hallows eve or halloweeen. that is a day when we (or at least i) settle all score, take revenge on those who wronged us

Perhaps they don't even view Christmas as a religious holiday, like many people do these days.

You have to admit, in some areas Christmas (or X-mas) has become less about Jesus, and more about getting gifts from Santa for no apparent reason.

some consider april fools day the athiests holiday.

I am an atheist and yes, I do like to exchange gifts. Though I do like to give more then I receive...It's just nice to see that look in someone's eyes when you really got them something they truly wanted.

Christmas is more of a store gimmick than a religous holiday nowadays. That is why we celebrate Ukrainian Christmas.

If I where an athiest, I wouldnt celebrate christmas...because I wouldnt believe in Jesus..therefore i wouldnt be celebrating his birthday...too many tend to forget the true meaning of christmas...and think its just an excuse to exchange pressies...

i thought that they proved jesus's birthday was in the spring, like around easter? and we just celebrated christmas as his birthday out of habit cuz we did it for so many years before we found that out

Actually, I've heard that the reason that December 25th was chosen as Christmas was that that day used to be a Pagan holiday and the church wanted to phase them out. I can't find a link right now.

As to the topic, yes I'm an atheist and I celebrate Christmas. I mainly do it because the entire rest of my family is Christian, so I get gifts from them around the holidays, and I send gifts, in addition to the fact that I like the little non-religious traditions. I don't see it as celebrating Jesus's birthday (half the Christians that celebrate Christmas aren't celebrating Jesus's birthday anyway), I see it as celebrating togetherness and having a time to relax.

I remember reading this as well. It had something to do with Christians making their way into the British Isles. They merged the two faiths together (paganism? not a PC word I know but I dont know what else to call it and Christianity) to make it more acceptable to the inhabitants. For instance you dont have to give up (insert festival here) we have that too only we call it (insert here) but its the exact same thing. Only now you have to call it such and such.

Excuse me, but I don't believe calling people idiots because you don't agree with them is a good thing to do.

That sounds kind of like what I heard

Well sorry if our ignorance on a belief system we dont know anything about but which we are in the processing of discussing irritates you. I dont appreciate being called an idiot when I am trying to broaden my horizons.

That being said, I always thought X-mas was done because some people were lazy sods and didnt want to spend the time to write the whole thing. Or maybe it was supposed to be long armed, long legged cross.

I sure do love the pressies. I love to give give give. It such a warm tingly feeling setting up the tree and drinking yourself under the tree and then waking up thenext afternoon at 3pm to trudge into the lounge room to open all those pressies!

I wasn't talking about anyone from this board.

Oh well sorted. :

Well, you were still calling people idiots!
Also, people say things like "Have a happy holiday season!" because they don't want to offend people with different belief systems. I think it is commendable to try not to make people feel left out. Some people I've heard talking ask things like "Why can't they just say 'Merry Christmas'?" or they say that it's all "PC crap"
Has anyone else noticed that "Politically Correct" has become a derrogatory term? What's wrong with not offending people?

i dont buy into all that politicaly correctness. freedom of speech!!! lol

there was a place in time, not too long ago when people were polite and respected others. They wanted to include their friends of different faiths in their celebrations. So generic holiday cards were born.

I think that Pc has become negative because its goon off its head. I have several american black friends whom I insisted on calling them Afrian-Americans because that how I had been taught to address them in a respectful manner. He told me Im been an american for 6 generations Im not an Afrian. I think this example shows how when we take something an run with it, it loses its impact.

This may have made no sense, Im very tired.

That reminds me, has anyone noticed that in Population listings for countires other than America, black people are listed as African American? Like this:
Czech Republic. Percent African American: 12% (Made that number up)
When really it should be 0% and 12% African-Czech or something.
Though not every black person ever descended from Africa.

Anyway, I think people should be allowed to celebrate anything they want, as long as they're not hurting anyone.

Amen!

santa has nothing to do with religion when it comes to what a small child thinks.Are we really gonna come down on atheists for getting together once a year with there family to give gifts.thinking that atheists are weird for celebrating a day of giving,is weird thinking in itself...

i have nothing against it, im just saying that before last christmas i didnt know atheists celebrated christmas and it kinda caught me off guard

I'm not an atheist and I don't celebrate christmas...

Don't see the point, really.

Reasons:

1. Spending time with family

I see enough of them already.

2. Buying presents

Material goods changing hands every season. End up with a whole stack of stuff. Why not use the money for something useful? Also a true bond of loyalty is unaffected by such trivial things.

3. Religious reasons

Stuff religion (no offence to believers). Religions are human constructs.

My Dad liked Christmas, because it gave him time to spend with us kids. He liked the lights, the tree, Santa stuff, the food, the shopping and showing his love for us by picking out just the right gift. Being an atheist he ignored all the religious stuff. When you live in the land of ice and snow you need a winter holiday otherwise you would go nuts. Christmas is a good all around holiday to get ones mind off the eat-work-sleep of everyday life. Lets hope the christians don’t spoil it.

I celebrate the Solstice; I open most of my gifts on the 21st of December. My tree has moons, suns, stars and faeries on it. I put up a light pentagram in my yard. My neighbors have no idea what it is. They think it is a Christmas star.

Naw, they don't celebrate Christmas, they celebrate a "Non-specific Winter Holiday". If you don't believe me, ask Larry the Cable Guy, he has a great routine on the matter!

I KNOW you are not calling anyone here an idiot....I think you are talking about those who are offended by a chrsitian holiday...I have read about this and saw it on the news last year...how a lot of people who had moved to the UK (muslims ect) who DONT celebrate christimas...so they are offended by it....they have had christmass banned from certain areas....this did kick up a huge storm...it got to the stage where lil kiddies where not to see Santa in the high street malls....you wernt allowed to sing christmas carols....they even got rid of the christmas 1st class stamp....the list goes on

They demanded for the council to take down the christmas tree's and colored lights ....and put up white lights...calling them...winter festival lights.....and they re-named the holidays -- Happy Winter Fest!!!!.... not the athiests...nooo...the foreigners where responcible for this...

A much better question would be, "Why don't Christians celebrate Jewish holidays?" Your savior even celebrated Hanukah, which was relatively new at the time. They call it the "Feast of Dedication". I have heard the b.s. argument that Jesus "sealed" the Jewish holidays, but there is not one shred of evidence for this in the n.t. When the religion was remanufactured as a tool of oppression by the roman emperors Constantine and Theodosius, they wanted to distance themselves from the despised Jews as much as possible, reworking Eostra and Saturnalia and all major Pagan holidays into xian holidays. Whenever possible, they declared Jewish fast days to be feast days, and vice versa, and concocted the current weird way of calculating Easter, so they wouldn't have to use the hated Jewish calendar. The Jehovah's Witnesses, who, in my opinion, are the closest thing to real Xians like Jesus taught, are the only ones even close. They discard all xian pagan holidays, and do something on the Friday during Passover. At least this would be an attempt to keep up with the Jews. Just like all xians, mormons and muslims, they are wanna be Jews. "Oh, we are the chosen people now." Makes me want to vomit.

Atheists and Christmas



I knew a couple that were both Atheists. I remember the wife , when I asked of her long ago; what do Atheists believe, looked at me as if confused, pondered for a moment and then turned to her husband and said; ask him, he's even more Atheist than I am! Yet and neither of them could give me a definition for why they were so.

They also celebrated christmas. Because family was not atheist and because they themselves happened to love to open wrapped gifts! No, I'm not kidding. I can just imagine if all these years later they had kids. Kid goes to school; so why are you an atheist little Johnny? No idea, but my parents said I gotta.

Why atheists celebrate Christmas - CHristmas has been commercialised. Simple as that. It is no longer seen as a religious holiday. The recent Christmases where councils got rid of all religious references in order to be politically correct should make that clear if nothing else does

Merry Christmas Happy Holidays!

Regards, PA

Yup, yup yup. Excuse for kids to get out o school, getting presents, looking at porn....... anyway. I'm not going to have a merry christmas, cuz kaknelson changes his avatar back

porn? wtf, lol

anyway i agree its now a commercialized day.

"HAPPY NON-DENOMINATIONAL GIFT EXCHANGE DAY"

That's men for ya

lol porn for Christmas?? wtf

I don't get any presents for christmas Hell, even porn's better than nothin right