Virtual Belief: Why Christmas Matters, And Matters Not.

I often point out that I have no faith. This is not entirely true, actually, as I harbor a desire for a faith that I find allusive and in many, possibly indescribable ways, exclusive. Those who profess a belief in God are myriad in this country and the support, or at least fear, of a supreme being shows no sign of abatement. That's fine and ultimately non-controversial.

Those of us who either reject the very notion of God, or those, like me, who cannot begin to define God and thus don't feel equipped to know the mind of God, do not generally think of God people as "rational." And yet, we betray a certain childish pouting each time God and faith is discussed in the public arena. There are some Godless folk who, having observed the natural world, have concluded that a God is simply not necessary. The other major faction of Godless, I believe (and here I have no evidence, just an impression and some first-hand knowledge) is driven to a conclusion by an irrational impulse to rationality by circumstance. What I mean by this is that most non-believers I come across carry about a certain grievance that fuels their non-belief, or rather, an anti-belief.

Anti-believers tend to have at their core a set of their own beliefs that have disappointed them and left them wondering what the point of belief truly is. It might be a failed marriage, a "senseless" death, a life-long struggle to succeed or to battle addiction and the standard privations of normal human existence. These people don't believe not because they lack the capacity, but because they feel that their belief has not been rewarded by the Deity.

This is what I call Virtual Belief. Virtual Believers are of two distinct though related types. For the first type, it is a sort of psychological condition wherein the rationale for not believing is the fact that the God they once counted on has forsaken them. So, in a pirouette of spiritual dexterity, the unrequited faith turns to hostility and thence to bitterness. Which, in a load of irony completely missed, affirms their faith. The problem with this line of reasoning is that faith by definition is not a balance sheet. No Bible passage that I know of promises worldly success in exchange for belief.

Aha! says the non-believer, there's the catch. God promises everlasting life, and who knows if He'll ever come through with his part of the bargain? And by the way, there are plenty of church leaders and rank-and-file faithful who credit God with everything from "turning their life around" to finding the perfect parking space. Isn't this a blasphemy greater than any honest challenge?

So we find that belief may be transitory, based on circumstance or just plain old dumb luck. Those who believe, even though their lives still suck have an answer to this, but that only goes so far because there is a largely unspoken wager that if one believes long and hard and true enough, things will get better, which in turn reinforces the argument that faith is nothing more than betting on spiritual 22 at the roulette wheel of life.

This, admittedly, is written by a skeptic. I know many faithful who would, and do, shake their heads at what they perceive as a hostility to their faith. But it is not meant to be so. Instead, it is a desire to understand, not to merely accept. And to me, the best, truest way to understanding is to ask probing questions.

To too many faithful, the very presence of questions is a sign of a soul deeply in trouble. God, to them, should be and is above mere human scrutiny and the demanding of answers from God attempts to put the mortal on equal footing with creator. Why, I ask, would God be so intimidated by me as to cut off all debate? I'm just looking for a little clarification, here. Can't we all just get along?

If I have had enough wine, eventually this line of thinking will take me to its inevitably pathetic conclusion: It's not so much that I have no faith in God. I don't think that He has any faith in me. After all, He's God. It should be pretty easy, no?

The other type of Virtual Believer is that which entreats God to fix something. This Virtual Believer is in essence, "paying it forward." The thinking behind the belief is that sooner or later, if I pray right enough, if I really, really believe, God will do right by me. It's a spiritual bribe. I can't say if it works, but that kind of believer gets under my skin more than any other, because it suggests that it is the failure to sufficiently appease God that is the cause of human suffering. This also serves to reinforce the argument that Heaven was created as a palliative to the masses in order to keep them satisfied with their lot. "My reward will be in Heaven" is another way of saying that I ain't gettin' mine here. The idea of worldly success as a manifestation of God's grace is a Jewish concept. Since Jews do not believe in an afterlife, doing and making good on earth was God's will made solid. This was rejected by Christians and has been interpreted as either a correction or the aforementioned opiate to numb a skeptical flock.

Based on what we learn from our spiritual leaders and teachers, it's not wholly irrational to think of belief in terms of divine intervention. After all, Judeo-Christianity is based on a series of miraculous events. Christmas is a Miracle. Hanukkah is a Miracle. So too Passover and Easter. (This brings to mind one of my favorite line from Moonstruck. When Loretta is informed of the miracle of her intended mother-in-law's escape from death, she says, "This is modern times! There ain't supposed to be no miracles.") If the entirety of our faith is based on miracles and the intervention of God on our behalf, why not set up a scorecard and see who's favored most?

A few days ago I got a link from a reader to this post which stakes some ground in the Christmas War currently and perpetually in vogue. I also, by way of Jack found this which seems to take the contra position, but does it in a way that suggests that only one side has bothered to show up for battle.

First, from The American Thinker:

The intense mania of the anti-Christmas crowd, a mania that leads them to do things that even they must realize will appear ridiculous, but nonetheless are driven, Ahab-like, to do, betrays a rabid hatred and, above all, a fear. Fear is the crucial motivating factor, and fear is the heart of the matter. Not fear of Santa, or of pretty crèches, nor even of Religion. The fear is of Christ, and, I dare say, all He represents. It is Him they hate. And it is Him they wish to do away with.

Now pennywit would stop and ask something like, "Is there really an intense mania at work that wishes to do away with Christ?" Of course, he would do it in a much more sarcastic way, but you get the point. For his part, pennywit points out the absurdity of wailing about the White House's Holiday Cards by asking that if Joe Lieberman was president, would he send all his goyishe friends Hanukkah cards? I would counter by saying that Christians like the writer above are intensely disappointed whenever this president does anything that might run counter to the expectation that he lead a Billy Graham-like presidency. But I would also point out that if I got a Happy Hanukkah card from Senator Lieberman, that would be fine with me.

Truly, calling a Christmas tree a Holiday tree is like calling a Menorah a Holiday candelabra, but sending general seasonal greetings is a tradition that has stood for some time now and is meant by its practice to acknowledge the fact that we are in a holiday season, that the sender wants to extend good wishes and that includes religious and heathen alike.

But the writer in The American Thinker, Andrew Sumereau, does not take offense to the so-called war on Christmas at all, in fact he gives the impression that he revels in it. What gets him fired up is the supposed insistence by the media and by business to water Christmas down to what he terms "some vague and condescendingly meaningless 'holiday season.'" Well, pish-tosh. What a load of bunk. Sumereau here is now offended by the lack of something. Meaning, I think, that if someone were to wish him Happy Holiday, maybe because they do not know if he was a Christian, they are now trouncing upon his cherished Wondrous Season. And by God, he had better hear a Merry Christmas from the clerks at Target! Incidentally, just this morning I caught a Target commercial that ended in a Merry Christmas screen. So there.

Thus we see that those who would decry the commercialization of their holiday are now angry that there isn't more commercialization.

Mr. Sumereau has his points as he counts as absurd the banning of even the most secular Christmas Carols from public schools. I often wondered what the Jewish kids in the choir or band thought as they practiced for the upcoming Christmas concerts when we were kids. Did they find the whole thing a bit odd? And if they did, were they offended? I suspect not, and I suspect that to this day there are still all fine despite the endless torture of having to sing Silent Night twice a day for three months.

In his essay, pennywit contends that the war on Christmas is a bogus scheme and goes about driving a stake of holly through the heart of those insisting that Christmas is doomed in the public square. Mr Sumereau asks that his faith be respected and not made to seem offensive. I'm inclined to agree and disagree with both.

There is indeed a certain faction that is officially offended by Christmas. But this is a small percentage of the population, although they have been the loudest in past years and as such, had the luxury of playing in an open field without the Sumereaus to call them on it. That is switching and may in years hence find some sort of balance.

I may be wrong, but I suspect that Mr Sumereau is a Virtual Believer of the second kind. One can hardly blame him. Maybe all the stories of miracles, or of Christmas wishes coming true or men's and Grinch's hearts warming and growing has caused his expectations to grow, also. But what he misses is that Christmas is not what is uttered to him, but what he sends out to others. Christmas, we are told, is to be held in the heart, not on the tongue. There very well may be someone, somewhere instructed not to wish Mr Sumereau a Merry Christmas, but there is no one anywhere who is prohibiting him from doing so.

And this is why Christmas matters, and matters not.

As the marking of the birth of the Christian Savior, and thus the birth of a great religion, Christmas inhabits the hearts of the faithful beyond mere phrases and symbols and calls all those with the intention to hear to come worship. What we know of Christmas as holiday rather than holy day is really a Victorian construct and is connected just enough to faith so that possibly we, too, may partake of a morsel of God's good will. It matters not that we are wished a Merry Christmas, but that we wish it for others. It matters that each year some of us are called by faith or myth or good intention to do good and wish well. It matters not from where this impulse comes, but that it happens at all.

Those griping that there is too much Christmas, or not enough, are each teetering on a slender belief that there is a right or wrong amount of Christmas, or a prescribed way to go about it.

I don't know anymore exactly what Christmas is, but I do know that it is not defined by a certain phrase or greeting, or a certain playlist of tunes, although for me, for now at least, that'll do. Perhaps one day it will be different, perhaps it never will. But you see, it doesn't matter how I keep my Christmas to anybody but me. And that is precisely why, ultimately, it matters greatly.

Comments

[Maggie]

I sent an e-mail out to many friends in my address book...to Christians and to those of the Jewish faith. My request was that if they knew what a person celebrated, to wish them the appropriate greeting. No where does it say that as a Christian, I cannot wish a Jewish friend, Happy Hanukkah.

It signals that I acknowledge their religious belief and that I respect their belief, albeit different from mine.

As a city girl, born and raised in the Big Apple, I learned the street smarts that you always take out the "big guy" first...then the little ones fall into line.

I consider the removal of the very word Christmas and the removal of religious aspects (i.e. creches and carols) as an attack on the "big guy" (Christianity).

I prefer not to see this country become France and outlaw crosses, yarmulkes, and hajibs from our public schools. Secularists believe the removal of all religion will bring peace....we in this country have lived Christian and Jew side by side peacefully for decades. I believe the removal of religion will bring a deterioration of the moral society as we have known it.

But, of course, we could do what has been suggested this week and tax porn (ala taxing fast food) and may the number of degenerates would decline as do our waistlines.

[Brian Macker]

Maggie,

Did you mean "some secularists"? I know many "secularists" and none of them believe that "removal of all religion will bring peace". I imagine the percent that do is vanishingly small. You are not very careful in you writing and I am not sure this represents your actual thinking or not.

BTW they do tax porn, and I don't think it has reduced the number of "degenerates", whoever you define that. Why would you expect that to happen? Perhaps you were not being clear on this either and you meant to tax porn at some exorbitant rate?

Perhaps since you are into the government controlling our sex lives you might be in favor of a welfare system for males? Obviously males have a greater need for sex that is not being provided. Perhaps a tax on women in the form of pro-bono work is in order. ;)

I am also wondering where you get this notion that men wanting sex is degenerate. Do you think women looking at clothes they cannot afford in catalogs is degenerate? How about clothes that don't fit. If that analogy isn't close enough for you then how about going to the store to try clothes on that one cannot afford, or don't fit.

Do little girls that use stick ponys and spring horses bother you? After all they are not only entertaining a fantasy that they will most likely never enjoy, owning a pony, but they are actually, horrifying as it is, deriving pleasure from an inanimate object. What about riding stables, where you rent a horse. That's sort of like the bunny ranch in Nevada isn't it. :( I think PETA would agree.

He, he...

Regards,
Brian

[Brian Macker]

We atheist don't consider your "virtual believers" to be atheists. They are in fact theists in every sense of the word. You can have them.

I think you are confused perhaps by the statement "I don't believe in god". I run into a significant number of believers who get confused on this issue due to equivocation on the meaning of the word "believe". The word has several meanings, and many religious people get stuck on the definitions that means "to have confidence and trust in". They think that when I say I do not believe in god that I think god exists but just don't have confidence in the fellow. This is the meaning that should be used to mean those who are pissed at god, or find his works lacking but still believe he exists.

When I say that I don't believe in god I am using a different meaning of the word "believe". I am using the meaning "to accept as true or real". You see I think that your god is make believe like Santa Claus.
You also state: "These people don't believe not because they lack the capacity, but because they feel that their belief has not been rewarded by the Deity."

People who self identify as non-believers are of the latter and not the former kind as much as theists want to stick them in the former category. It's not that we hate god, we really don't think he exists, and for some conceptions of god we know he doesn't exist as much as we know square-circles don't exist.

I know of no of absolutely no atheists that don't believe in God because they "lack the capacity". I don't believe because there is no credible evidence that a God does exist, if there was credible evidence then I would believe. I am not like a dog or a rock. Those would be properly classified as not having the capacity.

BTW, I don't care whether Christmas is celebrated publicly or not. In fact I think Santa Claus is very instructive on the nature of God and serves as a good object lesson in theology. That along with the Easter Bunny and Leprachans.

What I did find offensive in school was being force to pray, or to say the national anthem with the inserted "under god" phrase. It's quite intimidating to have authority figures requiring you to tow the line when you're six or seven years old, when you think they are off their rockers. Especially when they hold the power to give you grades which effect your life in quite profound ways.

Singing Christmas songs about imaginary red-nosed reindeer and jolly snowmen isn't really that offensive to us non-believers. No more so than singing about rubber tree plants. What is offensive is forcing us to take oaths to imaginary beings. If you stuck "under Frosty" in our anthem and there was a history of burning people at the stake for not believing in Frosty then you can be sure I would find that offense. If not I would only find it laughable. I don't find anything inherently offensive about cross burning either, except for the historical message and quite real threat involved.

I also don't like having "In God We Trust" on our money either, but I am not likely to protest about it. It just isn't on the top of my list of bad behavior on the part of Christians, and it is bad behavior.

I only wish Christians would get a chance to live in an alternate universe where they are force to go to schools where the explicitly teach in the non-existence of gravity, and are cracked over the knuckles by flat earthers for questioning the idea that the world is flat. Then they might understand how wrong they are. I think that wish is in vain however. It is plain to see that there are parts of the world where exactly this has happened, communist countries. The Christians can see it is wrong but just can't do the moral arithmetic to see that it's wrong when they do it also.

[Daniel]

Brian,

I think that you and I are talking about different things, here. I don't think that Virtual Believers are atheists at all. In fact, I say that their quasi-non-belief in itself affirms their belief. That was my point.

I wrote some time ago that telling me that I was going to hell because I didn't believe was rather funny because I would only be worried if I believed in God and Hell. It would be like telling me that I am about to burst into flames because I don't believe in unicorns.

I'd love to go further, and I will, but my head is still fuzzy and I want to rest the brain.

[Brian Macker]

Daniel,

I saw that you stated that virtual believers were not atheists at all. I didn't miss that point. The problem is that there are many theists that claim there are no such things as atheists, just god-haters that wish to do evil. The fact that you labeled your " "virtual believers"" as non-believers then stated they were truly believers is not helpful in this regard. This is confusing. Why label them non-believers? I did not believe that you were doing this intentionally.

Of course, I was speculating as to how you arrived at the decision to write as you did and took a stab at a response. If I was talking to you in person I would just ask you what you actually intended because of the instantaneous response time. However in this medium I tend to assume some interpretation and then respond to that. It saves me time, and frankly I like to bloviate on my own concerns anyway even if I got the interpretation wrong.

So if misunderstood you, as Rosana-ana-dana says, "never mind".

Sorry about your head, and hope you feel better.

BTW, I also disagree with your statements about expectations from God. Given some definitions of God I think it perfectly reasonble to expect that natural disasters should not be killing babies, or that he not drown everyone on the planet because he gets in a pissy mood.

Leviticus also gives us clear and ample evidence that from a historical perspective that the expectation of theists was "God as favor grantor". The entire chapter is devoted to blood sacrafice and how god loves the "sweet savor" of fresh roast meat on the altar. In fact the entire Cain and Able spat was over the issue of vegtables as sacrafice or meat. You will also find evidence there that God hates cripples and men who have been injured to the testicles as they are banned from going anywhere near the altar, and are of sanctity and apparently bribery.

Much of Exodus is also interpretable as god granting favors to the Jews over the Egyptians. As are many of the miricles of Christ. If giving the blind person back their sight, or a cripple the use of there legs, is not a favor then I don't know what is.

If you think that is merely historical then don't forget present day faith healers, football team pre-game prayers, and the like.

BTW, as far as I know Jews do believe in an afterlife of sorts, it just different the angelic paradise of the Christians or the sexually hedonistic one of the Muslims. Originally both Christian and Muslim afterlifes being places with corporial bodies, although some sects now play that down.

I had the Jewish afterlife explained to me once by a hasidic Jew and I don't know if every sect is the same or not. It's sort of like a place you go where you exist in the light of your achievements or the shame for your trespasses. He didn't mention any physical body but it was clear that your "spirit" lived on.

[pennywit]

A stake of holly?

Good post here, though. I, for one, marvel at one more irony. One upon a time, a certain religious leader drove moneychangers out of a temple. Now, a certain religion's followers seem eager to bring the temple to the moneychangers.

Happy holidays.

--|PW|--