Posted on 12/24/2008 7:51:12 AM PST by Daffynition
Scientist and atheist Richard Dawkins has admitted he does celebrate Christmas - and enjoys singing traditional Christmas carols each festive season.
The writer and evolutionary biologist told singer Jarvis Cocker that he happily wishes everyone a Merry Christmas - and used to have a tree when his daughter was younger.
Dawkins, one of the most famous atheists in the world, was interviewed by Sheffield born Cocker when he stepped in as a Christmas guest editor on Radio Four's Today programme.
'I am perfectly happy on Christmas day to say Merry Christmas to everybody,' Dawkins said. 'I might sing Christmas carols - once I was privileged to be invited to Kings College, Cambridge, for their Christmas carols and loved it.
'I actually love most of the genuine Christmas carols. I can't bear Jingle Bells and Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer and you might think from that that I was religious, that I can't bear the ones that make no mention of religion. But I just think they are dreadful tunes and even more dreadful words. I like the traditional Christmas carols.'
Cocker, the former frontman for Britpop band Pulp, said he was also a fan of Christmas traditions.
'I am the same in a way,' he told Dawkins. 'I really like the kind of peripheral things about Christmas. I like the smell of tangerines and the smell of the tree and to pull crackers.'
Dawkins said his family had a typical Christmas celebration each year like so many others.
'We are not kill joys, we are not scrooges,' he said. 'We give each other presents and when my daughter was a bit younger we would have a tree. We don't now.
'We go to my sister's house for Christmas lunch which is a lovely big family occasion. Everybody thoroughly enjoys .....
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
enjoying the birthday party without acknowledging the host
That’s the dirty little secret of the anti-Christmas movement: Most non-Christians LIKE Christmas. Among the immigrant population around here, Christmas is usually the first local custom they adopt.
Hard of hearts? LOL!
I’m an atheist, and I’ve always enjoyed the secular aspects of Christmas. Holiday lights, gift-giving, Rankin-Bass animated specials, Christmas music...wonderful stuff! As for those who still celebrate the holiday in a religious sense, more power to you! Christmas is a “big tent” holiday, with room for all of us.
Maybe the winter-time celebration, is something inside people that is pre-Christian?
You’re right, it is a big holiday, that’s why I keep telling my wife the whole world takes a holiday on your birthday - 12/25
More evidence of Dawkin’s blindness.
I think so. It has certainly been celebrated pre-Christian. It is a bright spot in the middle of a dark season. Nothing wrong with that, and nothing wrong with tradition either.
“I’m an atheist..” ~ GL of Sector 2814
Are you sure you and Dawkins aren’t faking it? :)
Most materialists / atheists / strong agonistic mentalities are faking it. The proof? Few of them have the courage of their stated “convictions”:
“....When you have successfully demystified the world, your soul is officially dead. ....I’m trying to think of an example that even a materialist with a blunted sensibility might understand. For many people who have successfully demystified the world, the only time they are able to unwittingly appreciate the sacred is when they are directly confronted with it in its most vivid form: death, the birth of a child, marriage, etc.
Imagine being so spiritually insensate that you had the courage of your convictions and successfully drained the world of its sacred dimension. Upon the death of a loved one, you would simply put them in the garbage. After all, it’s just a sack of meat. The birth of a child would be no different than termites hatching in your backyard.
Marriage wouldn’t exist, because there would be no recognition of the sacred dimension of male and female sexuality.
Euthanasia would not just be legal, but mandatory, on grounds of common sense — as would the abortion of youth in Asia — as in China.
Believe it or not, there are people who more or less experience the world this way. But we do not call them “enlightened” or more in touch with reality than the rest of us. Rather, we call them schizoid or autistic. ..” ~ Gagdad Bob
Radical Wonder and the Remystification of the World http://onecosmos.blogspot.com/search?q=Radical+Wonder+and+the+Remystification+of+the+World +
Celebrating Christmas is evidence of blindness?
I’m afraid your view of atheists (as delineated by the words of Gagdad Bob), is naive. It’s akin to saying that all Christians must follow the Catholic tradition. There’s a lot of room between what Bob calls “Sacred” and treating everyone and everything like a sack of meat, with no meaning or value.
For those who do not acknowledge a specific “supreme being”, there is absolutely no reason why they can’t feel love, nurture their children, and show reverence for life.
Well posted. Merry Christmas to you. :)
wooooo... very interesting reading.
I’ll respect the Athiest world view, when I meet one that goes to work on Christmas day.
Everyone is born with a God shaped whole in their hearts, nothing else will fill it, athiests have it as well, but they just deny it.
Yup, and come December 26th they'll be back to bashing the host.
Atheism is not the denial of a SPECIFIC supreme being, its the denial of ANY sort of supreme being. Agnosticism is the denial of a specific supreme being. The two are not the same and are not interchangeable.
LOL...Then you should start now. I work tomorrow.
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