In Springfield, Ill., this year, the Freedom From Religion Foundation erected its winter solstice display at the state capitol. The declaration reads:
"At this season of the winter solstice, may reason prevail. There are no gods, no devils, no angels, no heaven or hell. There is only our natural world. Religion is but myth and superstition that hardens hearts and enslaves minds."
Not quite Karl Marx's "religion is the opium of the people," but still, harsh words for such a joyous time of year. Yet, it's hardly surprising. As the British satirist Sir Jonathan Wolfe Miller once remarked, "In some awful, strange, paradoxical way, atheists tend to take religion more seriously than the practitioners."
The winter solstice sign is noticeable not just for its aggressive, angry atheism, but for its location. It sits in the capitol alongside a Christian nativity scene, a Jewish menorah, a bizarre presentation by the American Civil Liberties Union and, finally, a comment from the Friends of Festivus, a real group celebrating a fictional holiday that was invented by a fictional television character, Frank Costanza.
If anything can zap the solemn reverence right out of a sacred holy day, it's surely a "Seinfeld" reference.
This hodgepodge of political, astrological, religious and pop-cultural statements at the capitol may look and sound ridiculous - but it isn't funny. And it isn't the only one of its kind.
A federal judge has allowed the Arkansas Society of Freethinkers to display a four-sided sign honoring the winter solstice and famous atheists throughout time alongside a traditional Christian Nativity scene at the Little Rock capitol.
When Arkansas Secretary of State Charlie Daniels originally rejected the Freethinkers' homage to godlessness, saying it wasn't "consistent" with the other displays, the society sued, insisting it didn't want to silence religion - it just sought "inclusion."
Well isn't that nice. Touchy-feely words like "inclusion" and "tolerance" may sound cuddly, especially at Christmastime, but in some situations they border on the preposterous. Daniels was absolutely right - a celebration of atheism is not consistent with a celebration of belief.
That's because fundamentally they aren't the same. French sociologist Emile Durkheim once wrote that "religious and profane life cannot co-exist in the same space." This wasn't an imprimatur of belief; Durkheim was an atheist. But it was an acknowledgment that a society's sacred and secular are not comparable, they are not analogous. They are apples and oranges.
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