The "War" On Christmas?

It is once again the holiday season. Oh sorry, I meant to say it's "Christmas" season. Damn my political correctness and those godless liberals for making me fall in line with their war on Christmas! Ha ha, just kidding. Even though I am a pretty staunch atheist, I was raised in a cultural Christian setting. We celebrated Easter and Christmas although I was never really taught their religious significance. Today as an adult, I really don't celebrate any holidays to be honest with you and it kind of sickens me how Christmas, Thanksgiving, and Halloween have now become month long celebrations. My uncle told me that decades ago Christmas season used to start a week or so before Christmas, and now it starts at midnight on Thanksgiving day.

When it comes to Christmas today I see it for what it is: a pagan tradition incorporated into Christianity that evolved into a celebration of unfettered capitalistic materialism. Yes I am against the nativity scenes on public property; they belong on private land and paid for by private individuals. The so called war on Christmas is really just secularists repealing the violations of the first amendment when countless state and local governments created religious displays with tax payer money. Christmas time for generations has really been the war on secularism. But what I really think is an interesting note on the "Christmas" holiday, is how capitalistic it is and how that is really what drives the continuation of the holiday. What I think some people fear about secularism pushing back the religious displays is that it might lead to a time when Christmas is not celebrated and this would ultimately hurt the economy. In other words people care only about the bottom line.

Today in the US I can pretty much say anything I want criticizing religion, but what really is blasphemy today, is any critique of capitalistic materialism. Telling people that they really don't need to buy all the things they want, and that they should buy mostly what they need, or focus on non-material things, is the equivalent today of what doubting the existence of god was two or three hundred years ago. You will be branded a heretic if you even imply to Americans that materialism has gone too far. Now I understand consumption drives the economy, and that any curtailing of this will slow and hurt the economy and stock market. What I really want is the world to wake up and realize that our economy based on the consumption of goods made from finite resources that adds pollution to the world and that will eventually end up, in part, as unrecyclable waste, cannot last forever and is leading us to our downfall.

I don't celebrate Christmas because of this. I refuse to be a part of the machine that drives mankind into oblivion. When we have an economy that is based on the sale and purchase of fully recyclable goods made with fully renewable clean energy, then I will reconsider. But that day is many decades away at least. So with secularists working hard to keep religion out of government this time of the year, my war on Christmas is really a war on the type of capitalism we have today. We are still using a 20th century system to supply a 21st century demand of consumer goods. It is about time that business leaders realize this and put this concern ahead of their short term goals.