Gun Control

It's taken me awhile to write about the Newtown massacre, mainly because I'm a parent and I couldn't wrap my head around it.  But I figured that it's such an epic event that I should really come up with some kind of comment on it, so here goes.

We live in a country that makes the claim that "life is precious."  We seem to have no problem ensuring that laws are passed to prevent women from terminating pregnancies because the potential life in them is so "precious."  We go to sometimes ridiculous lengths to make sure that our children never get hurt on a playground or in a car or while riding a bike.

Yet it seems to me that all of this "caring" is just a facade of sorts.  Our own children are precious to us, but we allow other people's children to go hungry and go without healthcare, and all in the name of "personal responsibility."  We seem to have no problem letting other people's children suffer simply because we don't think their parents are trying hard enough.

So in this kind of atmosphere, how can we even begin to discuss reasonable gun control measures?  After all, the "right" to shoot off multiple rounds at targets is more important to liberty than the life of someone else's child.  I actually had one facebook friend content that these deaths are simply collateral damage; the price we pay for living in a free society.

There are guns in my house.  They are family heirlooms from my husband's family, and they are locked up tight in a heavy gun safe in the basement, where they are rarely, if ever removed.  Do I think we need to ban all guns? No. But do we need to take some kind of drastic action on gun law reform to try to prevent this from happening in the future?  Absolutely.  But I'm not convinced this country has the capacity for adult dialogue anymore.

We are the only industrialized country in the world with such a horrific gun violence problem.  Maybe we need to take a look around the world and see why other countries do so much better than us.  I have a feeling that access to guns is going to be at least part of the solution. Yes, it's the person who commits the crime, not the gun, but the gun makes it a whole lot easier and whole lot more lethal.

But until we make a decision to care about other people's children as much as we care about our own, nothing will change.  Until we collectively decide to put ourselves in the shoes of a parent who has to look at unopened Christmas presents for a child who's never coming home, this problem will not get better.  I wish I felt better about the situation, but I don't.  Not here.  Not in America.

Happy Holidays vs. Merry Christmas

It's that time of year again.  My favorite time of year.  Christmas.  You know, the holiday we atheists are trying to wage a war on. But oddly enough, I have no interest in waging war on Christmas, and I think if you talked to most atheists, they would feel more or less the same. 

If you live in America, you probably grew up with Christmas in one way or another.  But to the dismay of many Christians, the holiday itself has virtually nothing to do with Christ.  Almost everything you think of when you think "Christmas" has little or nothing to do with Christianity.  Christmas trees, for example, have their roots in paganism, as do the yule log and most of the other decorative aspects of Christmas.  And how do Frosty the Snowman and Santa Claus relate to Jesus?  They don't.  How do we know that Jesus was born on December 25th?  We don't.  In fact historians pretty much agree that he wasn't, if he even existed at all, which is a debate for another time.

But the main crux of the outcries over the "War on Christmas" is the reluctance of us secular progressives to solely use the term "Merry Christmas" when sending greetings to others at this time of year. What they don't seem to get, is that Jesus really isn't the reason for the season.  Winter holidays existed long before the time of Jesus, and it was about gathering with family to celebate and get a break from the hard, cold, dark winter.  In essence, that's what we're all really still celebrating.

I have no problem with saying "Merry Christmas" to people, if I know for a fact that Christmas is what they're actually celebrating.  However, if I'm talking to someone I don't know well, then I probably don't know if they're Jewish, or Muslim, or one of the other countless numbers of people who don't in fact celebrate Christmas in America.  We are, after all, a melting pot of cultures.  "Happy Holidays" is a safe, inclusive alternative to show that you respect whatever this time of year means to whoever you're addressing.  Especially if you run a business, why would you want to potentially alienate a large number of your clientele just to prove some stupid point?

What really bothers me is the fact that these days, there are people who hurl the phrase "Merry Christmas" at you as though it's some kind of warning.  As though they're trying to say, "We Christians are in charge here, and don't you forget it.  And if you're not going to acknowledge that Christmas is the supreme holiday in America, then you should probably just leave."  This sort of thing has happened to me more than once, because people assume that since I'm an atheist, I don't celebrate Christmas.  When in fact, the only difference between the Christmas celebration at my house and the one at theirs is the absence of a nativity scene at mine.  So they're really not offending me nearly as much as they hope they are.

It's all just nonsense.  If you want to say "Merry Christmas" to total strangers, that's your business.  But don't insist on painting the rest of us as thoughtless sheep for jumping on the "Happy Holidays" bandwagon.  It's more than a politically correct phrase (which I know is a topic of never-ending frustration for conservatives). It's a term of inclusiveness; not a rejection of Christmas.  The reason for the season is love, warmth, family and friends (and presents!), not just Jesus.  And we should honor everyone at this time of year, not just Christians.