Happy Christmas and New Year

I haven't had a rant for a while, so Christmas and New Year give me perfect opportunity to don my "Marcus Brigstocke" cap and pen out a new complaint.

1. Christmas - Why does anyone outside Christianity and Islam even celebrate Christmas? This is something that is starting to nag at me - why do we like to keep traditions and things like this? in a world where philosophy and science are attempting to remove all religious influence on life, why are we keeping to old religious traditions? I point the finger especially at the great leader of the anti-theists, Richard Dawkins, who himself admitted that he likes to celebrate Christmas for the tradition, and the idea of peace and goodwill to all mankind.

Can I just remind everyone of the point of Christmas? Contrary to popular belief, Christmas is not just about a virgin mary giving birth in a stable to a little child, "no crying he makes" (I stick my fingers down my throat at that particular lyric from "Away in a Manger"), with Shepherds and Angels, and Wise men with their nice little gifts of Gold, Frankinsence and Myhrr. Hmm, Myhrr? What exactly is that for? Has anyone thought about this I wonder?

Myhrr is used for embalming. Funny gift to give to a small child, why on earth would you give him something that symbolises Death? Because Christ was born, not to have a nice life, away from humiliation, rejection, pain, torture and death - but he was born into this world for precisiely that reason. So I ask you to remember that the same, sweet little baby in the manger, grew up to be a man, who at the age of only 33, was whipped till he bled, forced to drag a heavy piece of wood through a large city, through the mocking crowds, have his own friends desert him and deny knowledge of him to save their own skins - before being nailed onto that piece of wood, propped up so that to take even a single breath, he has to pull himself up by the nails that are through his hands - for approximately a day until he finally gives out.

Same person. So all of you this Christmas, who believe Jesus was not the Christ, celebrated the birth of someone you percieve to be a criminal...

Next Christmas, save your money, follow his philosophy and teachings instead, and give the money that you spent on presents to the poor.

Same person rose from the dead as well - that is why Christians and Muslims celebrate (I am sure you are probably aware, in Islam Jesus Christ is considered a prophet, but not the son of God)


2. New Year - why do we celebrate new year? maybe the reason I didn't have a celebration at the end of 2008 was because I had nobody to celebrate with, but when you consider that it is both a) the passage of one day to the next - and that we in the west have arbitrarily called the first of January the first day of the new year - though of course, the chinese new year, and various others around the world, are at different times - so why do we celebrate? why do we spend millions of pounds, dollars and euros - and any other currency for that matter - on extravagant fireworks displays to ring in the new year - that we are now another 365.25 days since the last time we celebrated. I wonder how many millions, total, over the globe, are spent on these celebrations - interesting how this is a celebration only those above the north/south divide of the world can afford to celebrate. maybe if we didn't bother celebrating it, but instead gave all those billions in aid - how much better off would the developing world be? How much do we really need that big firework display - burning all of that money up in smoke so that people can stay up a bit later, when people are starving, thisrty, and dying of disease - three problems which would be easily curable with the right investment in the right places?

It's a pity no member of any form of government reads this - it is such a shame to see everyone is free to burn money, when there are people dying in the world because they do not have enough of it.

Rant over - hope you enjoy the next 365.25 days.