THE FACTS OF CHRISTMAS: I drove past a Roman Catholic church on Friday evening, Christmas Eve, and had to slow down because of all the people getting out of their cars and going to mass. In the back of my mind, deep within my imagination, I started having a Woody Allen movie dialog with all of those good Catholics. In the movie going on within my head, everything stopped and everyone just stood there in the street looking at me. Because I\u2019m a renegade from the Holy Roman Church and from establishment religion in general, I started explaining why I wasn\u2019t going to mass with them that evening (or the next day either, or any other day for that matter). I told them that I respected their desire to provide their children with positive values, and that I believed in basically the same kind of God that they did. But we live in the 21st Century, and our society is supposed to be committed to facts (although we\u2019ve still got a long way to go on that one). We\u2019re not supposed to give in to stories that twist the truth, stories like the one about how the world would be much better off if all Jews were exterminated (circa 1935 \u2013 1945), or how much freer the Arab world would be if the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were destroyed (circa 2001).<\/p>\n
Christianity does not have enough respect for the facts. Take Christmas, for example; there is no evidence whatsoever that Jesus of Nazareth was born on Dec. 25. It could have been any day of the year; the late December date was simply the Church\u2019s co-option of pagan solstice festivals in the Roman Empire. And that\u2019s not a bad thing; I\u2019m not at all opposed to solstice festivals, nor to celebrating Jesus\u2019s birth, whenever it was. I just don\u2019t like the way that the Church uses peer pressure to make its members believe and profess that Jesus was born on Dec. 25. If the Church had more respect for the facts, it could still have a Christmas \u2013- but it would teach the difference between fact and myth, stressing the importance of each. Unfortunately, the Church lets the facts get buried beneath the myth. And when facts start getting buried beneath myths, it\u2019s a sure sign of trouble. It’s bad precedent, even when the myth seems pretty tame. (OK then, but what about Santa Claus? Should we deny kids of an innocent fantasy? Good question, but with the high level of cynicism that kids have today, it’s becoming moot.)<\/p>\n
So, back to the street scene in my dream sequence. I just finished explaining myself to all of those moms and dads and children who should otherwise be in the warm pews getting their missals and songbooks ready. They all gave me a thoughtful if slightly dubious look. Someone smileed a little, then looked down. Then a man broke the silence and asked me, \u201cjust what would you replace it with?\u201d A woman stepped out from behind a family van and asked, \u201chow would you protect our children and warm our hearts and souls?\u201d<\/p>\n
Ah, yes. That\u2019s indeed the problem. Over the Church\u2019s 20 centuries, all kinds of factual alternatives have been proposed. And they\u2019ve all come up lacking. The fact is that fact worship leaves the soul hungry; the Unitarians and the Ethical Society people prove that every Sunday. It also has a problem giving kids a strong moral foundation.<\/p>\n