Standard Deviations From the Beaten Path

Some people will have you think that we atheists are out to fight a war against the most Christian of Christian holidays: Christmas. See that? Christ is right in the title. If we face the facts, though, it becomes obvious that one thing sitting at the very heart of the problem is that everyone has a solstice holiday. Many of these are described as a “festival of lights”. Proceeding with great sarcasm, there could not possibly be a common thread linking them, could there?

Before I continue I’ll let you know that I’m going to pull quotations from the King James Version unless otherwise specified. My motivation for doing so is because it is an available (if not always accessible) translation, and is also popular enough that many people will have some familiarity with it. If you’re one of the odd ones like me who doesn’t have a pulp copy of a translation you prefer, there are others available on the web. I know of NET Bible, and will use it when a different perspective is necessary.

Christmas Trees — Well as it turns out a religious rite practiced in the bible is quite similar to what we now call the Christmas tree. It was a pagan thing and in Jeremiah 10:2-5 God tells the Israelites not to do it:

Thus saith the LORD, Learn not the way of the heathen, and be not dismayed at the signs of heaven; for the heathen are dismayed at them.

For the customs of the people are vain: for one cutteth a tree out of a forest, the work of the hands of the workman, with the axe.

They deck it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers, that it move not.

They are upright as the palm tree, but speak not: they must needs be
borne, because they cannot go. Be not afraid of them; for they cannot do
evil, neither also is it in them to do good.

So there you have it. Don’t be afraid of decorated trees used in a religious way, but they won’t save you, either (kind of like the supposed narrator, actually). Alright, so if one mention is insufficient for the idea to gain traction, I’ll also point you toward Isaiah 40:19-20, and 44:14-16 in which we are warned further of graven images in the form of trees and other worshipful acts associated with these.
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