Now Playing at Reason.tv: Christopher Hitchens Says Bah, Humbug to Christmas
Nick Gillespie | December 19, 2007, 1:38pm
On Monday, December 17, reason hosted a "Very Special, Very Secular Christmas Party" at its Washington, D.C. headquarters.
The evening's special event was a dramatic reading of Tom Lehrer's "Christmas Carol" by Christopher Hitchens, author of God Is Not Great, Why Orwell Matters, No One Left to Lie To, and many other books.
"It may have struck you, ladies and gentlemen, that there's a big relationship between this marvelous time of year and living in a one-party state," Hitchens told the overflow crowd of 250. "You can't go anywhere without listening to the same music. You can't go anywhere without hearing the name of the Great Leader, and his son, the Dear Leader....All broadcasts, all songs, all jokes, all references are, just for that magic few weeks, just exactly like living in...North Korea."
We at reason celebrate the holidays in many different ways (some of us not at all) and extend our best wishes to all for a joyous and happy new year.
To view Hitchens in action, click here or on the image above.
GILMORE | December 19, 2007, 4:07pm | #
Christmas is awesome.
It mixes impossibilities like virgin-birth with strange fat bearded men who have a stable of flying arctic deer and have total awareness of the Niceness or Naughtyness of children, and dispense gifts accordingly...
PLUS - you can throw in some winter solstice paganism if you want. Or, fuck it, get all shinto and call it the Amaterasu celebration = Requiem of the Dead!! Take that, Mardi Gras! Aint no party like a blabbermouth-crucified-son of-god-born-to-a-virgin-with-soundtrack-by-Handel party!
People who want to "de-mystify" the world are a bunch of assholes. Who do they think they're doing a favor? It'd be better if they just stayed at home and felt self satisfied, but NOOOOO, they have to announce their superiority by being,
"well *I* think this is silly. First of all, the aerodynamics of reindeer.... also, it's inherently based on false economic.... creates inequality in self perception of naughtyness by lower classes... those songs in the mall are driving me nuts... egg nog is actually very unhealthy...."
Seriously. Fine - stay home asshole.
Myths are useful. When we run short of them, we tend to go out and create them. The distinction between 'secular' and 'religious' is not hard cut. People celebrate things for the same basic reasons whether its cause dad sent you to sunday school, or you're jewish but rock christmas anyway cause the kids will bitch otherwise.
"Reason" is not 100% yang to Superstition's yin. One can be aware of the superficiality of a given ritual, but still appreciate the rewards of participating in rituals. Im sure there are dozens of committed "seculars" out there who didnt just go to the judge for their wedding.
I want to live in a country like...i dont know, someplace they have like 200 festivals year, each commemorating some event in the story of the 12-armed monkey god who created the earth while scratching his 8th armpit. That would be a place where you could be 100% free of the nitpicking of metaphysical party poopers.
Actually, there'd probably be some primitive version of Hitchens, arguing that the monkey is only a metaphor and that we'd be more productive and prosperous with only 4 celebrations rather than 200.
But fortunately, in that country, we'd be able to burn him alive and and throw green bananas at him on celebration #153 = "purge the nudge" day
John | December 19, 2007, 5:02pm | #
"Actually, if you read reason, you'd know that they didn't take it out; their studio did. But then again your criticisms of reason don't seem to show much awareness of the contents of the magazine."
Perhaps if you would read something besides Reason you might know something,
The creators, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, were recently interviewed on ABC “Nightline” about the show and its upcoming 10th season.
“That’s where we kind of agree with some of the people who’ve criticized our show,” said co-creator Matt Stone on Sept. 22. “Because it really is open season on Jesus. We can do whatever we want to Jesus, and we have.
“We’ve had him say bad words. We’ve had him shoot a gun. We’ve had him kill people. We can do whatever we want. But Mohammed, we couldn’t just show a simple image.”
The creators said when Mohammed was supposed to air on the screen, Comedy Central replaced the cartoon with a black screen that read: “Comedy Central has refused to broadcast an image of Mohammed on their network.”
Following the Mohammed cartoon uproar earlier this year, several networks had refused to air images of Mohammed, even during coverage of the Denmark cartoon riots, claiming to observe religious tolerance, said the South Park creator.
“No you’re not,” Stone countered during the interview. “You’re afraid of getting blown up. That’s what you’re afraid of. Comedy Central copped to that, you know: ‘We’re afraid of getting blown up.’”
http://the522.blogspot.com/2006/10/south-park-creators-say-open-season-on.html
