Christmas Quotes

Quotations are selected from this pool (and other quotation pools) in a pseudorandom way every hour and inserted at the top and bottom of some of the major pages on this website. Feel free to copy any of these quotes and paste them for whatever purpose you please, including on your own website, blog, social media page or forum debate posts.

God is as Childish as Santa Claus

The kindly God who lovingly fashioned each and every one of us and sprinkled the sky with shining stars for our delight — that God is, like Santa Claus, a myth of childhood, not anything [that] a sane, undeluded adult could literally believe in. That God must either be turned into a symbol for something less concrete or abandoned altogether.
~ Daniel C. Dennett (1942-03-28 age:76)

Vulgar Christmas

I’m worried about this [Christmas] tree. Do you think it is vulgar enough yet?
~ Mrs. Lacey (1941-10-05 age:76) fictitious character in the Agatha Christie’s Poirot The Theft of the Royal Ruby played by Stephanie Cole

Christians Own December 25

Well, it’s Christmas all over again. Uh, the Grinch is trying to steal our holiday… Atheists don’t like our happiness. They don’t want you to be happy, they want you to be miserable. They’re miserable so they want you to be miserable. So they want to steal your holiday away from you.
~ Pat Robertson (1930-03-22 age:88) Christian Coalition
But it is the Puritans who want everyone to be miserable, to refrain from dancing, having sex, even singing. It is the Puritans who demand long hemlines and pants hiked up to the navel. It is the Puritans who do their best to block gay couples from marrying. Atheists don’t interfere with Christians, just try to block them from forcing their superstitions down others’ throats.

Atheist Christmas

I grew up in an atheist household. At Christmas we had a tree, presents, a turkey and visiting relatives. We even sang Christmas carols. However, unlike Christians, we did not tell lies to each other about the history of what happened circa 1 AD.
~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Belief Despite Evidence

Christians often go their whole lives without doubting the childhood stories of Santa Claus or his older brother Jesus, despite ample empirical evidence that praying for a pony does not work.
~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Black Pete

Black Pete (Zwarte Piet) are blackface, curly-wigged clowns who accompany Santa Claus Sinter Klaus in the Netherlands. A defender of Black Pete said He does silly things. This sounds similar to the black face minstrel tradition that was considered mainstream entertainment in the USA not that long ago. It was a form of humour based on black stereotypes. Black people complained and eventually it was phased out. The same should happen in the Netherlands. It does not matter if the those enjoying the custom intend no malice; it is being felt that way. It is like punching someone lightly and you believe it should not hurt.
~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Caroling

Going door to door singing Christian propaganda music (carols) is a slightly more polite form of JWs (Jehovah’s Witnesses) going door to door handing out Watchtower tracts.
~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Christians as Mildly Retarded

Christians are like a mildly retarded younger brother who well into adulthood keeps on believing the stories their older brother told them about Santa Claus and the bogey man under the bed.
~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Christmas

To me, Christmas is like a suffocating avalanche that starts in November and does leave until January. The thing I like least about it is radio, which is taken over with Christian propaganda. The music is unbearable. Kitsch, corny, saccharine, schmaltzy endlessly repeated. Malls are saturated with this same crap. Radio stations give free reign to Christian con men to sell their cons. Even government radio CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) does this. They should know better it is illegal to force Christianity on others.

I like the smell of fir trees, Bach’s music, Christmas dinner, squash and onion pie, playing games with my family.

I would like to ban all Christmas music, schmaltzy Christian-tinged readings about WWII (World War II), except on December 24-25. I doubt I will get that. Perhaps radio stations should be permitted to play each Christmas song no more than once per season. Perhaps each Saturday during the avalanche we could have break from Christmas to let you get your breath.
~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Christmas

Why I do not like Christmas

Starting each October, Christians bombard us non-stop with Christian myths. They quote the bible in sonorous tones as if it were the definitive word of the creator of the universe.

Hoary, kitschy, schmaltzy Christmas pop songs play over and over on the radio and in shopping malls.

Christian-tinged stories that I have heard scores of times are dredged up to play on the radio as a special treat.

Advertisers convince people to buy gifts for strangers or near strangers. People nearly have nervous breakdowns and go into debt to do this.

Parents go to elaborate lengths to lie to their children about Jesus and Santa Claus.

For three months each year, Christians sweep people who belong to every other religion (and atheists) off the stage while Christians strut about pretending they are the only people on earth.

Drunk drivers.

Why I like Christmas

There is a greater proportion of classical music available the radio (and live). I still love Handel’s Oratorio, even though I have heard it many times, and even though it is dripping with Christian propaganda.

Christmas dinner has eggnog, turkey, peas, Yummy High Cholesterol Squash Casserole and flaming plum pudding.

There is nothing to do on Christmas afternoon. It is the only time of year you are not expected to accomplish something.

My Requests

In Canada, we have freedom of religion. Surely that includes freedom from religion. The CBC is a state corporation. It should not be promoting any particular religion. I ask them to limit their Christian propaganda, music and stories to two days a year. Even that much is violating the constitution.

Shopkeepers have every right to air whatever music they please, but I think they should wake up to the fact that fewer and fewer of their customers are Christians who like gag-inducing Christian music, and air seasonal non-Christian music instead.

Radio stations and shopkeepers should vow to play each Christmas song no more than once per season.
~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Christmas Customs

The Christians borrowed nearly all their Christmas customs, especially from the Romans. However, they often act as if they are the sole custodians of Christmas and are authorised to chastise non-Christians for the way they celebrate it.
~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Christmas Lapse In Taste

At Christmas, all the rules for good taste in music fly out the window. Nothing is too corny, kitsch, overwrought or amateurish for endless repetition.
~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Christmas Music

Christmas music is an attempt to install absurd beliefs with mind-numbing repetition.
~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Christmas Music

I am not a total Grinch when it comes to Christmas music. I have even collected and posted the lyrics to a collection of Christmas songs and carols. However, I intended these to be sung by groups of friends on Christmas Eve. I complain in the most strenuous way about the wall-to-wall sound curtain of Christmas dreck music every December. These are bad songs, corny variations, sung by usually second rate artists looking for a pension fund, endlessly repeated. Perhaps retailers are attempting to create a Pavlovian conditioning — Hear the music — buy something. Is there name for people who go postal from such exposure?
~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Christmas Music

I detest Christmas music. But it is not because of associated trauma as a psychologist on the CBC hypothesised.

Christmas pop music is repetitive, simplistic and schmaltzy. There should be a law allowing only one airing for each song per season.

The second reason I detest it is it lets Christians impose their rather pathetic religion and propaganda on everyone else. Freedom from religion is ignored for the month of December. Christians get to rule the world and force their kitsch (mindless propaganda) on everyone else.
~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Christmas Schmaltz

Around Christmas I have to turn off my radio to avoid being suffocated in schmaltz.
~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Christmas Tree Safety

The Grinches have grossly exaggerated the danger of fire from real Christmas trees. Modern LED (Light-Emitting Diode) lights use very low voltages, currents and temperatures and thus pose almost no risk at all. It is time to ban the true culprits from apartment buildings — incandescent lights, not the fir trees that exude the evergreen fragrance of Christmas.
~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Christmas Was Never Christian

Christians decry the way Christmas has become secular and commercial. They forget that in the 1700s in England and America the churches did not celebrate Christmas at all. They fought it tooth and nail. Christmas was a combination of Saturnalia, Halloween, New Year’s Eve and Mardi Gras. The main activities were drinking, feasting, trick or treating and licentiousness.
~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Christmas Without Christ

Christmas is primarily a celebration of retail sales. That function shadows everything else. Christmas shopping starts in September. Then there is the traditional meal, the lights, the tree, the stockings, the cards, the decorations. None of these have any religious significance. Christians try to hog Christmas as theirs exclusively, when it belongs to everyone. You don’t have to buy into the nativity or church going. When atheists post billboards saying Who needs Christ at Christmas they are just pointing out the obvious fact that Christmas is for everyone, not just Christians and that you can participate fully in Christmas without any religious component. Christians, of course, are completely welcome to celebrate Christmas with the Jesus stories. Christians such as Sean Hannity claim such a billboard insults them. They assume everyone is Christian and the message is aimed only at them, with no other purpose than to poke them in the eye. That makes no sense. Just as Christians aim their billboards at Christians, atheists aim their billboards at atheists. Christians are high handed. They want to censor what atheists say to atheists simply because they disagree.
~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Cruel Santa

Jesus is like a cruel Santa. He bullies people into begging for presents then never delivers.
~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

The Dark Side Of Christmas

Christmas is most environmentally destructive of our traditions. We buy mountains of kitschy junk we don’t need. We cook more food that we can, much less should eat. We cut down trees and discard or burn the wood. We fill our trash bins to the brim. We fly half way round the world, pig out, then fly back the next day. It is an all-out assault on our planet. The Catholic Church busies itself covering up for clerics who target gay teens and children. Got to uphold those Christmas family values!
~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Definition of Christmas

Christmas is to Christians as the full moon is to grunions.
~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Definition of God

God: noun, supernatural being who spies on people and rewards and punishes them disproportionately. In other words, the adult version of Santa Claus.
~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Dictator of the World

If I were dictator of the world:

I would enforce freedom of religion and bar government broadcasting agencies (radio, TV and Internet) from airing Christmas or Christian entertainments on the grounds they violate the freedom of non-Christians to avoid worshiping false gods. Even though they are a majority, Christians do not have the right to use the government to impose their religion on others. Private stations would remain free to play Christmas music. Classical music, but not carols, would be exempt.

It would still be legal for the CBC, BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation), PBS (Public Broadcasting System) etc. to broadcast objective educational materials and debates about Christmas and Christians, just not promotional materials.

It would be illegal for private radio and TV stations to broadcast the same Christmas song, play, story or recitation more than once per year. They would likely adopt a top 10,000 countdown (worst to best or best to worst) format.

There would be a mall Christmas music tax sufficiently high to discourage 90% of malls from subjecting their patrons to Christmas elevator music.

The same rules would apply to every religion and seasonal festival.
~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Do as I Say, Not As I Do

The irony is Santa admonishes kids to tell the truth, but he himself is a lie. Talk about sending your kids mixed messages.
~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Early Conditioning

Evolution has seen to it that young children believe anything their parents tell them without question, be it that toadstools are poisonous, matter is made of impossibly small invisible atoms, that an elderly man lives with elves at the North Pole who sneaks into their bedrooms on Christmas eve or that there is a cruel old man with a white beard hiding in the clouds staring at their genitals.

Telling lies to those without their capability to resist is a form of child abuse — dishonest manipulation with lifelong harm, even harm down through the generations. Lying to children, including feigning certainty where there is only speculation, deliberately creates crippling phobias and delusions. It is morally equivalent to systematically poisoning a child with a drug that causes schizophrenia.
~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Evidence for Santa

Children have far more evidence for Santa than adults have for Jesus.
~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

The Faithful

To atheists, people who profess faith in Jesus are like adults who put out a stocking and expect Santa Claus to fill it. If they will believe something that nuts, you really cannot trust them with anything.
~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Faking Santa

Parents go to considerable lengths to counterfeit evidence for the existence of Santa Claus, e.g.

presents

empty stockings that magically fill with treats

the miracle of the disappearing cookies and milk

sightings in apartment stores

sleigh tracking by NORAD (North American Aerospace Defence Command)

It is a wonder that after being taken in by Santa Claus that kids ever fall for Jesus. There is no evidence at all for Jesus and no presents to sweeten the pot.
~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Imposing Personal Taste

The second most irritating thing Christians do is presume their tastes represent some universal standard. They further believe they are entitled to impose this atrocious taste on everyone else because they believe they are a god’s chosen arbiters of what is acceptable. The taste ranges from prudish movies, to sexless live entertainment, to lame pornography, to Christmas kitsch to syrupy or baleful religious art to black velvet Elvis paintings to terminally corny music.
~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

In Santa We Trust

Trusting in Santa or the Easter Bunny to get you out of scrapes is no crazier than trusting Jesus or God.
~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Jesus Claus The Drug Pusher

Jesus is like Santa Claus for adults. If you behave, Jesus will bring you eternal bliss. Jesus is like a drug pusher promising a never ending supply of heroin. This is hardly something to aspire to.
~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Letters to God

It is a cruel joke to ask kids to write letters to god. If they write to Santa, at postal code H0H0H0 there’s at least a chance he will write back.
~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Lying or Pulling Your Leg

When a friend tells you a preposterous story and you ask questions to explain how various parts of the story that seem impossible could have happened and he has no answer, you have to conclude he is either lying or pulling your leg. There are three such stories commonly told in our culture, The Easter bunny, Santa Claus and Noah.
~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Peer Pressure and Delusions

Without peer pressure, children would fail to outgrow a belief in Santa Claus. Because of peer pressure, Christians cling to their belief in the white-bearded sky god.
~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Phony Carrot; Phony Stick

Christians lie to their children to trick them into behaving using a carrot: Santa Claus (and his presents) and a stick: god (and his hellfire).
~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

The Purpose of Christmas

Christmas no longer has much to do with Jesus. It is now primarily a gift-giving festival eagerly promoted by business. Even the Japanese, who are not Christian, celebrate it. Count the Santas and count the Jesuses if you doubt.

People go mad for ritual every Christmas season. Every family has its own rituals they repeat every Christmas. Radio stations drag out and play the same kitschy music and tell stories about Christmas during WWI (World War I). Why? I think it is an attempt to stop time. Memories from every Christmas past merge into each other. There is an illusion time has stopped and we have entered a sort of ground hog day where it is the same eternal Christmas day.

Christmas is also a celebration of bad taste. People compete to see who can wear the ugliest sweater. No decoration, or piece of music is too awful to celebrate; no gift too tacky. We relax the rigid standards of taste, fashion and style. It is a bit like Halloween in that regard, but without the imagination.
~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Recognising Bogeymen

We will know mankind has grown up somewhat when the bogeyman under the bed, Santa Claus and the god Yahweh are just cruel practical jokes adults no longer play on children.
~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Respect

Piya Chattopadhyay of the CBC suggested you should celebrate and respect Christmas because millions of people believe the birth of Jesus was the pivotal event in human history. Similarly, millions of people believe in astrology and homeopathy. They are wrong. I see no reason, just from their numbers, that we should do likewise.
~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Santa and God

Santa Claus is not dead, but then Santa Claus is not real either. The Santa Claus stories are not true. Similarly for god. Both god and Santa Claus are stories adults tell to gullible children to make them behave. Even though the stories are equally absurd, most children outgrow their belief in Santa but not Jesus. The difference is god is burned in with traumatic fear of being burned alive. The worst Santa does to you is give you a lump of coal.
~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Santa and Jesus

Children get sold two myths, Santa and Jesus. The motive for both lies in control. Most kids figure out Santa is a crock fairly early, just by watching the holes in the story. The holes in the Jesus story, are just as big, but not as clear, not right in your living room. Most kids are too afraid ever to challenge the Jesus myth with its eternal fire and intensely evil all-powerful god.
~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Santa Atheists

Children become Santa Claus atheists all on their own. They notice holes in the lies their parents tell them.

The recognise the handwriting on the presents.

They catch parents filling stockings.

They realise Santa could not possibly visit all homes in one night.

They wonder why every store has a different Santa.

They note how tiny the flue is. Santa would get stuck.

They note how Santa seems to like rich, nasty kids and despise poor, well-behaved ones, contrary to the official naughty and nice story.

Oddly, Christians believe stories even sillier than the Santa Claus myth, with even less evidence. With Santa, at least there is the evidence of presents and the disappeared cookies. With Jesus, there is nothing. Unlike children, Christians flatly refuse to notice inconsistencies in the con.
~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Santa Claus and Jesus

Christians happily lie to their children about Santa Claus to control their behaviour. They also lie to fellow adults about Jesus for similar reasons.
~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

The Santa Club

Christians take themselves so seriously. It is as though a group of children refused to accept there were no Santa and banded together to reassure each other and to hand out leaflets on the bus to inform the world of their deep understanding of the nature of the universe.
~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

The Santa Inoculation

The purpose of Santa is to teach kids you cannot trust others to tell you the truth, even if everyone conspires on the lie. It is a warm up for discarding the Jesus con.
~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

The Santa Lie

I think lying about Santa is not justified. The message is, you can’t even trust your parents. On the other hand, it inoculates children against lies about Jesus.
~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Santa Morphs Into Jesus

Children delusioned by Santa Claus, as adults, cling to the even more preposterous bringer of gifts — the mythical Jesus. It is wishful thinking taken to a pathological extreme.
~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Singing at Christmas

Every Christmas people go to church to sing. I hope this tradition comes to have no more connection to religion than taking the kids to ride on the miniature train.
~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Sweet Lies are Still Lies

Christianity is a lie in the same sense Santa Claus is a lie. Just because the lie is saccharine or because the lie is not told maliciously, does not make it true or harmless.
~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Teach Santa?

Should you trick your children into believing in Santa Claus?

It will inoculate them against Christians selling their batshit crazy religion. They will be more sceptical of wild, implausible claims.

You will get a short period of bribed compliance.

It will harm their trust in you.

You will have to buy twice as many presents.

It will teach your children to accept gifts from strangers.

Your kids will be laughed at as babies by their peers.
~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

There Is No Santa Claus

It is a bit of a shock to discover that your parents and adults in general lied to you about Santa Claus. They thought of it more as playing a trick on you to get you to behave better.

How do you know there is no Santa Claus?

The tags on presents from Santa have the same handwriting as ones from your parents.

Think how many houses there are on a paper route. A paper boy does not even go in the house and it takes him about an hour to complete his route. Santa supposedly visits all the houses in the world where kids live in one night, billions of them. No matter how fast he went, he could not complete more than a tiny fraction of them. If you know multiplication and division, you could figure out the percentage. Think how many sleighfuls it would take for everyone. He would have to zip back to the North Pole for every block.

Santa supposedly gives gifts depending on how well behaved you are, but if you check around the neighbourhood in the days following Christmas, you will discover that is simply not so. The kids who get the best presents are the ones whose parents are rich no matter how they behave. Kids in poor families get nothing or crap. This is because parents buy the presents supposedly from Santa. The cruelest lie is the way parents without enough money for presents trick their kids into thinking the reason for no presents is Santa rejected them.

Santa supposedly sends out elves to spy on you and report back to Santa how well behaved you were. You can thoroughly search your house. You will find absolutely no sign of these elves. One of my earliest memories is performing such a search. I even checked crannies at the top of Venetian blinds — nothing.

Some parents are honest and tell their kids that Santa is just a trick that other parents play on their kids.

If you don’t tell your parents about some gift you want, there is not much chance you will get it because it is your parents who buy the gifts not Santa.

If you search your house in the days before Christmas, you will probably find the gifts wrapped or unwrapped that later your parents fob off as being from Santa. Even if you discover them on a high shelf where you cannot reach them, you can make note of the look of the wrappings.

Note that older kids do not believe in Santa. They know something you do not.

It is pretty obvious the fake Santas are being used to advertise products. If there were a real Santa, do you think he would allow his image to be used in such crass and even pornographic ways?

You might think if you just stay awake you can find out who is bringing your stocking to your bed. I tried this. It does not work because your parents don’t do it until you are sound asleep.

There are many different people that adults all claim to be the Santa at the malls.

Santa breaks into millions of homes every Christmas eve, yet no drunken lout from the NRA (National Rifle Association) has yet shot him dead, citing the stand your ground law.

Santa Claus admonishes kids not to lie, yet he is a lie himself. Talk about your parents sending mixed messages.

What else did your parents lie to you about? Can you ever trust them again? (In their excitement to play this game, parents foolishly forgot that forever after they are undermining your trust in them.) Your parents may also tell you a similar lie about the Santa Claus for adults, known as Jesus, who supposedly brings the gift of eternal bliss (a drug similar to heroin). The difference is, they may well believe the lie themselves, even though the story has even less evidence for it than the Santa con.
~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

The True Message Of Christmas

What is the true message of Christmas? the message pounded into our heads tens of thousands of times every holiday season: You can be happy only if you give and receive extravagant, non-essential gifts, even to near strangers.
~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Tsunami of Christian Music

One week of saturation Christmas music is surely sufficient. How would Christians like a month of nothing on the radio but lectures from Dr. Richard Dawkins?
~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

When Was Jesus Born?

The first recorded date of Christmas being celebrated on December 25th, (on the first day that days get noticeably longer) was in 336 AD, during the time of the Roman Emperor Constantine. In 350 AD Pope Julius I officially declared that the birth of Jesus would be celebrated on the 25th December. But when was he really born?

The New Testament description of his birth suggests spring, when lambs are born.

Matthew says Jesus was born in the reign of Herod the Great. Herod died some time between 4 BC and 1 BC.

Luke says Jesus was born during the census of Quirinius in 6 AD. This is one of the major contradictions in the bible that Christians claim is not there. It does not really make sense to talk of Jesus’ actual birthdate since he is a character of fiction.

The Queen too has two birthdays: She was actually born on 1926-04-21 but she also has an official birthday held at different times of the year in different parts of the world.
~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

Where Santa Lives

It is fitting the patron saint of the USA, Santa Claus, lives four months of the year in a shopping mall.
~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)

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