Being an Atheist is Great - Except for the Lack of Holidays

I love being an atheist. Being a non-believer gives me a great sense of power and wonder. I can wake up early in the day, before the sun has barely peaked over the horizon, and go for a run in downtown Minneapolis. I can frequent my favorite abortion clinic, kick a few puppies on the way home, run to the store, pop in after lunch for a gay pride rally, throw a rock through a church window, and be home before "Lost" so I can go out burning pentaglyphs and sacrificing lambs in my spare evening hours. But there are a few times during the year when I feel like like a loner, a loser, a regular persona non grata. These times come around major religious holidays.

Christmas I can usually pass off, I used to be a Christian, so when the rellies come over I can simply delight in the egg nog drinking and merriment. "A Christmas Story" is almost always playing (Goddamn I love TBS The Superstation) and I can chalk all of this up to goodwill towards men and peace on Earth. No God, no baby Jesus, no sleeping in a manger or gold and myrhh. Christmas is easy, I can celebrate with my family and friends and not feel like a wolf in the herd. Christmas is so ludicrously commercial nowadays anyway that it really is easy for a non-believer to celebrate Christmas without any real incident. Plus there are enough pagan ties to the celebration of Christmas (wiki 'yule log' and 'saturnalia' for more) to make any non-theist feel warm and fuzzy inside.

Easter is a little bit different. The whole Easter bunny thing is just stupid, even when you were young. As unbelievable as a zombie Christ coming back to life, the thought of a humongous lagomorph hippity-hoppiting across the Earth delivering Cadbury eggs and those god-awful marshmallow peeps (seriously, who the fuck enjoys those?) to delighted children worldwise is absolutely ludicrous. Any real atheist can't really enjoy this, it's dumb. And of course you can't really go to church, I don't know how many times I had to go with and scream "HE IS RISEN!" while at the same time thinking.. "Um.. this is a little lame." Christians love Easter, it's like people go Christ-crazy. Easter is one of those that just doesn't get me going.

The Jewish holidays are pretty sweet. I've always respected the Jews. Being Irish, I find it refreshing to finally find a race of white people that are more universally hated than my own. Hey, it wasn't our fault the potatoes didn't grow, and the damn Brits have wanted to eat us for centuries. Anyway, back to the Jews, even as a goy I can respect Jewish holidays. They basically consist of: (insert historical group here) tried to kill us, they failed, so let's party! I respect that.

I guess that's all I can really think of. The biggest problem with being an atheist: not nearly enough holidays. Oh, and I guess the whole eternal damnation thing if we're wrong could be a bit of a hangup, but we'll cross (and burn) that bridge when we get to it. And the world keeps turning.