Post 28--The War on Christmas

My last post introduced the Christmas theme and it won’t let me go. So here’s another one. 

While today’s post has the word “war” explicitly in its title, yesterday’s was also part of the war going on between “Christians and their diverse allies” and “others,” including the “Atheists and their supportive cohort of super-secular multiculturalists.” Strange: Since Christmas is about the arrival of the Prince of Peace, one would expect every one to welcome Him.  Well, we know that’s not exactly the case.

This is how Douglas Todd delivers the first salvo in his spirited defense of  public celebration of Christmas (“Let’s feel free to observe Christmas,” Vancouver Sun, Dec. 6, 2014, p. D6):  

Tis the season to check on which side is winning the war on Christmas. Is it the Atheists and their supportive cohort of super-secular multiculturalists? Or is it the Christians and their diverse allies?

His is a great article that covers the entire range of public opinion on the subject. I am going to just comment on a couple of features of the article. 

 I apologize that I intentionally slipped in a misquote, so slight that it hides its import. Yes, intentionally. I bet you can’t even find it!  Check out the word “atheist” in the quote and in this paragraph. What do you see?  Still not?  Well, here it is: In the quote, the “a” is in higher case, while in this paragraph it is in the lower. That difference, small as it is to the eye, could be expressive of a profound difference in the definition of religion. 

Why, as in Todd’s article, do most people capitalize the names of recognized religions as well as of their adherents like Christianity/Christians, Sikhism/Sikhs, etc., but not of secularism/secularists or  atheism/atheists?  They are all equally worldviews, systems of belief or--dare I say it?—religions; they are all within the one and the same genre of things. So why capitalize some and not others? 

I have never heard a linguist or grammarian explain this puzzling phenomenon, but I believe it is because most people don’t see them as being of one genre. Secularism, atheism and humanism are not in the same genre as religions, their adherents will tell us—and most of us have bought into that. Atheism and its allies are allegedly objectively and neutrally true, while religions are intensely subjective and far from neutral. But you look behind the scenes into Atheist books and you will find every page proposing theses they can never prove, only believe. Yes, they too are faiths; they are no more objective or neutral than anyone else. We’re all the same boat of believers; it’s just that our beliefs are different.  

I readily admit that explanation above does not tell why you secularism and its fellow systems are  put in higher case and those recognized as religions in the lower. Perhaps it is a tradition that developed during the years that secularism c.s. were less popular and considered ineligible for the prestige of a capital letter. I don’t know; just guessing.

But this issue is of huge importance in society, a point we cannot pursue now but will reserve for later. Do note that I am not saying that I have just described Todd’s perspective on this. He may just have followed grammatical convention or, perhaps, his editor changed those letters from lower to higher case.  

That difference in case can be seen as expressive of a difference between them that some, including Todd, depict as “war.”  While many people berate Christianity because, among other reasons, of the hostility between western denominations over the centuries, they for some reason fail to realize that Christians have largely come to terms with each other and co-operate, even though the basic differences still exist, especially between Protestants and Roman Catholics.  In addition, the various global religions are also in dialogue with each other; their main streams do not support religious hostilities.  Apart from the fundamentalists, the religious war has shifted from those we describe as “religious” to those who live by the myth of neutrality—atheists c.s. It is they who now seek to force public displays of “religion,” particularly the Christian religion, out of the public square. And that’s what the Christmas fracas is all about. Get rid of public Christian symbols and with them, the religion itself. 

Time to let go for now. More to come, for Todd’s article is loaded with good stuff. Can’t let it go with this.  Have a good one and merry Christmas to all.