The Christmas season is upon us. Although the United States as a
nation is hesitant in recent years to celebrate Christmas publicly,
Japan seems to have no trouble in celebrating the season.
The Christmas season is upon us. Although the United States as a nation is hesitant in recent years to celebrate Christmas publicly, Japan seems to have no trouble in celebrating the season.
Tokyo is resplendent with elaborate and exciting Christmas decorations. On a recent visit, I saw little sign of the secular “Happy Holidays.” The greeting and the message in stores and public places is “Merry Christmas.”
There are even Nativity scenes in certain venues in this predominantly Buddhist country. People are shopping for Christmas, even though Christmas is not a holiday in Japan.
Christmas is a special season for people of faith. There are no special seasons for atheists.
These opposing realities continue to chart their space and the dialogue between the two, when it occurs, springs from very different first principles. The atheism/secular humanism Web sites proclaim confidently the superiority of atheism and its cornerstone proposition, evolution. Mark Eaton states it this way: “Atheists believe that rationality and critical thinking serve humanity better than blind faith and religious dogma.”
People of faith use God as a prime reference for their reality. The central message of atheism occupies a different universe than does the language of faith.
The cold, intellectual feeling of atheist reality is such that it is well suited to be displayed in spreadsheet form. These are spreadsheet times; the Apple and Microsoft programs find usage in many aspects of our lives.
The atheist approach could be described as one large spreadsheet. Across the top we can visualize column after column of categories of choices; vocation, living location, mate types, schools, political parties, vacation spots, etc. Viewed in this manner, life is a series of self-generated choices to be lived at a time of the author’s choosing.
The role of religion and faith in this calculus is limited, residing mainly in the background of such a life.
But our lives unfold not as a spreadsheet, but as a linear progression of linked events in time. We live our lives more as if we are walking a path with many forks in the road.
The bumps and forks representing the events of life, force decisions upon each of us, without the observed precision of a spreadsheet. The Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard wrote, “Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced.”
Indeed a religious dimension is well-suited, even central to life viewed as a journey.
Blaise Paschal, the French philosopher, is credited with the insight that “In each of us there is a God-shaped hole.”
There is no place in a spreadsheet view of life for a God-shaped hole. The atheist and agnostic websites that I have visited spend volumes of words attempting to refute the existence of this hole.
Attempting to deal with the hole and the longing misses the point entirely. It is like trying to deal with traffic problems by suggesting that we need fire alarms in our homes. The discussion seems to occupy the same word-space, but in actuality they are located in completely separate places.
The four-weeks before Christmas (Advent) are about the longing represented by the God-shaped hole.
On March 11, 2005, accused rapist Brian Nichols overpowered a Fulton County, Georgia, courtroom deputy, stole her gun and shot and killed three people in the courthouse, before escaping. What followed was the largest manhunt in Georgia history.
While on the lam, Nichols kidnapped a woman named Ashley Smith. A single mother of a five-year-old daughter, she had lost her husband to a murderer several years earlier. While Nichols was holding Smith captive and trying to decide when to kill her, she began to talk to this hardened killer about his life and her life and the Bible. She went and got her Bible and the motivational book, “The Purpose-Driven Life.”
Smith told him that if he killed her, there would be a little girl that was supposed to get picked up the next morning that was not going to get picked up. The little girl would grow up with neither a father or a mother.
Nichols was awakened by Smith’s call to something better. After more Bible reading and talking, Nichols finally said to Smith, “You’re and angel sent from God to me.”
Shortly thereafter he turned himself in to police without harming anyone else.
Atheism? Agnosticism? This is the season when Christians wait in hope for the birth of a savior. Merry Christmas.
Al Kelsch is a Hollister resident who writes a weekly column for the Free Lance. His e-mail address is
oi*****@ya***.com
.
