Why I Celebrate Christmas: A Holiday Message From A Non-Believer

Recently I had a very long (but ultimately rewarding) conversation with a friend over drinks about the nature of Christmas and how it relates to God. To throw some necessary backstory at you, I'm pretty much an atheist. I have found no logical reason to believe in a god, so I don't. There are some more aggressive atheists out there who think religion should just be wiped clean off the earth, but I can't bring myself to go that far. It's a choice, and even though I think I'm right (and have things called "science" and "evidence" on my side), having that choice is more important to me than anything else. Just as we atheists don't like religious people shoving their beliefs in our face, I'm quite sure religious people don't like us coming down on them as if they were a bunch of idiots. I am perfectly fine with a "to each there own" approach.

Anyway, the question came up "If you don't believe in God, don't believe in Jesus, then why celebrate Christmas?" It's a fair point to bring up. Christmas is predominantly associated with Christianity. Christ is right there in the name, after all. It would seem silly for someone who doesn't believe in God, let alone his Earthly son, to give a crap about the holiday.

But you have to realize that Christmas has had different meanings and been celebrated in many ways over the years. Before the colonies gained their independence, the holiday season had virtually nothing to do with religion at all. It was a celebration of the end of the year's harvest, and ended up being a month long feast and alcohol binge. In fact, the Puritans hated Christmas. Hated it. So much so that they tried to freaking outlaw it. They figured that since the Bible actually makes no mention of the specific date Jesus was born, God didn't want them to celebrate it. This view isn't that far off either, as the only reason December 25th was selected was because it coincided with the Winter Solstice feasts the pagans were already celebrating, making it easier for them to convert. Most Biblical scholars actually put Christ's birth at April 17th, so there's that too.

And really, that tradition has carried on. For all the bitching about Christ being taken out of Christmas, he has never really played that important of a part if we're being honest with ourselves (and yes, I'm sure there are some out there who really do take the spiritual part seriously, but I'm speaking in generals). This became especially true after Santa Clause was introduced, and the commercialism of the holiday spread like cancer.

But see what happens when you strip the holiday down. Remove the bells and whistles, the supernatural births, the feasts and drinking, and you're left with two things: inclusiveness and charity. These virtues represent the best aspects of human nature, the desire to be with the ones you care about, to reach out and help those who may be less fortunate. To set aside your own personal worries, your own selfish tendencies, and be a part of a bigger world. These are things that belong to no specific religion, they are merely part of the human condition. After all, Scrooge didn't find salvation in the Baby Jesus at the end of A Christmas Carol, he found in finding joy in being with and helping his fellow man.

And that is what I celebrate during the holiday season. Christmas is a culturally sanctioned time to be with family and friends. It can get crazy at times with all the gift buying and running around, but the trick is to block that out as best you can. Because the only reason you're out buying crap in the first place is because there are people in your life important enough to you to do so. That is the most important thing to take away from the season, and it is a sentiment that is not bound to any one religion, or religion in general.

And this is coming from a cynical misanthrope.

So Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas, and drinks all around!

GC

3 Reasons Tron: Legacy Is Going To Suck

This Friday (Dec 17) Tron: Legacy will be released in theaters, finally ending the year and a half internet anticipation, and allowing sci-fi fans to let their nerd-gasms climax after all this time. But for all the eager speculation and build up, people are overlooking one really important thing: the movie is most likely going to be a massive pile of dookie.

Many of you will scoff at that notion. We've been waiting for over a year, you say. There's no way all this anticipation could end in anything other than the best movie EVER. Well, you're wrong. And here's why.

1. The First Tron Was A Massive Pile Of Dookie

What most people remember about the first Tron was that it featured the best, most state-of-the-art special effects at the time. What tends to be forgotten is that the rest of the movie is a mess. The plot is clunky at best, nonsense at worst. Something about a religion based on worshiping "Users," and the computer wanting to kill all of the programs, and hating the concept of "Users." Or something. That really isn't important because all anyone cares about are the light cycles.

And let's remember, Tron was a commercial failure when it was released. Over the years it developed a cult following among nerds and sci-fi fans because, well, it was a movie about video games. And to be fair to the movie, it did feature a very distictive visual style, a sort of futurist german-expressionism schem, that practically screams "cult!" But cult movies can still be terrible, and in fact, many are embraced for that very reason (Hello, Plan 9 From Outer Space). But then, no one is making a big budget sequel to Plan 9, are they? Not yet anyway.

2. Style Over Substance Rarely Works

Quick, what's the first thing you think of when I say Tron: Legacy? It probably had to do with the visual effects and CGI, didn't it? (There is probably a segment of you who thought of Olivia Wilde, but that was probably quickly followed by the CGI surrounding her) The Tron: Legacy trailers are a bombardment of CGI effects, whether it's the light cycles, ships, or hell, even freaking Jeff Bridges. It's pretty clear that this is a speacial effects driven movie, that's what they're selling, and if this is anything like the first movie, they were too caught up in the visuals to come up with a story.

There's isn't anything inherently wrong with putting the focus on the visual flair of a movie (Tim Burton has based his entire career off of this). But the problem now is that we are at a point where even the low budget films can afford CGI, so if you're idea of visuals is "SO MUCH CGI", not only are you Roland Emmerich, but you have a lot of competition with films doing the exact same thing.

Last year at this time we had 2012 (Hey there, Roland!) and Avatar, two movies that relied very heavily on the use of CGI, to the point where that was the reason most people went to see them. Both also had awful stories underneath all the bells and whistles. Both made money at the box office, but that's not the same as being good (2012 in particular is sitting at a 39% on Rotten Tomatoes). Making money just means people were excited to see it, it says nothing about delivering the goods. And more often than not, CGI heavy movies have this problem. For every Inception and Lord of the Rings that manages to weave special effects and story together well, there are plenty of Transformers, 2012, Clash of the Titans, and Skyline's to go around. Flashy effects are too common place nowadays to be able to hold a movie together on it's own. And Tron: Legacy hasn't given any indication that it has bothered with anything other than cool CGI.

3. It's In 3D Because Of Course It Is

There has been a lot of talk about how necessary it is for movies to be in 3D. It seems that many are put in that format to squeeze a few extra bucks out of viewers at the box office. But it seems even more silly with Tron: Legacy. The movie's visual aesthetic consists mainly of various patterns of neon blue and red lights. Not the most exciting thing to experience in the third dimension. And much of the background surrounding those lights are very dark colors, which don't work particularly well with the 3D format. Anyone thinking it may add to the experience, the way it did with Avatar, will likely be very disappointed.