freeinfidel

Atheists in Philadelphia have erected a ‘tree of knowledge’ in the free speech area outside a courthouse, alongside a Christian nativity scene and a Jewish menorah. Sadly, and predictably, only the atheist celebration has attracted controversy and hate. And ironically, the tree has also highlighted the astonishing ignorance of those who seem threatened by it.

The tree is the work of the Freethought Society of Greater Philadelphia, led by the redoutable Margaret Downey who is also president of the Atheist Alliance International. There’s a good article on the controversy surrounding the tree at the Philadelphia Weekly.

And wouldn’t you know it? The Fox News religious attack poodle Father Morris turned up again. He and Downey debated the issue on TV (video clip), with Morris doing his trademark excitable juvenile act in an attempt to disguise his lack of reason or anything resembling a valid argument. Downey, of course, was her usual erudite and informative self.

The exchange, and the emails that were read out afterwards (and note how the one pro-atheist message selected was read through so fast as to be almost incoherent), did follow a depressingly familiar trend, however. They demonstrated how faith blinds people. Sadly, given the subject matter, it blinds them to knowledge.

Let’s take that tired old argument that this season is for Christians alone. Morris squealed about this and the emails repeated it faithfully. (Everyone, however, failed to mention the Jewish celebration. Apparently, fellow theists get cut some slack, even the Christ-killing kind.) This claim is made with absolutely no sense of irony. It seems that few Christians question why this hugely important date in their calendar just happens to coincide with the winter solstice. None, it seems, ask why those shepherds were tending sheep on the mountainsides (this alone probably places the nativity in September. Other estimates place it in April, June - just about any month but December). They freely use words like ‘yule’ without knowing that it refers to a winter solstice festival of pre-Christian Germanic pagans. Let’s not even get started on Santa or mistletoe. These pagan practices and symbols don’t seem to give Christians any qualms at all. Ignorance is bliss.

And let’s talk about that tree. According to Morris, it’s a Christian symbol being usurped by Downey and her fellow atheists. Apparently, a lot of Christians seem to think that fir trees belong to Christ, at least in December. Morris really needs to settle down a bit and maybe read a book or two. He could start with the many books (including the Bible) whose covers decorated the Philadelphian atheists’ Tree of Knowledge. If he hasn’t got the attention span to read a whole book, perhaps someone could read some key sections to him. What will he learn?

For a start, he might discover that the so-called Christmas tree is also known as the tannenbaum or ‘yule tree’. Yule? Oh oh, it’s those pesky German pagans again. The Germans revived the tradition some time in the 16th century and it made its way to Britain in the late 19th century, though only Queen Victoria and the rest of her bunch (who were mostly German anyway) took to it at first. Outside Germany, then, having a ‘Christmas’ tree is a fairly recent practice and one that still has strong echoes of its pagan, solstice-related past.

So the evergreen tree at the winter solstice is available to everyone as a symbol of hope for the coming year.

Morris, ever desperate to score points, also picked on the use of the phrase ‘Tree of Knowledge’. It’s Christian, he squeaked, from the story of Adam and Eve. Well, close. Actually, the tree in that story is more properly translated as the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, or sometimes the Tree of Conscience. It is the tree from which Adam and Eve are forbidden to take the fruit. What clearer illustration could you want for the willful ignorance of religion? God put that knowledge on the Earth and forbade his only humans from partaking of it. God wants you to be stupid.

Of course, the tree of knowledge isn’t just a Christian symbol. Being in the old testament, in the Pentateuch indeed, you’ll find it in Judaism too. And ancient Greeks, Sumerians, Buddhists and Hindus all have their equivalents. It even turns up in Norse sagas. Hardly the property of Christians, then. Frankly, as a symbol, it’s up for grabs. And surely it’s better to employ it as a symbol of learning and intelligence, of free and shared wisdom, as Downey has, than as a symbol for knowledge withheld, of willful unenlightenment?

Margaret Downey and the Freethought Society of Greater Philadelphia are to be applauded for working hard to encourage the spread of knowledge. It’s another step away from the dark ages.

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