Christians Lose Nativity Scene Display Spots to Atheists

I am creased up with laughter at the need for protection around these signs. But then I guess we don’t have a magical sky god to protect them like the Xtians do.

Happy holidays!

Can we talk about how ugly they are? Come on, we atheists can at least make something that looks jolly…

…though behind chainlink it looks stupid.

By the way, every display has chainlink around them. All of them.

Yeah, what is it with the chicken wire and cages? Are those provided by the groups?

I like the Jesus sign and her carrier.

there’s always a threat of vandalism with atheist signs. The real question is did the christian displays need a fence?

There’s fences just like that around the nativity scenes as well, and has been for years.

“A small group of out-of-town atheists is trying to hijack Santa Monica’s tradition “. . . said Jameson, 65, who no longer lives in Santa Monica ::facepalm::

What I’m upset about is that the atheists have outed Santa.

My first thoughts … those displays are hideous! It’s like the dog pound for plastic jesus. Wouldn’t the park look nicer without any displays?

But since they’re there, it’s too bad the atheists didn’t do something more creative, more three dimensional with some of their spaces, like a tree of knowledge or a giant atom titled “the reason for the season (and everything else.)”

Apparently God favors atheist when it comes to lotteries.

They didn’t pray hard enough. Ya, that’s it.

I think it’s to protect the display.  But that protects it so well by ruining the view of anything inside.

Yes, nativity displays usually have the stable, manger, figures and livestock, in 3D rather than a billboard.  I’d like to see more creativity than just posting a billboard.

I was born in Santa Monica. The nativity displays have always been in an enclosure, though I’m old enough to remember a time before the chain link.

I have to say, this smacks of pointless iconoclasm. That stretch of nativity creches along Palisades Park, overlooking the ocean, really is a beloved local tradition that literally millions of people look forward to every year. While I understand the importance of pointing out privilege, and I accept that there’s no basis beyond special pleading for keeping our hands off this one, I wish this hadn’t happened–or that more effort had been made to create something celebratory and beautiful to soften the blow. Hearts and minds, for crying out loud.

The displays are illuminated from within at night, such that you don’t really notice the fencing–your brain tunes it out.

Perhaps they didn’t expect to win more than one or two spaces, and therefore didn’t have anything ready.  

I think that in a few days, they should have their own lottery and donate the rest of the spaces that they aren’t using to churches to put up their gaudy nativity scenes.   I bet that Fox news won’t air that story, though…

That woman looks like she escaped from a Pagan festival. Very Bohemian!

The headline should read. “Christian don’t understand basic math, need classes from Hemant Mehta.”

Winner!!

Out-of-town atheists? Why, that’s the worst kind!

It’s always amazing how much people hate being reminded that not everybody agrees with them. Atheists at least are used to it—they get reminded of the fact several times a day, especially this time of year.

Somebody should really come up with a nice secular creche. What would that look like, I wonder? I hope not one of those plastic shells with a light bulb inside, or a noisy inflatable monstrosity.

I stumbled upon this blog & article for the first time this morning, and was rather surprised.  

The title of the blog is Friendly Atheist, yet the article is bitter and angry and the message very intolerant.  Only one of the displays posted was not critical, intolerant of, or downright insulting to other religions.  For all of the displays that I have seen promoting some sort of religious holiday observance, only a very, very small minority have had this kind of an attitude.  And most of those get taken down due to community complaint.  

I’m not surprised people are picketing these “displays”, and for a blog titled Friendly Atheist, this post appears to be far from that.  

If “literally millions” of people actually looked forward to it every year, those people would have read and understood the workings of the lottery instead of just assuming that the Christians would get everything handed to them without even trying.

How pray tell, did you stumble upon the blog and article? Was it linked from a conservative chrstian site in some way?

Hemant is one of the most easy going people I know. The epitome of the friendly guy.
The article is both filled with hilarious juxtaposition and downright facts couched in what has become his trademark satirical/cynical writing style.

Why must the displays be tolerant?
Why must they be non-critical?
Why must they not insult fairy tales?

There is no legal need to not call a spade a spade.

As atheists we find this nearly nationwide 4 months of perceived persecution of a majority not only hilariously sad, but also a major injustice to the millions of different people in this world.

As for displays from religious folk that get taken down, please link to one.
Do a simple google search for “billboard removed for complaint” and I bet you find hundreds of articles, but I bet they deal with atheist billboards being removed due to death threats and vandalism as well as complaints. Find me one where an atheist has complained please.
Here, Let Me Google That for You.
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=billboard+removed+for+complaint

And here is the one for the search, “Atheists complain about billboard”.
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=atheist+complain+about+billboard

Interesting results huh.

As for the picketing, it is simply wrong, the person is holding a sign shouting “It is all about Jesus”, actually no it is not, look up the history of Christmas and you will see clearly that it is in fact not all about Jesus, and other than adopting it for the mythical figures birthday every single portion of Christmas, from the gift giving, to the trees, to the singing, dancing, drinking and gatherings was adopted from pagan celebrations and local customs which predate the christ myth by thousands of years.

In other words, the reason for the season? Axial tilt.

As a “friendly atheist”, it might have been nice to support something that was actually a *holiday display* (which the lottery was for, and could easily be achieved in a non-spiritual and non-religious way), rather than a dickish attempt to simply insult various religions.

The phrase “out-of-town atheists” reminds me of how the Southerners who wanted to maintain Jim Crow laws in the 1960s blamed the Civil Rights Movement on “outside agitators.”

Oh look.  A “tone” argument. How original!

You mentioned that they aren’t using all of their spots.

While I don’t think atheists are trying to push anything on anyone, I do think if they’ve got 18 spaces then they should damn well use them, or give them to someone who WILL use them. Hoarding them and leaving them empty just seems mean-spirited.

This looks like fail from the people setting up the lottery.  With only 20 slots available, allowing individuals to claim up to 9 of them is a little ridiculous.  All 13 applicants could easily have fit in with a single slot each, and we’d probably have ended up with better quality.

Flip it around, what if we ended up with three Christian applications taking all the slots and leaving them empty? It’d be just as fair.

Great article, it amazes me that Christians think they should be favored. Thank you Damon Vix!

I think that it is probably bad journalism to claim that atheists pushed or displaced Christians because by communicating it with those words he is either being misleading or is communicating opinion which has no place in journalism. I, however am of the opinion that atheists did push or displace Christians because it seems that they did this intentionally out of pure opposition and not out of a desire to celebrate their beliefs. Fair is fair however so the Christians have no right to complain about losing the spots. They do, however (in my opinion) have a right to complain about the fact that atheists are attempting to marginalize Christianity. There is no reason that atheists should feel the need to post something in a spot designated for celebration other then the fact that they want to impose their beliefs. The atheist posting are not celebrating anything. They are simply attempting to marginalize other beliefs. If the atheists that posted these displays had any respect for other peoples beliefs they would refrain from actions like this. Even if they have a right to equal time to display something why do they have to do it at the same time as another group? Why can’t they simply request a time in the summer or spring? If someone wants to celebrate Christmas, why not let them rather than trying to impose your own beliefs?

Those photos are pretty deliberately confrontational, demonstrating a clear lack of respect for people’s strongly held beliefs. Add into the fact that what are supposed to be *holiday displays* are being used for this purpose, and it becomes pretty insulting.

As for creating a non-religious holiday display…you seriously can’t think of anything? Happy holidays, have a great festive season, season’s greetings. “Yule” is arguably non-religious, depending on your point of view. 

I don’t necessarily see why Santa isn’t allowed. He’s arguably a non-religious figure (certainly if you take the “Father Christmas” aspect), and it’s completely intellectually consistent to be an atheist while also accepting that fictional or mythological figures can be part of festive celebration, even if you disagree that any kind of belief structure should be based off that.

So your suggestion for an atheist holiday display (please keep in mind atheists generally do not believe in myths) is to display Santa? Or to display a sign saying happy holidays?

Why not take the opportunity to enlighten people, educate, not perpetuate.

And how is Santa non-religious, did you miss the part where he is SAINT Nick?

Yes, why not take the opportunity to enlighten people, and educate, rather than belittling their beliefs?

Also, Santa is entirely arguably non-religious, given that while the “Saint Nick” part is true, it is only a part of the conglomeration of mythological figures that make up the persona we now recognize as Santa. 

You might also take into account that “Saint Nick” is, in any case, a historically verified real person, with a reputation for secret gift giving. Or does the mere fact that he is connected with the Christian religion mean that the real figure himself needs to be discounted from an atheist standpoint?

Ah. In that case… Knibb High Football rules!

Or it could be that as atheists they are promoting nothing… doesn’t really matter…the spots are theirs to use or not as they choose:) I just can’t believe the childish complaints! I thought christians were about tolerance! Or is it “all must be tolerant of THEM” but not the other way around? lol..

Why must Christians impose their beliefs on others in December? The billboards, radio, exhibits, bells, public spectacles….Why don’t the Christians celebrate Jesus birth when he was actually born? lol.. instead of taking on others holidays… and if a person has a right to say what they want and they view God as a myth, then why can’t they say it? Christians bash us over the head with God is real, repent or go to Hell…ect… I think they have just had the right to do as they please for so long they can’t comprehend someone vocally disagreeing with them. 

I have to agree. The city officials, regardless of the impetus that got them to do it, tried to do the right thing by having the lottery in order to be inclusive, and stop the exclusivity of the earlier practice. Hoarding the unused spaces is just Scrooge-like, and is continuing the exclusion of diverse views. Don’t end up doing what you object to in others. 

If creationism could ever be taught, it can be as a religious philosophy only (certainly not as a science), because it simply doesn’t hold up to the rigors of scientific empirical testing.  Evolution, on the other hand, has its foundation in scientific methods and is backed by mountains of evidence.  Creationism, by its nature, can never be considered a science…. and that’s a fact.

That’s the exact message they have. It’s just like their message of “there should be no church in state…except ours.”

More to the point, why are they putting up an ad for American Atheists?  It’s literally the same as the billboards they put up.  Taking a billboard advertisement and calling it a “holiday display” is pretty tacky, no matter what the billboard was advertising.

The message implicit behind a nativity is: here is a baby we are claiming was god and if you don’t believe in what you are seeing in this display you will burn forever in fiery torment in hell.

Which is far more intolerant than “atheists exist and think you’re full of shit”.

Just because you’ve had over a thousand years to force your faith on everyone around you and “brand” it to the point where you can make your comment with a symbol or an image without coming right out and saying “burn in hell, non-christian!”  doesn’t make the image any “nicer” or more tolerant.

Another implicit message of the nativity when on public land:  “Suck it, non-christians!  We own this country, we own your ass, and the government that is supposed to represent all of us equally and to which we all pay taxes specifically endorses (and sometimes funds) our religion over everyone else!  Feel lucky we allow you to even exist for now (unless you’re an atheist, then shut up about your existence).”

Yes, that’s a very tolerant message.

Atheists (at least, from what I can tell) generally would prefer if everyone INCLUDING ATHEISTS did not put up holiday displays on public land because it is not provided for the purposes of endorsing things like that.  A simple “happy holidays” and some nice secular (that does not mean atheist, just inclusive) is fine.  But as long as religious people are allowed to grab at government endorsement/sponsorship of their religious beliefs by using public land to parrot their views, we’ll be there to remind them that it is illegal and unconstitutional, and to show them why it’s a bad idea.

Point is that your message is every bit as ugly and intolerant to us as ours is to you, and it would be better if we all just stopped having a pissing contest on government land.  If only Christians would stop thinking that their religious displays mean nothing if on private property and only matter if they are on government property projecting the government endorsement of their ideas to all and sundry, reminding everyone that, no matter what they may believe or disbelieve, if you’re non-Christian Jesus and Uncle Sam hate you all equally.

Yeah God prefers people who think instead of blindly follow conmen.

Unfortunately, that system is actually pretty unfair what with the nine
spots per app.  A lottery is already kind of unfair on that level since the majority group could easily stuff the box, but
at the same time if you pull 21 separate individuals chances are there would be a
more even representation.  With this system a majority group could easily stuff the box and get all the slots to themselves.

I think that they intended it that way, but it bit them in the ass.  I think they figured “oh, well Christians are a majority so they’ll put in their apps and they’ll crowd out all the nonbelievers and nonchristians, but just to make certain we’ll allow each app up to nine spots.  How likely is it that we’ll choose any unbelievers when there are so many Christians in the bowl?  That way, we can claim to be fair yet still stack the decks so our own group remains governmentally privileged!  Take that, atheists!

Didn’t work out that way.  Turns out their brethren in faith either got complacent or didn’t understand probability quite as well as the unbelievers.

Exactly!  I love how the omnipresent overprivileged religious group is whining because there are a few square feet of space they are not allowed to dominate and pretend that that amounts to persecution/oppression of their beliefs at worst and “mean-spirited pettiness” at  best.

Why is it not mean-spirited and petty for you to not only have your religion omnipresent but whine and bitch if a non-christian or non-believer expresses themselves or is included when someone says “happy holidays” instead of “merry christmas”–and doubly so if that expression involves public land that is owned and represents those non-believers/non-christians every bit as much as christians?

Is it because of “tradition”?  I’m going to say “tradition”.  It’s tradition, isn’t it?  (Not that that’s an answer or even an excuse.)

I think the lottery thing was an attempt to weasel out of the First Amendment requirement.  I think they figured the atheists could never pony up enough apps to overcome the majority religion, so they could just say “hey, we tried to be fair but majority rules (as if that negates the First Amendment), so shut up, atheists!”  And to try to cement that, they allowed every app up to nine spots?  If the lottery didn’t make me suspicious, the “nine spots” thing sure did.  They figured that they’d pull three names out of the hat, they’d have a high chance of being christian, and then they could pretend to adhere to the First Amendment while still getting what they wanted–government endorsement of Christianity and crap on everyone else.

That is my one problem.  I realize they weren’t ready, but they should be handing out the spots they don’t need (hopefully to some non-Christians who aren’t yet represented) or something.  Or open it up to all their local atheist groups so individual groups could be making individual focused efforts at filling those spaces with something nice.

If they want to keep the spots they won legally and fairly, even if they keep them empty, that’s their prerogative and there’s nothing ‘mean-spirited’ about it. They don’t need to give into every over-emotional whim of others, and they shouldn’t.

Anyway, I want a dinosaur display!

It’s simple. Any display that is not explicitly Christian is an offense to them and counts as “squelching their First Amendment rights.” Fundies have always hidden by the First Amendment to promote bigotry. What they really mean is that anyone who stands up to them is infringing on the delusion that Christians own America and everyone else should take a back seat.

Which mythology do you mean? Should we also tech the Hindu, Norse and Chinese explanations for creation? And why even stop there? There are probably thousands more. Leave religion where it belongs, outside of government institutions.

Shorter Christian Complaint: “Help! Help! We’re being oppressed!”

Heres another way to make Christians look bad. Hold a gay pride rally & provoke them into attacking us so that they look like the enemy.

I do wish the atheists in Santa Monica had been more creative with their display. A simple, inflammatory statement on a sign attached to a chain link fence does more to harm our cause than help it, I think. In ousting superstition, we ought to be careful to not also oust beauty.

because it would be too difficult to teach every single religion (there are thousand). Or were you assuming only Christianity and Catholicism… Bet ya were

I think at least one of the unused spaces should have a Christmas tree accompanied by a history of the tradition behind it.  Too many people have forgotten that many things we associate with Christmas have no historical relation to Christianity.  Some festive, yet gentle, reminders would be nice.

Perhaps it could be part of a bigger “Reason Behind the Season” theme.  It could  include history for Santa Claus and an explanation of why the holiday is celebrated on Dec. 25, a date that has no mention in the bible whatsoever.

I’m assuming the Christians prayed to win the lottery and God was too busy helping Tebow to put the fix in for them.

I didn’t realise all this fuss was over some ugly cages.

I think the unused sites should be given back to the city to be randomly assigned not give them to the Christians.  Maybe a pagan group didn’t get one and they now could have a chance to display something. 

If this truly is a war between atheists and Christians and other Abrahamic Religions, as it seems to be, please leave the other religions alone!

Even god hates christians

If he’d wanted us to think, he’d have given us brains with analytical capabilities…

I know.  I just find the length of the legal discourse to be ridiculous.  Evolution should have put on the curriculum 87 years ago.  It takes about five minutes of thinking to realize that Creationism is not a scientific theory.

I’m happy to see the Happy Solstice sign. I’m tired of the signs that are only up to be argumentative. It’s nice to see one that shows we can enjoy a generally happy season in this country without needing to subscribe to the Christian belief system. (I prefer to wish people a Happy Saturnalia throughout December)

After considerable digging, I found some documents on the Santa Monica government’s site explaining more about the process: http://www.smgov.net/WorkArea/DownloadAsset.aspx?id=26217

I’ll post more as I find them.

Apparently, arguments over this have been going on for decades: http://articles.latimes.com/1989-12-22/local/me-772_1_winter-solstice discusses a celebration of the Winter Solstice by the local Atheists United chapter next to the nativity dioramas. 

In particular I see:

NOTE:  Spaces are intended for the installation of unattended displays.  Failure to install a display in each of the assigned spaces will effect an applicant’s space allocation for the following year.  More specifically, provided an application has been filed in accordance with established policy and space is available for the following year, an applicant will be assigned no more than the number of spaces actually utilized for displays the previous year unless exigent circumstances beyond the applicant’s control prevented the applicant from utilizing all the spaces that had been assigned in the previous year.

I sure won’t be surprised if I see council implement a rule that allows for unused spaces to be reclaimed in the same season.

I can’t help but wonder what happens next year, when a vastly greater number of Christians apply, and probability is on *their* side. What if they win all the spots?

I do not expect anybody to be a good sport about it, and for good reason.

And by the way, many Christians believe in evolution.  I do.

I see you don’t have to be a resident  there to apply. Atheists could still get the spots next year if we all submitted an application which is easily available through the interweb.