I started seeing noise on Twitter about an atheist billboard in Times Square.

David Silverman, President of American Atheists stated, “We know that a large population of ‘Christians’ are actually atheists who feel trapped in their family’s religion. If you know god is a myth, you do not have to lie and call yourself ‘Christian’ in order to have a festive holiday season. You can be merry without the myth, and indeed, you should.”

Mr. Silverman continued, “We encourage people to be honest with themselves and their families this year. If you don’t believe in god, tell your family—honesty is the greatest gift, and they deserve it.”

Teresa MacBain, Communications Director and a former pastor stated, “The true beauty of the season—family, friends, and love—have nothing to do with the gods of yesteryear. Indeed, the season is far more enjoyable without the religious baggage of guilt and judgmentalism. Dump the myth and have a happy holiday season.”

So isn't an atheist billboard in Times Square kind of preaching to the choir?

— ➡️Curt Jester⬅️ (@CurtJester) December 13, 2012

“Dump the myth and have a happy holiday season.” Been there done that. Would much rather enjoy the gift of faith and ponder upon the wonders of the Incarnation. I was certainly happy as an atheist, but prefer both happiness and joy.

Billboards like this are theist bait designed to get attention and so this is effective at some level. I do wonder if there really are the masses of people hiding their non-belief? Seems to me that there is now more stigma associated with faith than in agnosticism and atheism. The fundamentalist and the bible thumper has plenty of stereotype attention. While I am sure there are some people who do hide their unbelief. Are they really just waiting for a billboard in Time Square for encouragement to come out? Plus as others have noted there is the odd irony of promoting Santa while saying Jesus is a myth. Maybe campaigns like this are to create a sense of community for atheists. We all seek a sense of community and desire encouragement for the like-minded.

As The Crescat noted Atheists.org, be honest. It’s just Christians you have issue with, not religion in general…. This fact has certainly been noted before that it is almost always Christianity that is aimed at and ridiculed. It would seem that atheism should be an equal opportunity ridiculer of religion. Still it makes sense that this is so in a Christian/post-Christian society and that this would be the target.

The more interesting question is why such campaigns and efforts by atheists are more like political campaigns and attack ad based. Where are the signs/bumper stickers/reaching out efforts promoting the positive joy of atheism. For a group that constantly talks about reason the efforts are largely mockery-based. If you had a positive atheist message on a bumper sticker what would it be? Even in the realm of car magnets atheists mock the Ichtus instead of advancing their own symbol.

When I tweeted something along these lines earlier I got a bunch of joyful replies from atheists on the positive aspects of unbelief. I mean by joyful use of the F-word and assumptions made not based on what I wrote. Apparently the thing to be avoided at all costs is guilt. The sign of a working conscience is now a defect. I found a rather odd way to avoid guilt, I try to avoid sin – fancy that.

It is interesting how the culture seems to view Catholics.  People are amused by nuns roller skating, running in a marathon in a habit, or monks refilling laser cartridges.  The view that Catholics don’t use technology or that they can’t have other interests seems to be the normal assumption.

Maybe this view can be seen also among even Catholics. The coverage of the Pope’s personal Twitter account and his seven tweets today has gotten a lot of attention even among tech blogs. Somehow they expect Catholics to have an Amish aversion to technology and that the Pope would be more likely to place Twitter on the “Index of Forbidden Social Media Applications” than to use it.

https://twitter.com/Pontifex/status/278808536404852736
https://twitter.com/Pontifex/status/278819486377840640
https://twitter.com/Pontifex/status/278820239943274497
https://twitter.com/Pontifex/status/278861784008499201
https://twitter.com/Pontifex/status/278862015253061633
https://twitter.com/Pontifex/status/278907093065535488
https://twitter.com/Pontifex/status/278907314810023938

I certainly liked that he did a series of tweets after today’s General Audience. But I think the papal iPad should have been the white one. I also really want that papal iPad which could be a 2nd class relic in the future if he is ever canonized. Plus if his cause is ever introduced it means the Congregation for the Causes of Saints will have to read through his tweets. I tweeted before that maybe one day there will be a Denzinger’s list of official tweets published.

Getting back to the attitude regarding Catholics and technology. Part of this is from the false narrative of the Church vs. science which is constantly drilled in.  The fact that it was usually Catholics who were on the bleeding edge of some science is almost totally unknown and like clockwork every year we get some story on the Vatican Observatory because the novelty never wears off.

When it comes to the internet and some other media Catholics have certainly lagged behind.  I really don’t expect for example the Vatican to jump on every new social media initiative and it makes some sense to observe the scene and then enter it when there is a certain critical mass.  For example a Vatican presence on Friendster would have been rather silly or even worse myspace. Although it would be nice if they had someone in the Vatican that monitored this and did things like reserve nicknames in new platforms for future use. It would have been nice if the Pope at least have had an option to use @pope.  There was not much planning ahead before when the Vatican did not get other top level domains other than .va andI believe at one time vatican.va went to a very undesirable site.

The other day I was looking through the top “Religion & Spirituality” podcasts on iTunes and Catholics are hardly represented at all.   In a list of top podcasts in this category you don’t come to a Catholic one until #47 Catholics Answers Live.  There are more Mormon podcasts in the top 100 than Catholic ones.  There are more atheist podcasts in the top 100 than Catholic ones.  Protestants though pretty much dominate.  I listen to a good amount of Catholic podcasts and there are some high quality ones and you can find a couple of them in the iTunes “What’s hot section”. Fr. Roderick’s SQPN (Star Quest Podcast Network) was an early innovator and has expanded and continues to deliver entertaining and informative content.  Still with over a billion Catholics there should be multiple such podcast networks. I like to listen to the EWTN homilies via podcast. Though it is quite annoying that many times they don’t post them in a timely manner and never on weekends.

Catholic radio is another area that severely lagged.  While the Vatican had a radio station early on, Protestants have also dominated the air waves.  The good news is that Catholic radio is rapidly growing.  When I first came to Jacksonville, Fl 15  years ago the Catholic station here was only one of three in the country. Now there are over 200 Catholic radio stations here in the United States.

If you want to go into a technology time warp than pretty much visit any parish website.  In my diocese I have not seen on parish site that does not make me cringe either with 1990 design or bulletins last updated in a previous year.  Internet.org has a wayback machine so that you can see what an archived website looked like in the past. Unfortunately parish websites look like they had been archived sometime in the past.  In fact if you look at the 1997 version of Vatican.va there is very little difference in design compared to now.  If you do web programming like I do I am sure you would cringe at the fact that documents on the Vatican site are formatted using tables – yikes. At least news.va is not an embarrassment to look at.

From the Weekly Standard:

President Obama declares Hanukkah “an opportunity for people of all faiths to recognize the common aspirations we share.”

“He made this comment in his statement on the Jewish holiday emailed to the press:

Michelle and I send our warmest wishes to all those celebrating Hanukkah around the world.

This Hanukkah season we remember the powerful story of the Maccabees who rose up to liberate their people from oppression. Upon discovering the desecration of their Temple, the believers found only enough oil to light the lamp for one night. And yet it lasted for eight.

Hanukkah is a time to celebrate the faith and customs of the Jewish people, but it is also an opportunity for people of all faiths to recognize the common aspirations we share. This holiday season, let us give thanks for the blessings we enjoy, and remain mindful of those who are suffering. And let us reaffirm our commitment to building a better, more complete world for all.

From our family to the Jewish Community around the world, Chag Sameach.

In which Simcha Fisher responds:

Big words from a guy who doesn’t seem to realize that, in the Hanukkah story, HE IS ANTIOCHUS.

Exactly.  This is not the first ironic statement about religious freedom from the President and won’t be the last.

I remember reading through Maccabees  in the lead up to Advent since it is part of the Office of Readings in the Liturgy of the Hours.  I was thinking about these parallels in consideration of the HHS mandate.  One of the connections I considered was that it was not as if Antiochus IV Epiphanes immediately went about outlawing Jewish rites and practices and enforcing the worship of Zeus. The introduction of  gymnasia, Olympic-style games, mystery rites and such was welcomed by many Jews to some extent. So often we see in the Old Testament Israel being tempted by something from the outside and wanting to incorporate it into their own culture.  For example demanding to have a King instead of the Judges so they can be like other nations. We have the same tensions within the Church.  People wanting to adopt the wider culture into religious practice to such an extent that there is hardly any difference between the culture and the religious practice of these adherents.

While with the HHS mandate we see some revolt such as the groups and institutions that sued in response, mostly we see very little resistance to the state.  The modern Maccabees are those fighting against this usurpation of religious liberty. For the large part instead of people imitating Judas Maccabees, they are imitating Judas Iscariot instead.  Name one Jesuit institution involved in the lawsuit? An easy question: a big fat zero.  Too many are willing to worship the bureaucratic version of Zeus in big government.  Big government is a jealous god that does not like rivals and would restrict the cult of worship to itself. Caesar soon leads to seizure of both your money and religious freedom.

Thankfully the modern Maccabean revolt is happening in the courtrooms and not the battlefield, but it is still a battle that must be won. This battle also needs to play our via prayer and fasting.