Merry What?

Have you read about the American Atheists group aiming their anti-God adverts (the article's words, not mine) at the rural Bible-belt for Christmas? Nice. A little girl writes a letter to Santa. "Dear Santa, All I want for Christmas is to skip church! I'm too old for fairy tales." Because it makes perfect sense to protest a "fairy tale god" while affirming a fairy tale Santa, right? "And besides, we're opposed to your overt religious invasion of our world at this time of year ... while we steal the opportunity to have a holiday" (read "holy-day") "on the back of your beliefs bereft of our own."

There are so many ways to view this thing. There's the irony of "It's okay to believe in Santa whom we all know doesn't exist, just not God." But I'm pretty sure they were going for that irony. There's the irony of asking the mythical being for relief from the real One. There's the fundamental irony of "It's really cute that kids believe in Santa, but really awful that they might believe in God." There's the Christmas irony. "We're deeply in love with celebrating Christmas ... as long as it doesn't include Christ." There's ... well the list just keeps going, doesn't it?

The irony is thick with this one.

Well, to all atheists, have a merry ... what ... not Christmas ... nothing at all to do with Christ or Mass (church) or God's message of peace and goodwill or ... let's see ... merry ... what? Have a merry day? Wow, that fell flat.