Christmas is swiftly approaching, and just because you’ve rejected the antiquated notion of a Judeo-Christian God doesn’t mean you don’t want to show your Christmas spirit with some good old family stockings hung over the fireplace. Of course Santa is a social construct, but socks aren’t, so here’s a list of stocking stuffers that’ll keep your philosophical objection to monotheism intact while still putting a smile on those beautiful little faces. After all, you’re an atheist–not a monster!
Sweatshop scarf from Wal-Mart
It’s hard to argue for the existence of a God that would allow millions of children throughout history to be subjected to long work hours, poor ventilation, bad nutrition, hazardous conditions, and cruel taskmasters just to create low-quality, mass-produced outerwear for your enjoyment. Stuff this snuggly accessory in your family’s stockings and you’ll definitely make the statement that no conscious creator of the universe would allow such a thing to happen.
Printed-out comment thread from a YouTube video of a five-year-old singing “The Little Drummer Boy”
Skip the heart-warming song and get right to the malicious and anonymous tear-downs of an innocent child. Xtianvalues4all says she’s “probably Jewish just look at her nose and her ratty-ass Fran Dresher (sp.) hair” and pumpngrind425 says she’s an “ugly fuck who should have been aborted.” What do these comments have to do with the song? Nothing! But they are pretty good proof that we live in a godless wasteland of our own creation.
Airplane model of Enola Gay
Your child will love putting together a model of the airplane that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima while contemplating the impossibility that a God who loves all his creatures would stand by while millions of them are destroyed in a single instant. And if your kid cleverly points out to you that the dropping of the atomic bomb may have stopped millions more from dying at the hand of Hitler, ask him if God also made Hitler and if so why the fuck would he do that? That’ll shut him up while he paints racing stripes on those wings.
A chunk of the polar ice caps
These little puppies are breaking and melting at an alarming rate, and for a price, there’s a geologist in Antarctica who’ll ship one off to you just in time for the holidays. Whether you think it’s a result of man’s stupidity or just the natural consequence of a dying planet, holding a piece of the ice caps in your hand will remind you that we are eminently fucked, and that if a God ever cared about us he stopped a long time ago.
The Portable Nietzsche
Skip A Christmas Carol and pick up the book that will really teach your child about the dark heart of man, written by the original “scrooge” himself. Because nothing says, “God is dead” like the guy who literally coined the phrase, “God is dead.”
However you celebrate the fact that we are nothing more than a collection of cells and hormones stuffed into a rotting meat sack seeking meaning in the randomness of existence, remember that, in the end, the holidays are about joy, love, and family (which is itself the social construct of a post-agrarian world-view). Merry Solstice!
