Which holiday song are you most happy to not hear again for another year?

Well, Atheists still may be one of the most feared and despised minorities in America, but at least we’re trendy.

In his list of the Top 10 Cultural Trends of 2007 for NPR’s Fresh Air, critic at large John Powers cited Atheist chic as the #9 cultural trend. “Atheist chic” refers to the recent discussion of Atheism in the public arena, spurred on largely by the spate of Atheist-related books that have been released in the last year.

If trendiness is the first step towards widespread acceptance (well, that may be asking too much – I’d settle for a mere acknowledgment of our existence), then it’s fine by me.

For some reason, I tend to become very death-obsessed over the holidays. I sit there at Christmas dinner and look around at everyone seated at the table. While everyone else is chatting pleasantly about this or that, I’m silently wondering who at this table will be dead before next Christmas rolls around. I’m wondering if it’s me who will be dead before next Christmas rolls around. Or one of my dogs. Or maybe no one at this table will die, but then again, maybe someone will.

I think someone asks me to pass the cranberry sauce, but I’m too busy contemplating Dwight’s long, slow deterioration from Alzheimer’s to hear. That’s my absolute worst-case Death Scenario. Or maybe he, I and the dogs will be killed in a tragic car crash returning home to Oklahoma City from Tulsa. We all die together, instantaneously. Best-case scenario. Maybe one of my parents, in the next twelve months, finds out they have some incurable disease. Maybe my brother is gunned down in a random act of violence. And on and on it goes, until I’m fighting back the tears, and everyone else at the table is likely wondering what exactly it is about green bean casserole that makes Sarah so emotional.

Goddammit, I hate the holidays.

At the prompting of Josh over at Unbound, and since this is a time of the year when religion is pretty much everywhere, I thought it might be a good opportunity to do a little meditation on the idea of God. What God Means to Me, in 1000 Words or Less. So pack yourself a snack, and mosey on with me down a twisty and turny little path into my brain. Come on, it’ll be fun.

First off, I don’t believe in God, at least not in the traditional concept of God – so an exercise such as this is inherently problematic and difficult. I suppose I tend to think of “God” more in terms of what I don’t think constitutes God. For example, I have a hard time picturing the vengeful and smiting God of the Old Testament. I have a hard time picturing a God who sits around, keeping a list of who’s naughty and who’s nice, in an effort to determine our Final Destination. Those images really, really strain (no, bust right through) the limits of my credulity, for reasons too numerous to expound upon. It also brings to mind a rather unpleasant mental image of God as some obstinate, bullying ten year old, burning ants with a magnifying glass for amusement.

I suppose I could accept an incredibly vague and metaphorical definition of God. “God” is what fills the gaps in our understanding of the universe. It’s that extra little spark of something that we have yet to figure out. A certain je ne sais quoi. Some sort of energy, perhaps. Some undiscovered law of the universe. Something bigger than ourselves. Yeah, I could accept that definition.

But, since most people believe in the concept of a “personal God,” something that’s incredibly difficult for me to believe, let’s keep going. What might a personal God be like?

First, I reject the notion that God is male. Why would God be either gender? And since God is probably not, in most people’s minds, a sexual being, why would God even need a gender at all? This just seems like we’re applying human terms to something that, by definition, is not human. It doesn’t make any sense. If there is a God, wouldn’t it make more sense to presume that God is post-sexual, evolved way past the point where one needs sexual characteristics? But then, I guess we’d find ourselves in a bit of a pronoun predicament.

(Okay. I really didn’t intend for this to turn into a meditation on God’s sexual organs, or lack thereof. That’s a little creepy. I’ll just move on now.)

But you know, I can’t really get past the whole assigning any sort of human trait to God. It’s so bizarre to me. How can there be all this stuff that we as humans can’t even begin to fathom, yet many people seem pretty damn sure that God is vengeful/angry/loving/forgiving/etc.? Pick your adjective – none really seem appropriate.

Should there be an afterlife, and one is able to actually meet God face to face, I suspect there will be a whole lot of people with the same reaction I had when I found out Will Smith was cast as the Robert Neville character in I Am Legend:

No way! That is not who I pictured when I read the book!

So, in a rambling sort of way, I’ve come back to my original statement, the one that makes the most sense to me. If there is a God (and I still strongly suspect there isn’t) then “God” is something too bizarre and cosmic for our poor little primate brains to comprehend. And I doubt that such a God would really be all that concerned with what we’re up to on a daily basis.

Winter Solstice will occur here just after midnight, at 12:08 a.m.

How do you plan on celebrating, you know, the real Reason for the Season?