Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas, Christmas, Yule, Saturnalia, Holidays…it doesn’t really matter what it’s called, because the meaning is the same: this is the time of renewal, when we slough off the old year and the wearisome encrustations that have built up and look forward to the new. It is the time when our sun, Sol, which has been slipping lower and lower in the sky, at least here in the Northern Hemisphere, stops, and begins to rise again, bringing with it the promise of warmth. The underlying message that is contained in all the stories that surround this crucial moment in the calendar is always the same: Renewal. With renewal comes forgiveness and hope, and whether or not Christ was ever a real man who walked this earth, the message that surrounds his myth is quintessentially that: only love can forgive, and from love comes hope. As an atheist, or a pantheist, it’s not necessary to believe all the other parts of the Christian—or any other—mythology to