What can an atheist find to celebrate at Christmas?
Most people - many atheists included - find great pleasure in celebrating Christmas. Even though some research suggests that Jesus, hailed by many Christians as "the reason for the season," was born in spring (probably April or thereabouts), all human beings in climates where there are noticeable seasonal changes have had some sort of ceremoney/celebration during the depths of winter.
That tradition must go back a very long way, at least about 10,000 years, at the end of the last Ice Age. That was when severe cold began to moderate, and agriculture became possible. Because of agriculture, mankind no longer had to follow the migratory animals he depended on when plant sources of food were limited. Instead, people could prepare for the "wasteland" (the term used to describe winter in the Arthurian legends, themselves the product of thousands of years of oral history).
As you might imagine, it was no small feat. As living, physical, material beings, our ancestors had to have the material means - food, shelter, and warmth - to survive until the return of spring. In fact, the very survival of the families, kindreds, and tribes depended on how well they could store food, secure their shelters against the harsh winter, keep their fires going, put aside seed for the spring planting and feed their livestock.
When all this was done, and the cold darkness had settled in, there were two kinds of thinking; one was the fear that maybe, this time, the spirits or gods would not look kindly upon them, and spring might not return. In order to increase the odds that the spirits and gods would allow the sun to return, they gave them gifts through the sacrifice of part of what they had set aside.
The other kind of thinking involved great happiness that every year, beginning about 10,000 years ago, their problem-solving ability and industriousness had worked, and they had reason to think that it would again. They celebrated their confidence in the height of winter with ceremonies and feasts.
Maybe our more remote ancestors in Africa, prior to the great diaspora, also had reason to prepare and celebrate. The climate in Africa during the Ice Age, including in the Sahara, was more temperate, being both cooler and wetter than it is now. It is possible that the challenge of winter was great enough to give rise to mid-winter festivals even then.
But we can be certain that life, the survival through the winter, the ability to be warm, to have food, the care for one's children, was a major feature of human psychology at least since the end of the last Ice Age.
It is no different for us today; we marvel at the way humanity has prospered despite harsh conditions. Our ability to do so has expanded with each technological development. Preseveration techniques have made every kind of food available year-round; even fresh foods grown far away fill our stores at all times. Technology has made it possible for us to stay comfortable even when the snow and ice are outside.
Technological advances have made it possible for us to be generous, to share our abundance with our families, friends, acquaintances and even those "causes" that we find important. We share our our joy in our abundance with our neighbors and passersby with cheerful displays and decorations of our homes.
Christmas is a celebration of life, and of our most important tool of survival, our capacity for reason.
Merry Christmas to all!