“You can

bet your
sweet §§§
we’re not
closet
atheists!”
T
he formal and individuals to enjoy that
customarily special sensation of
repeated act of warmth which is so often
Christmas-New Year is recounted as Christmas-
here with us another time. New Year cheer or
This year is no different Christmas-New Year spirit.
from other years. The Eggnog and rum, the
routine actions performed scent of pine trees, lavish
with elaborate pomp and nourishment, gift-giving
circumstances cajole and gift-receiving, and
merry music narcotise
millions of people into a
state of euphoria. It is,
one is told, the season to
be jolly; the time to forget
troubles; the time to
celebrate for the sake of
celebrating.
This December, as I peer
beyond my—more or less
contented—inner self (I
am happy I am not
happy!), I find nothing in
the unobstructed or
complete view of world
events to find reason to
demonstrate satisfaction
by refraining from
ordinary business.
Moreover, I do not believe
that Christmas-New Year
might be used as an
inducement to make me
deck the halls with
boughs of holly or find fun
riding in a one-horse open
sleigh. I see the universe
—as it influences me—in a
state of inconsolable
agitation, and the void
which exists between the
supposedly established
institutions and the
realities of the human
condition, has already
lead, in this century, to
the deaths of countless
millions of people and the
disintegration of millions
more personalities.
Further. I know very few
self-defined Christians
who solemnize Christmas
with reference to Christ
even as an ideal type of
humanity. I find it
hopeless to rejoice during
Christmas, Christ’s Mass,
because I believe that the
existence of any supreme
being or ultimate reality is
unknown to me and
unknowable. If a supreme
being exists, it is a
malignantly wicked fiend
provoking, difficult, and
2
trying rather than perfect
in power, wisdom, and
goodness (Sidney Hook).
(Listen, my dear reader,
to these philosophical
arguments against the
existence of a supreme
being elaborated by
Norwood Russell Hanson
in his What I Do Not
Believe and Other Essays
published by D. Reidel
Publishing Company,
Dordrecht, Holland, 1971:
Russell Hanson begins by
showing that few
universities help young
adults to distinguish
positions for which there
are good grounds from
other positions for which
the grounds are not so
good. When the theist
lets his appeal collapse
into faith alone, he
concedes that his position
rests on no rational
grounds at all. An
agnostic maintains
himself/herself in a state
of perfect doubt
concerning God’s
existence, a position
Russell Hanson regards as
unsound. The agnostic
shifts logical ground. But
what is it that Russell
Hanson does not believe?
First, can you prove that
God does not exist when
some “cocktail party St.
George” says there is no
good reason to believe
that God does not exist?
What are you going to say
to him/her? What will you
say to an agnostic? “God
exists” is not a factual
claim but one synthetic.
One cannot specify in
detail what it would be
like to confirm it. Here,
the agnostic remains in
equipoise. “There is a
God” has never been
credibly established—not
with anything like the
universal agreement
which supports claims like
“there is fire, there is
pain, there is suffering.”
Any descriptions and
accounts of natural
phenomena which seem
at first to require God’s
existence for their
explanations, turn out to
be scientifically explicable
via some alternative
account requiring no
supernatural reference
whatsoever. And that is
just an historical remark.
Most things which once
needed God’s
intervention for man’s
comprehension of their
existence—for examples,
lightning, thunder, good
fortune, life and death,
differences in species, the
flight of birds, and the
disappearance of
dinosaurs—all these are
now more profitably
discussed in terms
untainted with the
supernatural. If it has
been proved that God
exists, it would be as
irrational and benighted
of one to deny the
existence of God, as it
would be to deny the
existence of fire and of
life and death. But this is
not so. An atheist may
offend in many ways by
questioning the existence
of God, but he or she is
not offending logic by
doing so. If looking and
not finding does not
constitute grounds for
denying the existence of
God, then looking and not
finding does not
constitute grounds for
denying the existence of
goblins, witches, flying
saucers, Santa Claus, the
Easter Bunny, et cetera.
One of the genuine
anomalies of our time
3
consists in the religious
enthusiast’s contention
that all onus of proof rests
on the non-believer to
make his case! This must
be the neatest trick of the
millennium.) It is
impossible, therefore, for
me to keep something
that most people,
including myself, do not
believe in.
I am suspicious of
Christmas-New Year on a
number of other grounds.
Several years ago I served
as a writer of obituaries
for The Miami Herald.
Those who write notices
of a person’s death with a
brief biographical sketch
know that the Christmas-
New Year season brings
with it a concomitant rise
in deaths. During the
months prior to December
when I wrote obituaries,
the city of Miami
experienced—on the
average—thirty demises a
day. But an appreciable
surge was noticed before
the Christmas-New Year
“festivities.” Seventy to
eighty passings away
were recorded at a point
in the course of the weeks
immediately preceding
Christmas-New Year. I
asked experienced obit
writers why this was so,
and they speculated that
the indulgence in food,
wines, spirits and a high
degree of loneliness
caused more people to
draw their last breaths.
I am not convinced that
Christmas-New Year is the
only time when people
pamper themselves
excessively with food and
drinks; nor, is Christmas-
New Year the only time
they feel alone. But I
think the sadness that
comes from being alone
has more to do with the
aggravation of Christmas-
New Year deceases than
over-indulgence does.
It is unfortunate that more
people are forlorn during
Christmas-New Year. But
it is deplorable that
people are made to be
convinced of their
isolation. Christmas-New
Year is a social event, an
episode which prompts
formal pressures by those
members of human
society who believe in the
Christmas-New Year
liturgy. If one does not
participate in the rite, he
or she is made to feel
vaguely anti-social. This
stress is far more evident
in the differences one’s
economic situation has
than in, say, the religious
disparities between
Christianity and
Jewishness. It is not the
extent to which one
ascribes to that religion—
derived from Jesus Christ,
based on the Bible as
sacred scripture, and
professed by Eastern,
Roman Catholic, and
Protestant bodies—which
determines the success or
failure of the Christmas-
New Year regalements. It
is the limit one eventually
places on those economic
circumstances which are
left soporifically in
abeyance from the time
one signs the credit card
slip to payment’s due
date. Christmas trees,
airline tickets to visit
distant relatives or
friends, gifts, bottles of
whisky and wine, food,
clothes, tinsel, candy
canes, cards, party
napkins and glasses
4
constitute an ever-
increasing higher
investment in a
progressively worsening
economic era. As
individuals are stripped
more and more of their
economic dignity or
benefice, Christmas-New
Year will take on even less
importance. An empty
pocketbook is a
considerably nasty source
of loneliness for most. It
might even be thought of
as un-Chritstian ( ! ) to
suffer a dismal Christmas-
New Year at the expense
of others who unwrap red-
ribboned Cadillac Sevilles
or participate in other
flaunts of luxuriance
which cannot be afforded
by the massive adherents
of Christianity who by
others’ standards are
inferior in quality or value.
But let’s leave economics
out of this commentary.
There is something to be
said about someone who
works hard and saves
money to buy his wife a
Cadillac for Christmas.
Let’s not discuss
economic loneliness; let’s
discuss spiritual loneliness
—a trying task in any
society which stresses the
value of economic goods
over the value of
intellectual and spiritual
ones!
There are hundreds of
millions of people
throughout the world who
are not going to enjoy this
Christmas-New Year—with
or without money. They
are going to sense
unhappiness even if they
can afford the ecstasies of
drunken revelry, partying,
and the excessive
licentiousness in
Christmas-New Year
activities—even if the
view of the gloomy pile of
credit card slips which
stares them in the face at
the end of January poses
no economic burden. I
have heard it time and
time again: There is no
more depressing day than
Christmas Day and no
greater hung-over day
than New Year’s Day. But
why depressing?
Doubling of the world’s
population every thirty
years or so, millions of
starving children, billions
of dollars spent every
year for the purchase of
arms, the threat of
nuclear annihilation? I
believe so. Christmas-
New Year is an agitating
element that brings to
the surface of one’s upper
level of mental life that
creepy stuff which has
lain dormant for a long
year. This spiritual
forsaken state holds a far
more tenacious grasp on
souls in our Western
Civilization than the
sadness of being
economically cut off. It
hints at far greater
consequences than the
loss of the Christian’s
connections with Christ,
Christmas and
Christianity. It is
intimating that Western
Civilization is in the grips
of losing itself. Christmas-
New Year serves only to
remind people that they
cannot enjoy themselves.
The feelings of bleakness
or desolation triggered by
Christmas-New Year are
barometric readings of
the fluctuations within
individuals who cannot
relate to the realities of
the world condition. The
instrument readings are
indeed dismal. Each year
5
more and more people
are becoming alienated.
And each year people are
pulled farther and farther
away from the truths of
the world which surround
them. They are pulled
farther and farther away
from themselves.
Christmas-New Year does
nothing to mold one’s
destiny nor lead a person
compassionately down
the steep slope of life
through its gloomy evil,
much less maintain an
individual in psychological
homeostasis. But it is to
Christmas-New Year that
millions of people swirl
each year for spiritual
oxygen!
I have another reason to
believe something is
delusory about Christmas-
New Year. I sold whisky
and wine for a
Jacksonville, Florida liquor
distributing company, and
I know something about
alcohol—its good and bad
effects. I observed these
mannerisms in the rural
areas of northcentral
Florida. The United States
has a serious drinking
problem. But I want to
know why, in my territory,
fifty percent of my annual
liquor sales were made
during the last six weeks
of the sales year? I want
to know if the United
States’ number-one-
selling prescription drug,
Valium (1979), also
increases dramatically in
sales during Christmas-
New Year. I want to know
the same about heroin,
cocaine and marijuana. Is
Christmas-New Year such
a joyous occasion
because everyone is
soothed to
unconsciousness or
unawareness? Why the
need to be propelled to
enjoy? There is
something definitely out
of proper working order in
the present state of the
drinking and drug-taking
Christmas-New Year
affairs.
I cannot resist mentioning
one final facet that makes
my wariness about
Christmas-New Year
intelligible to me. Having
been the eldest in a
family of four children, I
was in a better position
than other members of
my clan to contemplate
the totality of real things
and events pertaining to
my Christmas-New Years.
My father’s frantic hope
that the local drunk, who
played Santa Claus for my
family, would show up on
time, the constant vigil to
keep my younger brothers
from discovering my
mother’s Christmas gift
hiding place (the trunk of
our car), and the
absolutely obnoxious
hassle of waiting on long
lines to pay for gifts or to
have presents wrapped,
are only a few of the pains
I had to endure to help
procure, maintain, and
transport the Christmas-
New Year matériel. The
view of my mother—
plopped out exhausted on
the living room sofa—was
the finishing touch which
kept me from summoning
any pious strength to find
ways to participate in the
incorporeal nuances of
the Christmas-New Year
festival which, I was
apprised, created
testimonials on behalf of
the commemoration of
the birth of Jesus Christ
and told me to hope for a
6
prosperous and, believe it
or not! holy New Year!
(Has there ever been one
world government which
sought—as part of its
diplomatic ploys—a holy
year for its citizens? Has
Henry Kissinger ever
negotiated with manners
characterized by
perfection and
transcendence
commanding absolute
adoration and reverence
to the Lord God
Almighty?)
I would like to stress two
things: one, the
preposterous influence of
Christianity; two, the
growing loss of the
individual’s contact with
his/her psychological
environment.
(Schizophrenia is,
actually, Western
Civilization’s number-one
mental disease.) In some
ways both conditions
interrelate, but the
second syndrome is far
more pernicious, far more
extensive.
Christianity’s bluff must
be called before people
are to arrive at their own
beings. There are too
many inhibiting Christian
forces keeping Christians
from themselves. At life’s
Card Table a deceiver who
many think to be the
whole body of Christian
believers, cheats his
opponents with a bold bet
on an inferior hand trying
to make his fellow players
withdraw their winning
cards. The dauntless
wager is Christmas: The
only time most Christians
go to church, the only
time they feel obliged to
do so.
Christmas is an innocuous
medication given to
satisfy Christian patients
—whether or not
Christians want to be
soothed or gratified. It is
medicine that is not going
to cure any Christian’s ills;
it is medicine one is told
he/she must take. If
priest and worshipper
seriously opine that
practice of a particular
liturgy will heal the
faithful ones’ ailments,
comfort will follow in
many instances. This
phenomena is ancient.
The certainty of being
helped has in itself been
attributed to the cause of
cure or palliation in
matters which call for the
relaxation of tension and
anxiety even when the
uneasiness has resulted in
actual physical damage.
Psychiatrists call it the
“placebo effect.” Pink
sugar pills work because
the patient has the
conviction that they work.
At Christmas time, the
Christian is told to take a
spiritualistic sugar pill to
assuage his sacred
diseases. If he believes
he is ill, the attention he
places on his trouble
immediately sets into
action flights of recourse
to sources for the
amelioration of the
affliction. If Christianity
promises alleviation, it is
to Christianity that
homage is paid as the
individual waits for the
exorcism of his evil spirits,
his hurt. At best, the
Christmas-New Year
placebo is fleeting. In no
way does it remedy the
spiritual problems of
twentieth-century man
and woman caught up in
a rapidly changing world.
7
In fact, I argue that
Christmas-New Year
worsens man’s spiritual
quandaries.
In conclusion, I believe
that the spiritual
loneliness of man is his
greatest threat at this
time and place in history;
that spiritual loneliness
results from the inability
to relate to the self and
Nature in a realistic
manner; that spiritual
loneliness is further
acerbated when faith is
put in time-honored
solemn practices which
have no basis in reality;
that if man was truly
happy with himself he
would enjoy other
observances during the
year, and Christmas-New
Year would not be
accorded grotesquely
unreal powers of rebirth;
that spiritual loneliness is
a human syndrome that
has reached epidemic
proportions and gives
evidence of posing still
greater menace; that the
demise of spiritual
loneliness can come if
man and woman seek a
new interpretation of their
places in this universe;
that spiritual loneliness is
intensified by Christmas-
New Year because
Christmas-New Year is a
false overture
administered to man by
authoritative church
groups to help him find
his place in a world he
feels lost in but a world
which has the possibility
of enjoyment and
abundant opportunities;
that the celebration of
Christmas-New Year is
proof that man and
woman’s alienation is so
fierce they must take a
desperate binge each
year to lie to themselves
that they are happy.

I call upon all “Christian”

men and women to
examine their lives in
relation to their place in
the world and
Christianity’s place in that
world.

* * *

Written in Caracas,
Venezuela

9 November 1979

Original Title:

Christmas-New Year and

Spiritual Loneliness

Revised in Calenzano,
Italy

15 August 2002

Authored by:

Anthony St. John

Casella Postale 38
50041 CALENZANO FI
ITALIA
055-887.32.28
335-604.73.81