Answer "Jesusween" with "athiestmas"

[Anymouse]

Reading all the nonsense about "Jesusween" in the news (where some church organisations are recommending that for Hallowe'en "treats" persons give out tracts or miniature Bibles or whatnot) I have come up with a few ideas.

Some police departments have had varying success with "gun buyback" programs, where a person turns in a weapon and the police give them a small fee for it. Perhaps we could take a page from their playbook.

If some little kid comes to your door with a bag full of religious trinkets, tracts, and whatnot, offer them a "buyback": for every one of those items they give to you, you will give them a candy in return. I'll bet your house would quickly become "the cool place" for all the kids wherever this "Jesusween" nonsense goes on.

(Edit: or for a kid who gives you a slew of the stuff, a copy of Darwin's On the Origin of Species)

Another idea: take back a holiday from them. For example, the Winter Solstice has long been celebrated as a time of gift-giving and praise for return of the sun, long before Christians started doing it. Neither gift-giving nor acknowledgement of the shortest day of the year necessarily have to have religious significance.

Last time I checked, atheists had nothing in particular against gift-giving (just some motivations for it), nor did any atheist I am aware of deny the existence of the solstice.

They want "Jesusween," we give 'em "Freethinkermas" or "atheistmas" in replacement for Christmas.

While no one here on the Left side of Nebraska in the village seems to be associated with this Jesusween nonsense, we have loaded up on a large stock of candy for a potential "buyback" programme. And if it turns out to be unneeded, we'll just eat it ourselves.

There is only one church here in the village (Messiah Lutheran, across the street from my house). They are quite aware of the atheist woman and Wiccan man who live as their neighbours, but they don't seem to be planning one of these Jesusween things. Plus their kids like candy too.

Those horrible pagan corporations like M&M/Mars and Cadbury must be stopped! They are corrupting our youth, and turning them toward the Devil!

I am minded of the movie Idiocracy. And it does seem the mean score of the bell curve is shifting to the left (lower) numbers, leaving my wife and me high and dry on the right. (This could have been a plot of the neocons painting themselves as "The Right," when IQ graphs normally show higher scores on the right-hand side of the bell curve. A preemptive strike by claiming the higher intelligence ground?)

Beth's corporeal sacrifice of the FSM is finished baking, it is time to eat and remember that wheat died for our alimentary needs.