It’s that time of year again. The Holiday season is upon us, and with it comes classic Yuletide traditions such as eggnog, carols, the lighting of menorahs and decorating a Christmas tree. Ah yes, the Christmas tree, bedecked in lights, garnished with care and topped with…a flying spaghetti monster?
Instead of a star or an angel on top of ye ole Christmas tree this year, many atheists might surprise their family and friends with a proudly placed personified representation of a mound of spaghetti and meatballs atop their tree.
Why you might ask?
Katie Aston, a PhD candidate at Goldsmiths University in London researching atheist aesthetics and material cultures, suggests that such non-religious symbols, taken at face value as a joke, may serve similar purposes to explicitly religious images.
“The visual in a non-religious worldview, is of great importance,” Aston said, “it forms a vehicle for a number of ideas which either express or support the practice of a non-religious life and on occasion outwardly reject the religious images offered.”
The latter might very well be the case with the Flying Spaghetti Monster tree decoration or a number of other well-known atheist symbols and visual aids.
Take for example the “Darwin Fish.” Often found on the back of cars in mock comparison to the ICTHYS fish found on the bumpers of Christians, the Darwinian alternative is intended to promote evolution and to show unequivocally that the owner of the vehicle is not Christian, not a creationist and most definitely does not believe in a deity.
It might be said that the symbol’s strength is found in its resemblance to a common Christian sign.
Similarly, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, a parodic deity meant to challenge Christian beliefs in God, is placed on top of the tree instead of an angel or a “Bethlehem star” pointing to Jesus’ nativity.
These atheist symbols use Christian images or icons and replace them with their own to establish a contra-identity. At times this re-branding, as it were, can prove provocative.
MORE: http://blog.chron.com/sacredduty/2011/11/atheist-aesthetics/
