Ariane Sherine - The Atheist’s Guide to Christmas

EDITED BY

Title Page The Atheist’s Guide to Christmas EDITED BY

WELCOME WELCOME Welcome to The Atheist’s Guide to Christmas , the atheist book it’s safe to leave around your granny. Here, you’ll find no chapters titled ‘666 Ways to Diss the Pope’, ‘A Beginner’s Guide to Church Graffiti’, or ‘How to Bash the Bishop’. There’s only one joke about Islamic fundamentalists, coming up now: Q: Why was Abu Hamza a rubbish receptionist? A: Because the phone was always off the hook * and an undecided number of jokes about agnostics † (we wanted to write some, but we weren’t sure, and then we thought we might, but we weren’t certain). * Abu Hamza was indeed a receptionist in a West London hotel in 1983. This was before he had a hook, but let’s not pull apart a joke that wasn’t fit for a Christmas cracker to start with. † For the purposes of this Christmas book, they should henceforth be known as ‘eggnogstics’.

The Atheist’s Guide to Christmas THE ATHEIST’S GUIDE TO CHRISTMAS What you will find are forty-two * brilliant contributions from the world’s most entertaining atheist scientists, comedians, philosophers and writers, who have all donated their time, thought and jokes for free to help you enjoy Christmas. Maybe you bought this book for yourself, or perhaps there’s a price sticker over the ‘A’ of ‘Atheist’ and your devout great-aunt bought it for you, hoping to make you more religious. Either way, all royalties are going straight to the UK’s leading HIV and sexual health charity, Terrence Higgins Trust, so to whoever bought it: thank you. (What do you mean, you haven’t bought it yet and you’re still loitering in the bookshop reading this with your grubby thumbs on the pages? Take it to the counter this instant!) Whenever I read book introductions, I start bellowing internally, ‘Shut up and let me get on with the book!’ So I hope you enjoy every page, and that you have a truly excellent Christmas. ARIANE SHERINE * Because forty-two, as explained in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy , is the answer to life, the universe and everything. If you haven’t yet read it, you might want to buy it along with this book. Although the sales assistant may then think you only buy books with the title format The _____ Guide to ______ .

STORIES STORIES Truth is more of a stranger than fiction. MARK TWAIN

It’s Beginning to Feel a Lot Like Christmas

The Real Christmas Story

A Child Was Born on Christmas Day

110 Love Street

Losing My Faith

Hark the Herald Villagers Sing

A Christmas Miracle

SCIENCE

The Sound of Christmas

The Great Bus Mystery

Starry, Starry Night

The Ironed Trouser: Why 93% of Scientists Are Atheists (Depending on Who You Ask)

The Large Hadron Collider: A Scientific Creation Story

The Power of Ideas

How to Understand Christmas: A Scientific Overview

HOW TO

Things to Make and Do at Christmas

How to Have the Perfect Jewish Christmas

How to Have a Peaceful Pagan Christmas

I’m Dreaming of a Green Christmas

How To Stop Worrying and Enjoy Christmas

How to Decorate the Outside of Your House with Lights and Not Have Your Neighbours Hate You: A guide to turning your home into a festive something that is so bright it can be seen from space

How to Escape from Christmas

PHILOSOPHY

On Kindness

If God Existed, Would He Have a Sense of Humour?

Unsilent Night

The True Meaning of Christmas

Imagine There’s a Heaven

The First Honest Christmas Round-Robin Letter

A Happy Christmas

ARTS

An Atheist at the Movies

A Christmas Carol

O Little Town

Simon Price’s Christmas Album

Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree

It’s a Wonderful Life

The Good Books

EVENTS

God Isn’t Real

God Trumps

Designing the Atheist Bus Campaign

The Godless Concerts

The Little Atoms Radio Show

A Day in the Life of a Godless Magazine

James Randi: The Real Santa Claus

CONTRIBUTOR BIOGRAPHIES

Extract

SECULAR RESOURCES

THANK YOU TO...

Copyright

About the Publisher

Welcome to The Atheist’s Guide to Christmas , the atheist book it’s safe to leave around your granny. Here, you’ll find no chapters titled ‘666 Ways to Diss the Pope’, ‘A Beginner’s Guide to Church Graffiti’, or ‘How to Bash the Bishop’. There’s only one joke about Islamic fundamentalists, coming up now:

Q: Why was Abu Hamza a rubbish receptionist?

A: Because the phone was always off the hook *

and an undecided number of jokes about agnostics †(we wanted to write some, but we weren’t sure, and then we thought we might, but we weren’t certain).

*Abu Hamza was indeed a receptionist in a West London hotel in 1983. This was before he had a hook, but let’s not pull apart a joke that wasn’t fit for a Christmas cracker to start with.

†For the purposes of this Christmas book, they should henceforth be known as ‘eggnogstics’.

What you will find are forty-two *brilliant contributions from the world’s most entertaining atheist scientists, comedians, philosophers and writers, who have all donated their time, thought and jokes for free to help you enjoy Christmas.

Maybe you bought this book for yourself, or perhaps there’s a price sticker over the ‘A’ of ‘Atheist’ and your devout great-aunt bought it for you, hoping to make you more religious. Either way, all royalties are going straight to the UK’s leading HIV and sexual health charity, Terrence Higgins Trust, so to whoever bought it: thank you. (What do you mean, you haven’t bought it yet and you’re still loitering in the bookshop reading this with your grubby thumbs on the pages? Take it to the counter this instant!)

Whenever I read book introductions, I start bellowing internally, ‘Shut up and let me get on with the book!’ So I hope you enjoy every page, and that you have a truly excellent Christmas.

ARIANE SHERINE

*Because forty-two, as explained in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy , is the answer to life, the universe and everything. If you haven’t yet read it, you might want to buy it along with this book. Although the sales assistant may then think you only buy books with the title format The _____ Guide to ______ .

Truth is more of a stranger than fiction.

MARK TWAIN

‘I’ve already done all my Christmas shopping for this year. I bought all my aunties socks and Y-fronts. See how they like it.’

For many years, that was my only Christmas joke. Seeing as Christmas can be quite a lucrative time for a jobbing comic, a time when you can get paid two or even three times your normal fee in compensation for having to entertain people who are two or even three times more drunk and rowdy than normal, you would think I would have written a slew of seasonal zingers to keep the paper-hatted hordes chuckling into their lukewarm mulled wine. But I never did. I would kick off with my little morsel of Christmas humbuggery and then carry straight on with my usual cavalcade of jokes about smoking, drinking and slagging off Alanis Morissette. Why, I imagine you’re wondering, was this so? Why would somebody who, particularly in his early circuit days, was so eager to churn out crowd-pleasing material not hit that stage with an arsenal of Yuletide yuk-yuks? Surely someone with such a pragmatic approach to comedy would have at least a solid five minutes of holiday-based lateral thinking thrown into a box of sarcasm, wrapped in whimsy paper all tied up in the pink bow of impeccable timing? But no.