All the atheists are missing is a Festivus pole.
Via Guardian:
Wen Christmas comes to Lincoln, Nebraska this year, Mary, Joseph and the baby Jesus will find there is no room in the inner halls of the state capitol – and no manger either.
Instead, there will be an 8ft “happy humanist” next to a “reason tree” dedicated to science and “human intellectual achievement”.
In Lincoln, amid the supposed “war on Christmas” bemoaned each year by the political right, it appears the atheists really have stolen Christmas.
On Friday, a classic Christian nativity scene was erected in the rotunda of Nebraska’s capitol building. The state’s lieutenant governor, Mike Foley, was scheduled to attend.
But on 18 December the nativity will have to be moved, to make way for exhibits organised by a coalition of atheist and humanist groups who last summer booked up all available exhibition space in the rotunda for the week around Christmas Day.
From 19 to 26 December, therefore, the capitol will host an exhibition called Reason this Season, organized by Lincoln Atheists, Omaha Atheists and several other humanist associations.
“It’s going to be a big shindig,” Chris Clements of Lincoln Atheists told the Guardian. “Our message is that it’s a secular government and religion has to stay separate from that. And it’s meant to communicate that atheists are not bad people – we can be good without God.”
One of the main exhibits will be a table holding a miniature church, a miniature mosque and symbols from other religions including Judaism and Buddhism, separated from a miniature White House, Statue of Liberty and US Capitol by a model wall – a stark reminder of the separation of church and state that is enshrined in the first amendment to the constitution.
With a little more subtlety – but not much – a large pine “reason tree” will be decked with messages promoting free opinion and scientific and philosophical thought.