A Grand Junction billboard high above a Hobby Lobby and Chick-Fil-A reads “Axial tilt is the reason for the season.”
December in Colorado is a blizzard of mangers, Santas, “Jesus is the reason for the season” signs and a flurry of other baby-messiah-rules-America messaging.
Atheists, Jews, Muslims, pagans and all others have to stomach the hegemony of endless square-state, Christian pride.
But this year, the Godless have a reason to celebrate too.
Amid all the red and green and the blast of irritating-to-non-Christian Christmas carols in Grand Junction, a billboard appeared above two corporate chains with histories of right-wing evangelical politicking — Hobby Lobby, the company that the Supreme Court said could dodge the legal requirement of paying for employees contraception, and Chick-Fil-A, whose charitable foundation dumped millions into the fight against marriage equality.
The billboard reads: “Axial tilt is the reason for the season” and includes a website address for its sponsor, the Western Colorado Atheists and Freethinkers.
“The friendly members of Grand Junction’s growing secular community enjoy the winter solstice season without the encumbrance of gods or reliance on religious mythology,” wrote Aleksander Kolpakov, the group’s president, in a statement. “The billboard tells secular people in our area that if they don’t believe in a God or gods, it’s just fine, and that WCAF is here for them to provide them with fellowship and community without the dogma of organized religion.”
Wondering how the tilt of the earth’s axis creates winter on planet Earth? Enjoy this clip from How Stuff Works and let superstar scientist Neil deGrasse Tyson and TV host Mike Senese explain what axial tilt is and how it creates the seasons.
Seasons greetings, dear readers, and happy axial tilting.
Photo credit: Western Colorado Atheists and Freethinkers
