Although, I do like the idea of celebrating the "Festival of the birth of the Unconquered Sun". That just sounds cool and it's way cooler than the same old virgin (likely not even virgin but instead mistranslated meaning "young") birth story that's been borrowed and used to death by just about every main religion out there because they can't come up with anything new..

As you can tell, I'm an atheist just like Ray and I can say Merry Christmas, Happy Yule, Happy Hanukkah, Happy Winter Solstice, Merry Kwanzaa, Happy Humanlight, Happy Festivus and probably the dozens upon dozens of others that are celebrated this time of year, many celebrated before Christmas/Christianity was even created.

As for the real Historical Jesus if he actually existed, they still cannot determined what day his actual birth is or year, it's just all assumptions and the scriptures you can't take with a grain of salt and here's why, it's all been translated through Textual Criticism, working from copies (damaged), from copies (partials), from copies (partials and damaged) and probably thousands of other copies created by actual illiterate peasants of the scriptures passed on over the years, being manipulated to see the beholders preference, add what they wanted and then assembled together over the past 2 thousand years and even then, not all of these expert scholars agree with the final product we call the bible, it's just the best they could do.

Okay, I'm done ranting, I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season.

Also, why would anyone in their right mind consider Jesus to be like Columbus. Columbus was a rapist, murderer and turned the natives into slaves. He's an all round swell guy though if you like those type of people you usually find in prisons.
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I prefer to ignore the Jesus bit and skip straight to the enjoying the time with family bit
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It is not necessary for you to be a believer in a divine being for you to celebrate Christmas. Why not consider December 25th in the same light that the church of Rome considered it during the age of Constantine. As you know, Constantine, although professing Christianity for political reasons, was probably more like yourself than not. But, even so, just like Martin Luther King, or Columbus or a US President, the church of Rome at that time simply wanted to put aside a day to honor Christ's birth. No theology needed for that. He was after all at least a great man.

So, that's what they did. They decided to commemorate or celebrate the birth of Christ on December 25th, knowing full well that about 130 years earlier, Christians guessed that May 20th was the birth date of Jesus. Later that was changed to a guess of April 6th. (The church of Rome, contrary to what many believe, NEVER thought Jesus was born on December 25th. (Even a moron like us Christians can read the scriptures and determine that December 25th wasn't close. However, many secular humanists do consider Christians morons, so we have to be clear that we understand that there isn't any way Christ could have been born on December 25th. As to the Virgin birth, well, I know that secular humanists like to believe man is smart relative to joining egg and sperm in a petri dish. But, God, no way.)

At any rate, just consider Jesus like Columbus, and get yourself all wrapped up in pretty paper, and celebrate. Christians won't mind.
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