Yuletide carols

What follows is hardly an original account of how some men across the ages, with claims to special celestial jurisdiction, lay their hands upon the produce and modest traditions of honest folk. And it is all too long a writing for its actual simple purpose: An atheist's apology for gladly singing Christmas carols.

If you either dislike singing anyway or have firm scriptural convictions that give you meaning in songs about baby Jesus, perhaps you need to read no further. If you do, however, go on reading, in the spirit of the festive season, please forgive me for not finding the brevity I would have desired.

Onto the ruins of the Roman empire, funded from the coffers of the last emperors, the catholic church was founded. In addition to inheriting the language of Rome, Latin, the empire's remaining riches and the inner citadel of its capital, this institution soon also adopted the Roman ambition to dominate, tax and exploit other peoples of the world.

It first took Europe. By the 12th century, swords had spread this amalgamation of religious teachings called christianity to the northernmost parts of Europe, converting, among others, the pagan Germanic, Baltic and Fennic peoples of the Baltic Sea into followers of the holy cross.

Here in the north, midwinter had always been an awaited turn for the brighter and warmer. It was a chronological vantage point from where the famine-fearing poor might predict whether or not their supplies would last until the snow would melt and the sun inseminate the next fertile season. At least in a good year, a little extra could be taken from the larders to a festive serving, and then midwinter would be a true time of joy and relief: Yuletide had come!

That winter solstice party proved especially profitable for the catholic priests, who, since at least the 4th century Council of Nicea, had laboured to construct stories about the life and times of Jesus of Nazareth to match the festivities that were already in place around the world.

Kidnapping indigenous European seasonal traditions was easy; spring celebration became Easter, midsummer S:t John's and the Birth of the Virgin Mary was conveniently put into the liturgy adjacent to the time of harvesting celebrations, so that they, too, were thus religiously pimped.

But none of those had the power of the midwinter feast when the sun is at its nadir and darkness rules. For these times are filled by nature with mystery that is fertile ground for religious imaginations: What is out there in the dark? Who will survive the cold? Do we have enough food? Even the stars are twinkling brighter and, - I hesitate to use the word - they appear more angelic in a crisp winter night.

Therefore special papal attention must have been directed to the substitution of Christmas for what was once known as Yule, Jul or Joulu. The fable of the virgin birth of messiah under midwinter stars was conjured, written into the gospels and spread by armed missionaries as a bewildering tale of divine goodness, worthy of any sacrifices and chanting.

Incidentally, so effective was this strategy that muslims would later - though less successfully - copy it by claiming the birth of prophet Muhammed was around those same times of the year, in an attempt to have the Mawlid feast, too, crowd out some pagan predecessors.

For the medieval catholic church and its protestant offspring, it must have been pivotal to come up with, and impose upon others, the story of virgin birth, a manger, shepherds, sages and angels. While the tale is peculiarly devoid of reference to the actual teachings of toleration and love of the idol Jesus Christ himself, these fantastic stories are well fitted to the sublime, strange life of winters up north. The English even managed to crucify the feast of Yule to the saviour's name: Christmas!

We may only speculate as to how much of St .Peter's Basilica and other parts of the Vatican are built with proceeds from subsequent taxation of and trade in indulgencies with gullible northern peasants. I hold that surely it is enough that it is with a complete sense of co-ownership that we, who are neither from Italy nor catholic, should visit this magnificent building.

My family has, as far back as I know, always been atheist; paying its dues to the states and churches wherever it settled - for a long time in Germany - but withholding from the church its most valuable asset: free thinking. We, my little fellow, believe not in god, nor in any other ghosts, my grandfather is said to have told me as a small boy. Although I do not remember it, evidently I got the message.

If ever there was congregational membership amid my ancestors, perhaps confession even, it was because such were market economies in times past that no grain would be sold to, or flour purchased from an unbaptised miller and no iron cast by a pagan. Disinterested lip service was probably a small price to pay to avoid starvation.

It is fortunate in our day that an atheist, completely secular Christmas - a Yule celebration - is quite common and can be ecumenically mixed with other merriments of the season. For a long time, in a similar spirit, German and American jewish-christian mixed families have gathered in December to celebrate together the melange of Christmas and Hanukkah, calling it Chrismukkah.

Although I prefer abandoning the religious connotations of this season altogether to simply have a peaceful Yule with my loved ones, I will welcome the day when cultural integration of muslims brings under one roof the celebration of the births of both Muhammed and Jesus in some kind of Christmas-Mawlid. It matters less that both are made-up birthdays, when it is a shared lie.

But there is one thing around this time of year that annoys the hell out of me. Research has shown that chanting together in groups is a healthy thing to do. Not very differently from how cats purr to improve bone density and promote healing, so too is communal singing good for human health. Implied by lots of reasearch it "not only increases oxygen levels in the blood but triggers the release of “happy” hormones such as oxytocin, which is thought to help lower stress levels and blood pressure."

Yet, in our society, nearly invariably it is in churches and other religious or semi-religious gatherings that we ever sing together. Ok, there are exceptions like the Swedish folk-fest Allsång på Skansen and Estonian counterparts, but by and large, you either need to go to church or join a choir for vocal health exercises.

If you do not, and only meet even the most beautiful Christmas songs in their unflattering muzak versions in shopping centres, it surely has the opposite effect on well-being than singing them.

So how should an atheist solve the dilemma of wanting to enjoy singing familiar songs in harmony and the benefits of co-resonance so effectively achieved in the mighty vaults of cathedrals, while lacking a relation to the lyrics, be it literal or symbolic?

In earlier times, the catholics had an ingenious manipulation for this. The liturgies with all their psalms were in Latin, which nobody understood anyway. Some still are, so you could go there and sing the hocus pocus, unless you happen to know enough Latin to understand both Hoc est corpus and Adeste Fideles.

With the increasing practice in the West of yoga and some related hindu traditions, Kirtan singing is gaining popularity. While that has nothing to do with Christmas carols, there is a familiarity between a mass in Latin and a Kirtan, where you can unabashedly sing incomprehensible syllables in Sanskrit and have your body reverberate in unison with others' and feel the relaxing flow of oxytocin in your veins.

But if you want to sing the psalms and carols in a modern language that you may know from childhood or western popular culture, your only option may be to go to church on a Sunday in December, chant loudly from the bottom of your heart and try to establish a complete disentanglement of your mind's faculties from the silly lyrics. I know this can be done, for I have tried and succeeded. No shame!

Here is a tacky carol to put you into the mood and practice the severing of your eager body from your critical mind.

Season's greetings!