What's the meaning of Christmas? That's the issue at hand for this episode of Ask Science Mike Minnie.

It's Ask Science Mike Minnie.

We're answering one Christmas question every day this week in honor of the Christmas

holiday.

Our question came from Scott and he's one of the patrons of the show on

Patreon and he asks, how has the meaning of Christmas changed for you since going through your faith

deconstruction and reconstruction? And what does it mean to your faith now?

Through my prior evangelical eyes Christmas was all about Jesus coming to save us from our sins

and give us the ticket out. It was like celebrating escapism. However, as I'm going through a faith reconstruction, I am finding Christmas so much more joyful and meaningful.

I now celebrate the birth of Jesus by seeing it is when God decided to enter the human drama because he loves us and

we have gotten so much of life wrong. He came to teach us the fundamentals of life

and to set the most important things straight, to teach a social responsibility not to create rules.

To bring humans together, I don't see it as simply the fulfillment of the Old Testament story,

but rather God breaking through all the human made

systems to show what life is really about. Christmas also gives me further

comfort in being an agnostic Christian because if God wanted to unfold the mystery of life to us,

Jesus could have done it, but instead he came to teach us about love.

So at Christmas this year, I am celebrating Jesus as making humanity better and not as me being part of a lucky minority of chosen people.

Well, thank you Scott not only only for the question, but for the commentary on what

Christmas means to you. I think you may be surprised by how my perspective on Christmas has changed through

deconstruction and reconstruction. I loved Christmas as a kid but it's because my

parents went all out to make Christmas special.

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