A secular Christmas

I'm not sure how obvious this is in Singapore or the USA: but it seems to me that Christmas has developed into 2 separate holidays - one Christian and the other secular.

Save for the name, practically nothing people associate with the Christmas holidays has anything to do to at all with Jesus or Christianity: gifts, family & friends, feasts, decorated trees, candy cane, snowman, Santa Claus, log cakes, mistletoe etc. There actually are non-Christian Christmas celebrations (obviously...).

So here, enjoy this video by TheThinkingAtheist regarding Christmas traditions.

 
On a related note, I just want to say that atheists can celebrate whatever holiday, religious or not, if they want to. I'm just not celebrating the myths -- if anything, the secular aspects (friends, family and common values etc) are what's worth celebrating.

Dinosaur?

Here's an excellent video by AronRa exploring the classification of dinosaurs (and their non-dinosaurian relatives).

So what about the dinosaurs?

Birds are dinosaurs.

Pterosaurs are not dinosaurs, but they share a close common ancestor.

Ichthyosaurs are not dinosaurs.

Mosasaurs are not dinosaurs, instead they're related to today's monitor lizards.

Plesiosaurs are not dinosaurs either.

Dinosaurs are not lizards.

Many dinosaurs have been discovered to have feathers (yes, Velociraptor is fluffy!)

Morality and Christianity

Sam Harris makes the case against Christian "morality".