A group of atheist US Army Soldiers from Fort Campbell, Kentucky, recently entered an anti-Christmas float in the Clarksville, TN, Christmas parade.

“We are people that enjoy the holidays just like everyone else, but we don’t subscribe to the religious dogma,” says MASH member Patrick Horst, an active duty soldier at Fort Campbell.

He said last year’s float was well received. “People are very tolerant, they understand that everyone is not Christian and we even picked up a few new members from having a float in the parade last year,” Horst said.

To their credit, the Soldiers tried to be clever rather than caustic. But by re-wording traditional Christian Christmas songs (“Come All Ye Faithful” became “Come All Ye Faithless”), the atheists only pointed out that they were against what everyone else was for.

It’s like giving the bride and groom the business card for a divorce lawyer, or going to a birthday party with a cake for your own unbirthday rather than a gift for the honoree.

It’s like driving a float in the Martin Luther King, Jr. Day parade with “National Association for the Advancement of Caucasian People” plastered across the side.

The military atheists appear to be hecklers rather than participants. But because it’s Christmas — which is increasingly viewed as something that needs to be balanced with anti-Christmas in order to be legally or socially acceptable — it’s considered ok.

It’s great the town had a nice attitude about it, but that tolerant attitude shouldn’t be confused with a requirement that the town include an atheist float, or confused with the idea it was a “good” thing for the atheists to do.

As an aside, it’s interesting that these atheists aren’t content to simply disbelieve, but they want to evangelize their beliefs as well — and do so during the season in which many celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ. In some ways, that’s a good thing, as they have an active interest in theological issues.

Maybe in participating in the Christmas parade they’ll open their mind to the possibility of a Creator and Savior.

One can hope.

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