Her oupistidophobia comes gift-wrapped, and just in time for the holiday season.

"Atheism is a non-prophet organization"
-- George Carlin

Phobias are perhaps the most fundamental of psychological phenomena, and I feel for anyone who suffers from them.

I have a few phobias, although their effects are relatively mild. There's a periodic fear of heights, and also a wee bit of taphephobia, which is the fear of being buried alive, as in a grave. These bubble up more often during dreams than in everyday life. They lurk in the murky background of my mind, ever vigilant for the opportunity to wreak havoc.

According to a brief search of the Internet, there would appear to be no general agreement as to the proper word to describe the alarming condition whereby a person suffers from an irrational fear of atheists and atheism. It appears nowhere on the Indexed Phobia List, but one source suggests atheophobia as true to the Greek origins of the idea, while another offers oupistidophobia, literally “no-faith-phobia.”

Whatever the best word, Tribune guest columnist Peggy DeKay is afflicted with it. In her column last week, and for the second time in six months, DeKay charts the dimension of an insidious and irreligious conspiracy composed of tiny number of militant atheists intent on prying pure faith from the hearts of vulnerable, pious Christians, who themselves comprise 76% of America’s population.

Her current instance of phobic frothing focuses on that most recurring of seasonal teapot-borne tempests, namely, the one where Christians – quite possibly the beneficiaries of the most pervasive and relentless propaganda machine in the history of mankind – become terrified that even the most miniscule dollops of free thinking grudgingly permitted to seep through somehow pose a mortal threat to the hegemony of their religious edifice.

DeKay points to a sign erected on the capitol grounds in Washington state:

“At this season of THE WINTER SOLSTICE
may reason prevail
There are no gods,
no devils, no angels,
no heaven or hell.
There is only our natural world
Religion is but a myth and superstition that hardens hearts and enslaves minds”

Placed by the Freedom From Religion Foundation on behalf of its state members.

(It bears noting that from the perspective of a non-believer, the preceding text is largely superfluous past the word “prevail.” A theist believes in something and bears the burden of proving the positive belief, while the atheist is absent such belief. It certainly isn’t the atheist’s job to explain why something doesn’t exist.)

At any rate, read DeKay’s entire piece here: DeKAY: Christmas — for most of us. Her choice of opening quotation is noteworthy.

“Tolerance is the last virtue of a decadent society.”

Muhammad Ali famously eschews the word “tolerance” in preference for “respect,” and I understand his distinction, but given DeKay's overall gist, forgive me for assuming that she intends no such thoughtful examination when she blithely equates “tolerance” with “decadence” in this simplistic a fashion.

To deploy the word tolerance as an epithet in this manner can mean only one thing: The speaker believes she has a monopoly on "truth," and in this context, her “truth” embraces the notion that hereabouts, one’s personal Christian faith somehow cannot be truly validated without recourse to the tired “America as Christian nation” argument, and this in turn leads to DeKay’s most valuable, if unintended, insight.

What non-Christians never get is that Christmas is in our hearts, and there it will always remain.

Precisely. So, how does the argument proceed from the value of Christmas in “our hearts,” the one place that remains impervious to the wickedness of outside world, to the strongly implied compulsion that the remainder of non-Christians toe the ideological religious line in order for them to be acceptably American?

Christianity's beginnings as a shunned and hunted desert sect are enshrined in an institutional sense, and Christians have always found it highly useful in the evangelistic sense to portray themselves as a besieged minority. In some parts of the world, that’s both the lamentable case and one deserving of a discussion of its own, but it decidedly is not the case in the United States, and the persecution complex grows tiresome with passing time.

Christians in Saudi Arabia? My educated guess would be that DeKay supports their freedom from religious persecution and injury at the hands of the monolithic Muslim state, which looks at dissent differently from the United States.

But dissenting atheists in Seattle?

That's simply unspeakable ... and how dare they!

Don’t they know this is a monolithic Christian state?

Logic is taking a beating, but as downtown neighborhood pastor John Manzo observes in a recent blog post, historical facts can be downrighting irritating.

The Puritans did not really celebrate Christmas. It is not that they didn’t believe in the birth of Jesus or that they wanted to eliminate the infancy narratives from the Bible, but they did believe that a huge celebration of Christmas was paramount to missing the point about the coming of the Messiah.

Much of our celebration of Christmas comes from Germany. Gathering around a Christmas tree and singing carols comes from beloved German traditions that have become a part of our lives.

Christmas is not just for Germans any longer.

I'm an atheist, an identification shared by perhaps 4% of my fellow citizens. Roughly 14% claim no religious affiliation, and many of these probably are theists, since more than 80% of Americans still believe in the existence of God in some capacity.

I doubt it would be possible to find more than a few dozen atheists who share a viewpoint about Christmas, about what it means, and whether any of it really matters in the daily life of a non-believer.

But the mere presentation of an opposing viewpoint hardly stands to bring Christianity to its knees, and speaking personally, I've never understood why those of religious orientation (a chosen lifestyle, isn't it?) are so insecure when it comes to the consideration of alternative worldviews. I imagine it has to do with the influence of Satan, the same force for evil who was responsible for the notions of gravity and the sun as center of the galaxy, along with other theories that resulted in those espousing them watching as their heads rolled down bloody streets.

None of it matters to me until the insecurity compels religion to cross the line. Given the global history of persecution and mayhem administered from a religious perspective, I'll say this: There's a much greater chance of an atheist being harmed by religion than the other way around.

DeKay is on safe ground, but how many heretics have been burned? Perhaps she should consider the Inquisition this holiday season.