From an email to a friend who asked if I had a god Channukah:

I totally ignored Chanukah. Even if I was not an atheist with hostile attitudes towards religion, Chanukah is an awful holiday.

It is celebrated as a holiday of religious freedom, but what it really commemorates is the victory in a civil war of fundamentalists (Maccabees) over Jews who were merging their beliefs with Greek rationality, science, and custom.

To this day, the word orthodox Jews use for "heretic" or "apostate" is "apikoros", from the Greek "Epicurian."

Epicurus RULES. He's essential in the history of science, rationality, and humanism.

I'm in favor of leaving superstition behind in favor of rationality and humanism.

So no Chanukah for me.

Down with fundamentalism, up with reason. Hurray for Epicurus and apostates!