Free The Atheist’s Guide to Christmas by Robin Harvie Page A

. . . well, you get the point.
    The point is, these guys would know the sky pretty well. If we take the star at face value, then it must’ve been something amazing, because these three guys wouldn’t have dropped everything to make a long trek over some mundane star. The obvious conclusion is that it must have been very bright.
    What astronomical objects are bright, can appear in the east, and disappear after some amount of time?
    While there are lots of potential candidates, to an astronomer the answer is obvious: a supernova—a star that explodes at the end of its lifetime—is a perfect fit. So all we need to do for proof of this idea is to look for a 2,000-year-old supernova remnant, the expanding gas from such an explosion.
    And lo, some do exist! But it turns out they wouldn’t have been in the east, or wouldn’t have been bright enough. Certainly none fits the story well enough, and it’s doubtful any would’ve been enough to suddenly inspire a trio of men to get a hankering for a road trip in the desert.
    If it wasn’t a supernova, then what was it? Another bright astronomical event is a conjunction, when two planets pass near each other in the sky. Jupiter and Venus are both astonishingly bright, and when they pass very close to each other would make a spectacular scene. And they can also both be in the east!
    Were there any conjunctions like that around that time?
    In fact, there were. Recently, an astronomer, using computer programs to map the positions of the planets in the sky, discovered that in 2 BC Venus and Jupiter passed very close to each other; so close in fact that to the eye they would have appeared as a single star! So have we found the star?
    Not so fast. First off, the planets move relative to each other, so even two days earlier or later they would’ve been seen as two separate objects. The wise men would never have mistaken that for a single star.
    And oh, did I mention this apparition occurred in June? The wise men certainly took their time getting to Bethlehem!
    Okay, so a planetary alignment doesn’t fit our biblical bill either. And you can keep looking for other objects that might represent what the wise men are claimed to have seen, but at some point I think you have to realize that you’re grasping at cosmic straws. No real cosmic event matches the description in the Bible well enough to inspire the story.
    And yet people keep looking. In December every year, without fail, some newspaper article breathlessly reports some astronomer has found another candidate for the star, what turns out to be yet another weak explanation for a biblical passage of dubious reality.
    And every year I read these articles and wonder, why do they try so? What are these people really searching for?
    In 1992, as I could just start to spy the Ph.D. lurking murkily at the end of my graduate career, I started dating Marcella. Two years later I had my degree and a job, and the next year Marcella and I were married. After a decade or more of no real religious involvement, I found myself with a Catholic family, one that really celebrated Christmas every year. Food, the tree, midnight mass, reading “The Night Before Christmas,” and, yes (sigh), singing the dreaded carols. A year after Marcella and I married, our daughter was born, and that cemented the celebrations: in my family Christmas is absolutely for kids.
    Now, it’s not like I jumped right into this. Thirty years of secular winters is more than just a habit. At first I was reluctant to participate much. And in some ways this new rekindling reawakened the reasons I didn’t like it all those years before.
    But then something funny happened: one year I decided I liked the tree.
    It was cool. I had a tree in my house. Pine trees smell good. They’re pretty. Hanging ornaments and lights, if done properly, are actually rather festive. And I found I liked going out and physically getting the tree. We even once went to a huge farm where trees were grown