But we can't apply this attitude to the practice of medicine or architecture and its illogicality is easily proven. I suppose that there are some things that we go on doing that benefit us without our knowledge – like the child who grows up with his parents' rules about hygiene or safety that he continues to do through his life.
But. these kinds of examples are tenuous and rare, for the most part our actions demand reasons and our traditions need understanding.
I remember once at university I was talking to a girl who was grieving the apparent loss of African cultures because Western aid workers brought education to them in an Anglo style. I didn't have much of a point to make, but I asked what value culture had in and of itself. Of course a monochrome world is a depressing thought and the domination of one culture over another is wrong, but why should we preserve cultures?
Over the course of hundreds of years that culture had itself developed and changed, it had previously been one thing and now was another. Culture is simply a web of traditions.
All of this starts coming to mind now that we have hit December. However many weeks ago shopping centers started putting Christmas stock on the shelves and now the air-conditioned market places are decorated with holy, ivy and songs that ring with that specific kind of nostalgia.
Australia stops to enjoy its annual holiday, the central theme of which seems to be seafood and family and a general goodness that people can't quite explain. We seem to have gone enough generations down the road to be celebrating Christmas without much understanding of why, but simply a knowledge that we do.
For the Christian community it seems obscure that our friends and family should participate in our celebration of God becoming man. The Creator they deny existing has walked on their planet and they gladly carry on the tradition without 'intelligence' as Eliot would say. It must be strange to sing
Hail the heaven-born Prince of Peace!

Hail the Son of Righteousness!

Light and life to all He brings

Risen with healing in His wings

Mild He lays His glory by

Born that man no more may die
and to feel at the same time a childhood familiarity and happiness, but also a stark disconnect between this holiday season of family barbeque's and lyrics about resurrection.
It begs the question of whether our Christmas celebration is 'worth having' in Eliot's terms. Which is perhaps a question that can only be answered by each individual, according to their reason for celebrating it. Certainly with the necessary intelligence about its origins, it is not just a tradition worth having, but one that is essential – with the unique message of life beyond death.
Have an intelligent, hopeful, and worthwhile Christmas.
Sam Manchester is currently a theology student with an inescapable sociology degree behind him. In an attempt to reconcile the two, he reflects and writes about their coalescence in everyday life.
Sam's archive of articles may be viewed at www.pressserviceinternational.org/sam-manchester.html