According to Channel3000.com, “The display, which was installed on Wednesday [Dec. 14], is in response to the traditional Christian Nativity scene on display at the Capitol [seemingly in Wisconsin], which was assembled by the conservative group Wisconsin Family Action.

Aside from the manger, the Freedom From Religion Foundation’s display isn’t the typical Nativity scene. The display includes a baby girl in a manger, three wise people and Venus as Mary. Charles Darwin, Albert Einstein and Mark Twain make up the three wise people. The angels in the scene include the Statue of Liberty and an astronaut.

The Freedom From Religion Foundation said its display is meant to celebrate the winter solstice. The group said that in celebrating the winter solstice, it is celebrating reality.”

“Reality” is defined by an absolute – a first cause. The carnal mind, which is “enmity against God” (Rom. 8:7), worships man – his intellect, his body, his “reality.” There is still god, but that god is man. Concerning the lack of understanding in man who creates a god out of the same wood that he uses to warm himself, Isaiah 44:18-19 says, “They do not know nor understand; for He has shut their eyes, so that they cannot see, and their hearts, so that they cannot understand. And no one considers in his heart, Nor is there knowledge nor understanding to say, ‘I have burned half of it in the fire, Yes, I have also baked bread on its coals; I have roasted meat and eaten it; and shall I make the rest of it an abomination? Shall I fall down before a block of wood?’”

The modern, carnal man is that same way. He worships man who cannot create himself, who cannot fully understand all aspects of science, and who did not create the worlds. Even “his” science declares the frailty of man (see the first law of thermodynamics). Ultimately, this manger scene is a mini-Tower of Babel.

Manger scenes are not biblical because we are not to form and worship images of Jesus. However, this alternative manger scene is a picture of the heart of man that is devoid of God and wars against Him.