I used to observe this holiday, until I started researching it only to find that it is actually a Pagan holiday, it had nothing to do with JESUS birth or the jolly old man in the red suit. Nothing to do with mistletoe, or holly, nothing about wreaths or decorations, or trees inside the house adorned with silver and gold.
No, my research let me to an emperor named Constantine. He was the one who was instrumental in changing the holiday in order to get people to come into the church (the HRCC). I furthermore discovered that JESUS is NOT the reason for the season, as He wasn't born in December, but it was at the Fall Feast of the LORD that He was born which was in September.
You see, it was too cold in the Holy Land area for the shepherds to be out in the fields keeping watch over their flock by night as Luke 2 has told us. They put away the animals in to barns back in October and left them there until around March or April when the weather warmed up. They were out in the fields it says keeping watch when JESUS was born (which was in September), as I said, it would have been "too cold" in the month of December for them to be out there.
Another thing we might keep in mind is that JESUS "never" told us to keep His birthday special. NO, what was important to JESUS was to remember His death...He said, "This Do In Remembrance of Me"! He never wanted us to do what we do today, so He is in effect NOT the reason for the season.
Christmas has NOTHING at all to do with Him or His birth, it's a traditional holiday that stems from the Pagans and Heathens and JESUS warned us NOT to have anything to do with them or their traditions or their ways.
Today it's merely just a tradition. We've been doing it all our lives b/c those before us did it too and it all started with Constantine. A little research goes along way if you want to learn the truth, and it's the truth that will set you free of these burdensome holidays that we celebrate here on earth.
It's all commercial, from Easter (another pagan holiday), to Halloween, to Christmas, it's all about $$$$$ (that almighty dollar). Shop til you drop, charge everything so you can be in debt for another year at least.
We teach our children about pagan beliefs and instead of honoring JESUS (who didn't want all this in the first place), we honor traditions of old.
May we learn the truth so that we can be set free...
31 comments
@solomongrundy
It's not wrong, but it's most certainly fundie. "Christmas isn't actually about Jesus, therefore it's EVIL" is just as fundy as "Christmas has Christ in it, so the EVIL LIBRULS wanna destroy it!"
I will say that, like most people who talk about the origins of Christmas online, this person treats it in a foolish and simplistic way. Constantine did not institute Christmas. The reason for choosing December 25 seems to have actually been a calculation based on an earlier assumption that Jesus was conceived on March 25.
The way Christmas was celebrated was probably influenced by a variety of pagan festivals in December, most importantly Saturnalia, the Roman gift-giving holiday. The division between "pagan" and "Christian" was a lot blurrier in the fourth century than we imagine it was. Many people probably celebrated both pagan and Christian holidays, so customs easily moved from one to the other. A similar process in Germanic lands centuries later connected Christianity with Yule, which is where we get the Yule log. The Christmas tree is a recent innovation (some precedents as early as the 15th century, becoming well established only in the 18th and 19th) that may have very distant pagan Germanic precursors.
Easter is definitely a Christian holiday, albeit one with trappings that may have pagan origins (and a name that definitely does, though it is only used in some Germanic languages). I'll more or less concede Halloween; there's practically no sign of the Catholic saints' day in the way we celebrate it.
Even if wandakate has a point that Christmas is based on Yule/Saturnalia/etc. Her conclusion is still stupid!
Think of it as all "Christanized"! It's the idea that counts! Relax! Eat, drink and be merry! Paul took a Pagan altar to "The Unknown God" and made it about Bible-God!
Dumb killjoys!
As you say, "Today it's merely just a tradition." In which case the exact date and the emperor Constantine matter not one whit. Stop getting your knickers in a twist about ancient history, and go make the eggnog.
@Naughty Listed Jerry
Someone's not getting his Queen James I action figure, with Flouncing feature this year! >:D
And Santa comes but once a year: in your mother !
Wandakate, you little minx, you went to objective sources, assimilated factual knowledge, and now you're sharing it. Good for you. See, learning can be fun.
This is most definitely fundie. However, unlike a lot of fundie quotes on this site, it's not utterly batshit insane or completely ignoring reality.
So unless this website is using it's own unique definition of fundie, there's a lot of idiots on this site judging by the quote's score.
I'm NeoPagan and I'm gonna celebrate Yuletide like it's NOBODY'S BUSINESS!
Having a Universalist/Interfaith outlook, I see Jesus' nativity as a variation of the Sun God being reborn. There's a running thread/common themes going through many traditions, after all.
You did all that research, stumbled upon Christianity's rather nauseating habit of laying claim to concepts and mythology it has nothing to do with simply to keep a death grip on the hearts and minds of those such traditions are ingrained into, came face to face with the unavoidable fact that it is common practice for Christians to perpetuate a lie, and came to a conclusion other than there being an inherent sense of dishonesty in your system of beliefs?
...
Yeah. You pretty much deserve to be led around by the nose for the rest of your life by confirmed liars.
Well, this quote certainly shocases the fundie sentiment that anything that's not about Jeebus is not worth anyone's time, if it isn't outright evil, but hey...on the other hand, a fundie has actually done their research. You don't see that every day.
We know that Christmas has little or nothing to do with Jesus. The jolly old man in the red suit was a monk from modern-day Turkey, who became a saint. The timing is the celebration of the Winter Solstice.
The mistletoe, the holly, the wreaths, the decorations and the tree are all pagan traditions, silly-nilly.
In Sweden it's called "Jul" and we are visited by "Jultomten" who gives out "Julklappar". The only Christian in our celebrations of "Jul" is the nativity scene in a corner somewhere. Oh, and a few people go to "Julotta" (the Christmas service in church early on Christmas day). The rest is all food and presents, family and friends, and candles, candles, candles. And snow, if we’re lucky.
The Bible is also "traditions of old".
Now stop celebrating Easter, a pagan spring festival, and Pentecost, which is a Jewish festival.
If you want a festival with a more Christian flavor at this time, follow the Dutch tradition of Sinterklaas, with the exchange of gifts on St Nicholas's Day.
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Actually Jesus would have been born in the spring when the Shepherds were laying with their sheep during lambing season.
But I'm glad that at least one fundie out there finally gets it. It's nice to finally hear one admit that Christmas is a pagan holiday adopted by Christianity instead of screaming "KEEP CHRIST IN CHRISTMAS!!!" and complaining that people aren't celebrating the holiday right.
But yes, I do see the "since Christmas isn't about Jesus we shouldn't celebrate it" fundie sentiment. Despite what fundies think, not EVERYTHING in our lives has to be about God & Jesus.
The Poe hypothesis on Jerry looks more appealing all the time.
Anyway, have a nice Yuletide/Christmas/Hannukah/Sol Invictus/Xmas, whatever floats your boat.
And you're just now figuring all of this out. Despite years of people pointing out the origins of all of the various Christmas paraphernalia?
Can't wait till you look at the lyrics of some of the varied Christmas songs. Or realize that the Red Suit Santa was from a Coca Cola marketing campaign in the 30s.
Dude, it's a holiday. Regardless the actual date of Jesus's birth (likely in spring, Roman Census season and all), it's still a celebration of it.
And no one tell him that a number of non-Christians observe a secular/alternate version of the holiday. And for the love of all that is holy, don't point this nut to Japan...
Pull your head out of your ass, and get on with the peace on Earth and goodwill towards Men.
@NoXion
An appropriate way to describe it is that this is fundamentalist, not fundie.
Complete semantics, but some people tend to use the fuller word "fundamentalist" to refer to anyone who sticks strongly to fundamental worldview, and "fundie" to refer to anyone who takes it to extremes. Sometimes, "fundamentalist" can even be something respectful, depending on the world view that it's being adhered to.
In this case, someone is sticking to their worldview. However, I think it's fundie, actually, because it's demanding that others follow their worldview and following sort of a witch-hunter mentality towards beliefs. "Christmas is pagan therefore anyone who participates is participating in pagan beliefs therefore are less Christian than me" in a sense.
Granted, it's a well-worded fundie, but still a fundie to me. But then I lost Christmas for a few years to this belief and Christmas is the one Christian holiday I really enjoy even to this day.
As has been pointed out, shepherds only lie out with the flock during lambing season in Spring. The tradition of a (re)birth of a god in Spring predates Jesus. Another fun fact is the "after 3 days, he rose," was a mnemonic applied to the Winter Solstice as told in the battle of Set and Osiris, and later in other traditions. Somebody flipped these two traditional events in the Christian mythology so that they would not be so obviously plagiarized. Dates were chosen to deliberately not quite align with the equinoxes and solstices.(1) The sneaky services during the Roman Saturnalia is a fraudulent explanation cooked up later in history.(2)
1. http://pocm.info/
2. http://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/biblical-topics/new-testament/how-december-25-became-christmas/
As an atheist, I'm just glad to have a holiday.
And as a bachelor. Or a Californicator. Who gives a shirt?
It seems it's only ever fundies that are butthurt over who specifically gets the credit for it.
Oh, btw, re:Jerry. Got to be a Poe. Got to be!
I'm sure that someone will correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the early church adopted some Pagan religious observances and feasts at least in part simply because they were fun and they were getting tired of losing followers back to competing faiths who honestly wanted to have a good time.
I know people like you. I'm sure you're a huge blast at parties too.
Confused?
So were we! You can find all of this, and more, on Fundies Say the Darndest Things!
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