Dear Billy O'Reilly,
Your words are strong, sir. I have taken up the challenge to fight against you and your ilk in your War Against Christmas.
I'm gonna use all the power that I have on radio and television to bring horror into the world of people who are trying to do that.
That's right--you and Falwell, John Gibson who wrote that libelous rag, The War on Christmas. You want to destroy Christmas. I will take up that fight.
I am the atheist Champion for Christmas
Enough of this fancy schmancy talk.
History has proven that every time Christians like you have won your war against Christmas. you have banned it.Prohibited Christmas.
You do not own Christmas. Christmas owns you.. Christmas has you hornswaggled into performing pagan rites and using pagan symbolism. Christmas has you going against your religion, violating very important tenets--like not having anything to do with pagan activities, such as putting up trees, kissing under the mistletoe, decking the halls with boughs of holly, and burning yule logs.
And celebrating the solstice.
(Which is at the very root of your religion, by the way.)
Now, this information is more and more available to everyone. The Christians who can acknowledge that may be able to say "I can celebrate this season AND acknowledge my God's official arbitrary birthday, even though I know it's not his birthday at all," are the ones who are mature enough to loosen their grip on this imaginary thing and share the fucking month of December with everyone else.
Look--we don't even get any sass from Muslims about this. It can be done.
I'd like to hold you, Billy, to your promise. Along with the the horror and that nonsense,
you must now expose me, say my name and put my picture on Fox. But you won't, because I am on to your evil, diabolical plans.
I know, it won't happen. Besides--I am not opposed to Christmas. He is.
11 comments:
The frightening thing is that this guy is just gonna get older and crazier!
Can you imagine having to share a care unit with Bill when he's in the middle stages of Alzhiemers? I think he'll eventually exist on sedatives - although I don't think he's on any at the moment.
Does'nt look more like the Ayatollah Khomeini instead of santa Claus?
I only wish these crazys would do a total melt-down, but it doesn't seem to matter. Anyone remember Oral's vision of a 100-foot Jesus on the highway?
I seem to recall that the date of the Roman census that allegedly had Yasef and Maryam trek to Bethlehem and sleep with the sheep is a matter of historical record. I mention this in case anyone should dispute that December 25 CAN NOT BE the alleged Yeshua's alleged birthday.
Where the hell did you hear about that?
If that were true, why haven't I heard about that?
In Religious tolerance, it says:
Luke's claim (in Chapter 1) that he carefully researched other gospels before preparing his own implies that he is a careful historian. This can be tested by comparing Luke's text with the historical record:
Luke 2:1 talks about Joseph and Mary traveling to Bethlehem in order for Joseph to register in "his own city," for taxation purposes. There is no record of a Roman tax system that required people to go to the city of their ancestors. It would be totally impractical. All agriculture and commerce would ground to a halt; the empire would be paralyzed for months.
* A woman in 1st century Palestine was either under the control of her father or her husband. There would be no necessity for her to go to Bethlehem to be registered; only adult males were recorded.
There is no evidence of Luke's world-wide census during the reign of Caesar Augustus, who ruled from 27 BCE to 14 CE. There was a local census in 6 CE, but this is at least a decade after the probable time of Jesus' birth.
I'm not seeing it anywhere, anyway...are you referring to what the person known as Luke claimed?
anyway, the wole article is good:
Luke article
Hmmm.... No. As I recall, the source I was quoting put the census (in Palestine) around 34 AD, and was "pre-internet", so I would have a hard time tracking it down. I got the information from my World History teacher in 1982. As I recall, the contention was, that there was some tax advantage to being "Yasef of Bethlehem" (or any other small town) versus Yasef of some larger community, like Jeruselem. This always struck me as odd, because my understanding of the ancient world was that you were taxed by the community in which you resided.
The whole story is as suspicious as the concept of a virgin mother. I do recall that the article asserted that the Roman census was not customarily held in the winter.
BTW, I have decided that it would be less dangerous to my health to drink a 5-gallon bucket full of chicken fat than to listen to Bill O'Reilly for 5 minutes. Not that I plan to do either one.
Dude, Christmas was never meant to be paganistic: http://www.worldmag.com/displayarticle.cfm?id=11344
It was first Christian before pagans took over.
"Dude," get your story straight. Your very own article doesn't even claim that pagan "came after." Sheesh.
Do you even know what "pagan" means? Do you know the difference between, say, 4 CE and 1300 BCE? "Dude," I think you have issues with math.
Where do you think the Christmas tree came from? And why is it prohibited in the bible? What do you think the bible meant when it said Don't do the things PAGANS DO, and bring in a tree, and decorate it with gold and silver? And you say it came "after?" Damn, how much can you deny? Who the fuck do you think Mithra is? What the hell does it mean to you when Mithra was born of a virgin in a stable, visited by shepherds with a flippin' star overhead? Let's see....
HEY! Mithra was worshipped 2000 years before Christ, in Persia! Whoops! He's in the Vedas. The confusian of your Tighe might be that Romans declared December 25th Mithra day in 275...but when was Christ's birthday declared? Well, in the next century. Hm.
But he wasn't the only one, "dude." There's also Osiris. Dionysus. Adonis. Baal. And still more. And they all fucking were the same. Your Nativity scene usn't even christian. Right down to the frankincense and myyrh.
Maybe you should look at some other articles as well. The book you site makes spurious claims, on some shaky research.
Origins of Winter Solstice
The Christmas Tree
Christmas Origins
Also a nice synopsis of winter holidays here.
The article frank walton quotes is typical revisionist Christian history, and full of the usual mind control language. For example (bold added for emphasis):
"But this view is apparently a historical myth"
Apparent? Before you lay out your argument? To whom?
"He points out that the ancient Roman religions had no winter solstice festival."
Like I could "point out" that the Romans never invented the sealed pipe, so they "could not possibly" have gotten water up to the second floor. The "fact" is irrelevant. Ever hear of Saturnalia?
There are other misdirections and falsely assertive turns of phrase in this article as well.
I won't even begin to discuss when the ancients thought conception took place. It had more to do with the time when a woman was obviously "with child" than any particular act of coitus. I am not saying that they weren't aware of a causal relationship, but since it didn't always work, some of the mechanics were subject to sophomoric speculation.
On another note, I have been unable to track down any speculation that Jesus was born in 34 AD/CE. I begin to think that this is due to a faulty memory, and note the similarity of date to the reign of Herod, starting in 37 BCE. If the speculation in question placed the birth in the early years of the reign of Herod (BC, not AD as I "remembered"), this would also not make much sense in light of other significant "facts" mentioned in the myth. Personally, I think someone threw a baby out a window, and Mary caught it. That would explain why she was "a virgin", albeit not so portentiously.
It's pretty obvious that all religions are merely mythology derived from earlier mythology. People are far better at making up absurd stories than they are at recording history. It doesn't help even to spend all your time researching since those who choose to believe will just tell you are wrong anyway. That's why they call it faith. I call it delusion.
Post a Comment