It's like this: Christmas is a celebration of Christ's birthday. If someone doesn't like that..sorry. But that's what it is.
I am not opposed to any other group celebrating any other religious holiday. Someone could celebrate Buddhas birthday for example. No problem.
Christmas is a celebration of "Christ's Birthday" in name only. As I have stated many times, the origin of the Christ's mass being placed on the day is in Rome (Constantius II), where Christ's Birth was officially placed on the day of the Birth of the sun, Sol Invictus, for obvious and completely unhidden reasons.
A star cult, sun-worship, became (in the third century A.D.) the dominant official creed, paving the road for the ultimate triumph of Judaeo-Christian monotheism. So strong was the belief in the Invincible Sun (Sol Invictus) that for example Constantine I (d. 337), himself at first a devotee of the sun cult, found it, indeed perfectly compatible with his pro-Christian sympathies to authorize his own portrayal as Helios. And in 354 the ascendant Christian church in the reign of his pious but unsavory son, Constantius II, found it prudent to change the celebration of the birth of Jesus from the traditional date (January 6) to December 25, in order to combat the pagan Sun god’s popularity—his “birthday” being December 25.
So December 25th was not Christmas, and Christians did not have any particular reign over the month of December, as they feel they do today. Everything we know about the holiday, from the tree to the frankinscence and myrrh, belonged to another religion before. Christmas may be known as the celebration of Christ's birthday, but the actual celebration is not christian, but pagan, secular, and of course the observance of other major holidays of major religions.
I must emphasize the point that the celebrations can be interpreted as not only unchristian, but anti-christian. The rituals and symbols and the celebration itself often go blatantly against scripture. The bible and christian liturgy do not advocate the celebration of birthdays. Obviously, if it did, Jesus' birthday would be a clear and important date, a day for all to see in the book of Luke--or even prophesied in earlier books. But chritsianity, a religion that rejects life in the world and instead glorifies death, instructed its followers to do so. In old world christina communities, for instance, folks did not celebrate birthdays. They tended to be named for Saints. On the Death Day of a particular saint, a feast was traditionally given, and a little attention might be paid to the one, perhaps a child, whose name corresponds to the dead saint. Jesus has his feast. It's called Easter.
Christmas as a christian holiday is rather modern, and Americans who complai abotu consumerism have conumerism to thank for the religious celebration of their god's honourary "birthday." Americans did not see this celebration of bounty tempered by piety until a group of capitalists in England and New York campaigned for it, with such actions as the St Nicholas campaign and the Happy Christmas campaign. Business could simply not run as usual, with the pagan Season of Misrule ruling over the cities. In New York City for instance, people shut themselves in their homes in fear of aggressive wassailing, begging, protesting, Callithumpian Bands...
With the development of cities and industries "peasants weren't going to their local patron to feast-it was an emerging proletariat or working class. These were strangers from across town And the festivities became expressions of class and ethnic hatreds. In 1819 in St. Augustine, Texas, for example, merrymakers visited every house in town "kicking in doors and pulling down fences. As late as the 1850's gangs of young men called "Callithumpian bands" wandered New York, playing and singing, demanding money, smashing windows and beating people.
... and very drunk young men. This was Christmas. The Christmas that was not popular or widely celebrated in Americs--even outlawed in New England for a time.Not until Chritsmas became an opportunity for more wealth in communities -- as long as it was toned down -- was Christmas able to become a fun holiday for children and an opportunity to get lapsed christians back in the pews for the second time in a year.
So, what if Buddha's birthday is on December 25th? (Forgetting the fact that Buddhists say, if you see Buddha, kill him, not celebrate his birthday.) If someone were to say "Happy Holidays," to a group of people that included Buddhists and Christians (such as...."shoppers"), would you boycott?
"I am not opposed to any other group celebrating any other religious holiday. Someone could celebrate Buddhas birthday for example. No problem."
If you did, you would be ignorant, not only of the other religious and secular traditions that share in this yearly festival of the Sun, but of the history and scripture of your own damned religion.
This is what the LORD says: "Do not learn the ways of the nations or be terrified by signs in the sky, though the nations are terrified by them. 3 For the customs of the peoples are worthless; they cut a tree out of the forest, and a craftsman shapes it with his chisel. 4 They adorn it with silver and gold; they fasten it with hammer and nails so it will not totter. 5 Like a scarecrow in a melon patch, their idols cannot speak; they must be carried because they cannot walk.--Jeremiah 10
The tree was a tradition of Saturnalia, of Solstice, of Yule, and of Chritsmas.
Don't you just love a Holiday tree?
2 comments:
A Joyous Winter Solstice to you, and a Happy New Year.
The best way to take over another religion is to replace its holidays instead of trying to get people used to a new date.
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