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The Christmas Story


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The Christmas Story

 

Our Christmas traditions are borrowed from pagan festivities which followed the Winter Solstice (the shortest day of the year, December 22). As the days following the winter Solstice lengthened, pagans rejoiced the return of the sun, their festivities often centering around Sun Gods. The end of the year has always been a season of partying and carousing. Back in the heyday of Egypt and Babylonia, whole cities gorged themselves on food and drink for weeks at a time, celebrating the winter solstice after which the sun is “reborn”. The ancient Romans had the festival of Saturnalia, a week-long party. Until as late as 245 A.D. Christians were not allowed to celebrate, exchange presents or decorate trees at Yule (Noel) as the pagans did. However, that venerable Yule log and the ubiquitous Christmas tree both represent the ancient pagan rite of burning alive a human sacrifice to ensure a fruitful new year. In fact, the Bible (Jeremiah 10:2-4) forbids the use of the decorated tree!

 

Early Christians celebrated Christ’s birthday in May and April and some in January. Then organized religion tried to superimpose its own interpretation proclaiming the winter solstice season celebration season as the anniversary of Jesus’ birth. St. Chrysostom noted in 390 A.D. that December 25th was fixed in Rome as the birth of Christ so that while heathens were busy with “profane ceremonies,” Christians could perform their “holy rites” undisturbed. Actually, biblical scholars (e.g. Mosheim, Revs. Giles, Goikie, Barnes) aren’t even sure which year he was born (and many if he was born) let alone the day.

 

December 25th was the birthday of many Gods and a time of festivities in many lands. For example, in Egypt Osiris son of the Holy Virgin Ceres and the Savior Horus, born of the Queen of Heaven Isis, in Greece, Hercules and Bacchus and in Bethlehem Adonis, in the Roman Empire Sol the Invincible (Natalis Solis Invicti), in Scandinavia Freyr (Son of Supreme God Odin and Goddess Frigga), in China Buddah, son of the Virgin Maya, in Persia, the birth of God Mithras, in Great Britain and Ireland the festival of Mithra and in Peru the feast called Capacrayme. The date in not the least of the Christian borrowings from paganism.

 

The Nativity story was borrowed from Egyptian mythology. The legend is portrayed on the wall of the holy of holies (the Meskhen) in the Temple of Amen at Luxor from 1700 years B.C. The Egyptologist Samuel Sharp characterized the scene as showing Annunciation, the Conception, the Birth and the Adoration as described in Luke’s gospel.

 

annunciation.jpg

 

With the historical assurance that Matthew’s accounts of the Nativity are after additions it is probable that those poetical accounts in Luke are also unhistorical and borrowed from Egyptian accounts of the miraculous births of their king.

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Can anyone point me in the direction of the evidence for these Pagan Influences? Everytime I try to use them in a debate my Christian friends call it a fallacy and ask for the evidence... it's frustrating but I guess I can't blame them.

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Can anyone point me in the direction of the evidence for these Pagan Influences? Every time I try to use them in a debate my Christian friends call it a fallacy and ask for the evidence... it's frustrating but I guess I can't blame them.

 

I've gotten that too. All I can do is point out the outrageous irony of someone with absolutely no proof of their version of the story asking for proof of another version of the story.

 

Go to any library, there are numerous books about various mythologies. Some googling should tell you where to start. Run off copies, if they'll let you, show them to these people but honestly, you're wasting your time. You can't "prove" anything to these people. You can point to museums, artifacts, translations, respected archeologists and their findings, accepted theories, scientific journals... if time travel ever becomes a reality you could take them back and actually, physically show them and they won't believe it. They'll say it's all the work of satan and their faith won't be shaken. All you can hope to do is be that person that christians are always warning each other about and plant that little "seed of doubt" that they're so terrified of, but you can't win an argument with them then and there.

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Can anyone point me in the direction of the evidence for these Pagan Influences? Everytime I try to use them in a debate my Christian friends call it a fallacy and ask for the evidence... it's frustrating but I guess I can't blame them.

 

I haven't read it, but here's a book I just came across on the subject that has high reviews:

 

http://www.amazon.com/Pagan-Christmas-Spirits-Rituals-Yuletide/dp/1594770921/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1291680037&sr=8-1

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Guest I Love Dog

I Love the Christmas Story.

 

Well, Hans Christian Anderson prolly couldn't have written anything more fanciful and outrageously insulting to the human race than The Romans did when constructing Christianity!

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Guest Spinoza

Merry Christmas,

 

Here's a Bigger Myth (blame it on the Romans) : The Universe had a beginning.

 

The Age Crisis is a former problem in physics which incorrectly posited that certain stars must actually be older than the universe itself.[1]

 

For a short time in the mid-1990s, the estimated age of the universe (under a then-current theoretical model of the universe) was around 10 billion years. However, age estimates for globular cluster stars in our galaxy were between 13 and 18 billion years.[1] Better estimates for the distances to the stars used in the age measurements (and the realization that the stars in question were more luminous than previously believed) brought the range of expected ages down by a few billion years. Additionally, factoring dark energy into the cosmological model pushed the age estimate for the universe to the current value of 13.7 billion years.

 

 

They left out a few 0's

 

 

 

 

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I Love the Christmas Story.

 

So did I when I was ten. I have heard so many other stories since then.

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Nothing is better than the story of the incarnation. That is ALL that exists.

 

Nothing else exists but the story of the incarnation? NOTHING?

 

That must be some really good shit you're smoking!

 

;)

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Guest Spinoza

Nothing is better than the story of the incarnation. That is ALL that exists.

 

Nothing else exists but the story of the incarnation? NOTHING?

 

That must be some really good shit you're smoking!

 

;)

 

 

Nothing .... it's ALL that exists.

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  • Super Moderator
Nothing .... it's ALL that exists.

I am the walrus.

 

Whoa. Heavy, dude.

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I just like a day off with the family sharing in the rare joy of actually being together.

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  • Super Moderator
I love the Christmas Story.

 

I'm not so impressed with the mythical gospel christmas story, but I do love:

 

51j1LNP6EpL._SL500_AA300_.jpg

"You'll put your eye out!"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Guest Spinoza

In our Anishinabe Christmas Story we call Jesus - Giizis - he is te Sun and the 13 phases of the Moon.

 

 

 

 

In Anishinaabe culture, we are taught that a piece of mother earth was put on the turtle's back after the great flood.

Nanabozho saw that the back of the turtle had thirteen sections, which he compared to the thirteen moons of the year.

These thirteen moons are now known as months and only twelve are recognized on a calendar

 

Giizis : http://www.anishinaabemdaa.com/moons.htm

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