Can we talk about Christmas?

[jupiter789]

Hey all!

 

I fully realize it is February 21, but I think I'm ready to talk about Christmas.  I finally posted on this site the first week of December last year.  It was an emotional, rambling post that pretty much said what I wanted to say.  I'm sure some of the rest of you can relate to how you felt trying to articulate your feelings after realizing how many lies you had previously swallowed! I didn't mean to let two months go by, though, before I posted again.  But, as we got closer and closer to Christmas, that gawd-awful American tradition of Christmasing everything to death just about did me in! Everywhere I looked people were "in the Christmas spirit" and "put the Christ in Christmas." 

 

The problem for me, to be quite honest, was the "Christ" part of Christmas! I used to LOVE Christmas! I already knew the origin of Christ Mass and all it's gory history.  I know the pagan stories of the death of the God.  I absolutely love Christmas trees and mistletoe and caroling and all the rest of the fun pagan traditions that you can celebrate under the guise of conventional religion! However, when my brain fully clicked that Jesus Christ was a man-made work of fiction, it was like I pulled the wrong piece in Jenga and the whole damn tower came tumbling down.  See, I had allowed myself to sit in the middle ground between belief and total disbelief for way too long.  I believed hell was bogus, the Bible was a disaster, and man had gone way too far mucking up Christianity for me to take most of it too seriously, but I did believe Jesus was real.  I didn't even really think he was supernatural exactly, but I thought he was blessed somehow.  I never expected his story to be a totally fabricated collaboration for the masses.  I thought my current "beliefs" about ancient times were tempered with actual knowledge.  I studied anthropology and history at a public college.    

 

But, I didn't really allow myself to fully look into the taboo topic until this last year.  I kind of went along with my half beliefs and pushed my skeptics curious voice deep into the back of my psyche.  Ha, maybe Trump was good for something.  I think watching this country devolve into some sort of psychotic fifties flashback sent me straight down that theohistocratic rabbit hole.  I no longer cared what I found out.  I just wanted to look for myself.  So I started digging, and I found nothing.  Nothing.  Nothing that you could legitimately use as a historical source.  None of it holds up!  For crying out loud, I could've done a historical paper on Dracula before I could have done a paper on Jesus Christ.  At least Vlad, there, was based on one, real person!  Sure you could possibly blend together one Christ out of all the Jesus Christs, Christ!  Not really.

 

I feel like my scenario is why  a lot of Christians don't like academia.  When I applied the knowledge I gathered as a History major to a topic that should have sources out the wazoo for how big of an event it supposedly was...  "And, behold, the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom; and the earth did quake, and the rocks rent; And the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose..." (Matthew 51:52).  Uh, just the temple thing is a pretty big deal - the Jewish scribes would definitely have written that down - but earthquakes and zombies?!  Those zombies would've been mentioned by somebody else.  We did know how to write back then.  Not a lot of people did, but I think zombies would've made it onto a plaque or scroll or something.  What is it with humans and zombies.  We do seem to have a strange obsession with the dead.  

 

So the reason for the season so to speak became a figment of my imagination. Christmas got really hard to deal with for me all of a sudden.  I had to wear earbuds in stores because I could not stand the Christmas music.  I mean, yes, it's annoying every year, but I felt tortured.  All those stupid sayings and religious decorations seemed to be everywhere.  Of course they were everywhere.  It's Christmas in the Midwest.  I did put up a Christmas tree.  I played Scottish music while I did.  It was nice.  The year before it was Manheim Steamroller, but this year I didn't want to hear any of those familiar melodies. 

 

At least I wasn't really expected to go to church!  (I haven't gone in years, but I used to show up on Palm Sunday - I like the procession of all the kids - it's cute! It made my Mom happy.  I won't be doing that this year.)  Years back though, the minister of my parents church ruined the Christmas services for me.  At the Christmas Eve service where we're mostly supposed to share the Christmas story, light candles, and sing Silent Night - he decided it would be a good idea to do the sermon "What if Mary had decided to have an abortion?"  I kid you not.  

 

Seeing my family ended up feeling like an obligation to go to an event I didn't want to be a part of.  It wasn't terrible, but it felt so hollow.  I felt like an impostor.  I felt like I was pretending to enjoy something for the sake of those around me.  Because that was exactly what I was doing!  I didn't want to celebrate Christmas.  I could've celebrated Yuletide with my Yule Tree and been completely happy not saying Merry Christmas to anyone around me.  But instead, I fakely participated.  I think a lot of my emotions (or lack there of) were caused by the freshness of my recent and devastating realizations.  

 

It wasn't all bad, though!  Have you guys listened to "A Skeptical Christmas" with Seth Andrews and Matt Dillahunty?  Great information and highly entertaining!  

 

So, did anybody else have a weird Christmas this year?  How did you guys cope with the fallout, I mean festivities?  

 

At any rate, thanks for letting me get that off my chest.  Sincerely, though, I hope the rest of you had a good holiday season!  I'll try not to wait two months before I post something again.  

 

Take care everybody!

 

[Joshpantera]

1 hour ago, jupiter789 said:

The problem for me, to be quite honest, was the "Christ" part of Christmas! I used to LOVE Christmas! I already knew the origin of Christ Mass and all it's gory history.  I know the pagan stories of the death of the God.  I absolutely love Christmas trees and mistletoe and caroling and all the rest of the fun pagan traditions that you can celebrate under the guise of conventional religion! However, when my brain fully clicked that Jesus Christ was a man-made work of fiction, it was like I pulled the wrong piece in Jenga and the whole damn tower came tumbling down.  See, I had allowed myself to sit in the middle ground between belief and total disbelief for way too long.  I believed hell was bogus, the Bible was a disaster, and man had gone way too far mucking up Christianity for me to take most of it too seriously, but I did believe Jesus was real.  I didn't even really think he was supernatural exactly, but I thought he was blessed somehow.  I never expected his story to be a totally fabricated collaboration for the masses.  I thought my current "beliefs" about ancient times were tempered with actual knowledge.  I studied anthropology and history at a public college.    

 

Given enough time out of the flock, it will probably hardly even matter anymore. You can know all of this and carry on loving christmas all the same because it's just a holiday, like every other holiday. Do the tree, do the presents, understand the jesus myth for what it is, and have a great time with friends and family regardless. After the bitter anger of having been lied to along finally recedes, of course. 

 

2 hours ago, jupiter789 said:

None of it holds up!  For crying out loud, I could've done a historical paper on Dracula before I could have done a paper on Jesus Christ.  At least Vlad, there, was based on one, real person!  Sure you could possibly blend together one Christ out of all the Jesus Christs, Christ!  Not really.

 

Welcome to our world! 

 

2 hours ago, jupiter789 said:

I feel like my scenario is why  a lot of Christians don't like academia.  When I applied the knowledge I gathered as a History major to a topic that should have sources out the wazoo for how big of an event it supposedly was...  "And, behold, the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom; and the earth did quake, and the rocks rent; And the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose..." (Matthew 51:52).  Uh, just the temple thing is a pretty big deal - the Jewish scribes would definitely have written that down - but earthquakes and zombies?!  Those zombies would've been mentioned by somebody else.  We did know how to write back then.  Not a lot of people did, but I think zombies would've made it onto a plaque or scroll or something.  What is it with humans and zombies.  We do seem to have a strange obsession with the dead.  

 

No good historical evidence for any of it. 

 

2 hours ago, jupiter789 said:

So, did anybody else have a weird Christmas this year?  How did you guys cope with the fallout, I mean festivities?  

 

At any rate, thanks for letting me get that off my chest.  Sincerely, though, I hope the rest of you had a good holiday season!  I'll try not to wait two months before I post something again.  

 

Take care everybody!

 

It's a lot easier to deal with all of this with time, basically. And just keep doing personal research into what interests you. Check out our generally theology section, because we have so many good threads with relevant articles, videos and interviews. Many of which go into the mythological aspects of christianity.