Christmas' Pagan Origins

Few people realize that the origins of a form of Christmas was pagan and celebrated in Europe long before anyone there had heard of Jesus Christ.

[Reprinted]

No one knows what day Jesus Christ was born on. From the biblical description, most historians believe that his birth probably occurred in September, approximately six months after Passover. One thing they agree on is that it is very unlikely that Jesus was born in December, since the bible records shepherds tending their sheep in the fields on that night. This is quite unlikely to have happened during a cold Judean winter. So why do we celebrate Christ’s birthday as Christmas, on December the 25th?

The answer lies in the pagan origins of Christmas. In ancient Babylon, the feast of the Son of Isis (Goddess of Nature) was celebrated on December 25. Raucous partying, gluttonous eating and drinking, and gift-giving were traditions of this feast.

In Rome, the Winter Solstice was celebrated many years before the birth of Christ. The Romans called their winter holiday Saturnalia, honoring Saturn, the God of Agriculture. In January, they observed the Kalends of January, which represented the triumph of life over death. This whole season was called Dies Natalis Invicti Solis, the Birthday of the Unconquered Sun. The festival season was marked by much merrymaking. It is in ancient Rome that the tradition of the Mummers was born. The Mummers were groups of costumed singers and dancers who traveled from house to house entertaining their neighbors. From this, the Christmas tradition of caroling was born.

In northern Europe, many other traditions that we now consider part of Christian worship were begun long before the participants had ever heard of Christ. The pagans of northern Europe celebrated the their own winter solstice, known as Yule. Yule was symbolic of the pagan Sun God, Mithras, being born, and was observed on the shortest day of the year. As the Sun God grew and matured, the days became longer and warmer. It was customary to light a candle to encourage Mithras, and the sun, to reappear next year.

Huge Yule logs were burned in honor of the sun. The word Yule itself means “wheel,” the wheel being a pagan symbol for the sun. Mistletoe was considered a sacred plant, and the custom of kissing under the mistletoe began as a fertility ritual. Hollyberries were thought to be a food of the gods.

The tree is the one symbol that unites almost all the northern European winter solstices. Live evergreen trees were often brought into homes during the harsh winters as a reminder to inhabitants that soon their crops would grow again. Evergreen boughs were sometimes carried as totems of good luck and were often present at weddings, representing fertility. The Druids used the tree as a religious symbol, holding their sacred ceremonies while surrounding and worshipping huge trees.

In 350, Pope Julius I declared that Christ’s birth would be celebrated on December 25. There is little doubt that he was trying to make it as painless as possible for pagan Romans (who remained a majority at that time) to convert to Christianity. The new religion went down a bit easier, knowing that their feasts would not be taken away from them.

Christmas (Christ-Mass) as we know it today, most historians agree, began in Germany, though Catholics and Lutherans still disagree about which church celebrated it first. The earliest record of an evergreen being decorated in a Christian celebration was in 1521 in the Alsace region of Germany. A prominent Lutheran minister of the day cried blasphemy: “Better that they should look to the true tree of life, Christ.”

The controversy continues even today in some fundamentalist sects.

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Here are a few other great links:

http://atheism.about.com/library/weekly/aa101800a.htm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5T5ibb2E9I&feature=player_embedded
http://www.opposingviews.com/i/atheist-group-says-christmas-isn-t-a-religious-holiday

The 19 Senators Who Voted To Censor The Internet

via Techdirt

[Reprinted List from TechDirt]

* Patrick J. Leahy -- Vermont
* Herb Kohl -- Wisconsin
* Jeff Sessions -- Alabama
* Dianne Feinstein -- California
* Orrin G. Hatch -- Utah
* Russ Feingold -- Wisconsin
* Chuck Grassley -- Iowa
* Arlen Specter -- Pennsylvania
* Jon Kyl -- Arizona
* Chuck Schumer -- New York
* Lindsey Graham -- South Carolina
* Dick Durbin -- Illinois
* John Cornyn -- Texas
* Benjamin L. Cardin -- Maryland
* Tom Coburn -- Oklahoma
* Sheldon Whitehouse -- Rhode Island
* Amy Klobuchar -- Minnesota
* Al Franken -- Minnesota
* Chris Coons -- Delaware

More about this can be found at:

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20101116/10554811889/coica-back-up-for-a-vote-this-week-so-universal-music-ramps-up-astroturf-campaign.shtml

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-20023238-38.html?tag=cnetRiver

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20101121/23584311958/why-voting-coica-is-vote-censorship.shtml

http://www.publicknowledge.org/files/docs/LawProfCOICA.pdf

666 = The Number of the Beast? #wtf

There is much that Christians, and other religious nuts, have to say about the Number of the Beast, thus 666. Curiously, the "Holy Bible" reads "6 and 6 and 6" which is humorously 18. Multiplied, 6x6x6 is 216. Of course, this is just humor, because the original Greek in that silly gnostic book of "Revelation" is actually 666.

SF has an interesting thread on the Roman Numerals of 666:

666 - The sum of six of the seven numerals is D+C+L+X+V+I=666. The letter M is missing. This is a nice playing with numbers and results from the pairs (1,5), (10,50) und (100,500).
It is more interesting that 666 is the largest triangular number of equal numerals. There is 666=1+2+3+...+35+36=36*37/2.
One Comment from this thread: 666 is actually DCLXVI in roman numerals, and that D,C,L,X,V and I, in turn, are the first six symbols in the roman numerical system in reverse order (i.e. I, V, X, L, C and D backwards). It's like us writing 9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1,0, and then someone coming along to add them all up to get 45!

What follows is some findings when "666 roman" is Googled:

In Mathematics

Six hundred [and] sixty six is the sum of the first 36 natural numbers (i.e. 1 + 2 + 3 + ... + 34 + 35 + 36 = 666), and thus a triangular number.

Since 36 is both square and triangular, 666 is the sixth number of the form n2(n2 + 1) / 2 (sequence A037270 in OEIS) and the eighth number of the form n(n + 1)(n2 + n + 2) / 8 (doubly triangular numbers).A002817

It is an abundant number.

The number of prime numbers up to 666 is 121, the square of the number of prime numbers up to 36.

666 is the 60th 12-factored number; 60 is the first 12-factored number.

The harmonic mean of the decimal digits of 666 is (trivially—all repdigit natural numbers have this property) an integer: 3/(1/6 + 1/6 + 1/6) = 6, making 666 the 54th number with this property.

In base 10, 666 is a repdigit (and therefore a palindromic number) and a Smith number. A prime reciprocal magic square based on 1/149 in base 10 has a magic total of 666.

The Roman numeral for 666, DCLXVI, has exactly one occurrence of all symbols whose value is less than 1000 (D=500, C=100, L=50, X=10, V=5, I=1).

666 is a member of the Indices of prime Padovan sequence, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 14, 19, 30, 37, 84, 128, 469, 666, 1262, 1573, 2003, 2210, ... (sequence A112882 in OEIS).

In other fields

* 666 is the magic sum, or sum of the magic constants of a six by six magic square, any row or column of which adds up to 111.
* The sum of all the numbers on a roulette wheel is 666.[2]
* 666 was a winning lottery number in the 1980 Pennsylvania Lottery scandal, in which equipment was tampered to favor a 4 or 6 as each of the three individual random digits.[3]
* 666 was the original name of the Macintosh SevenDust computer virus that was discovered in 1998.
* In the Bible, 666 is the number of Adonikam's descendants who return to Jerusalem and Judah from the Babylonian exile (see Ezra 2:13).
* The number 666 is a frequent visual element of Aryan Brotherhood tattoos.
* In Kabbalistic Judaism the number 666 represents the creation and perfection of the world. The world was created in 6 days, and there are 6 cardinal directions (North, South, East, West, Up, Down). 6 is also the numerical value of one of the letters of God's name.[4]

616

In May 2005, it was reported that scholars at Oxford University using advanced imaging techniques[9] had been able to read previously illegible portions of the earliest known record of the Book of Revelation (a 1,700 year old papyrus), from the Oxyrhynchus site, Papyrus 115 or P115, dating one century after Irenaeus. But the existance of manuscripts attesting to 616 has been known long before this finding, the other early witness Codex Ephraemi Rescriptus (C) has it written in full: ἑξακόσιοι δέκα ἕξ, hexakosiai deka hex (lit. "six hundred sixteen").[10]

Significantly, P115 aligns with Codex Alexandrinus (A) and Codex Ephraemi Rescriptus (C)[citation needed]. Thus, it is argued that P115 has superior testimony to that of P47 (Papyrus 47) which aligns with Codex Sinaiticus and together form the second-best witness to the Book of Revelation[citation needed]. This has led some scholars to conclude that 616 is the original number of the beast.[11]

The NRSV translation for Rev 13:18 includes this translation note: "Other ancient authorities read six hundred and sixteen".

Mark of Commerce

Those who hold to Futurist Christian eschatology believe that the rise of a supranational currency could be a hallmark of the End Times.[43]

Religious difficulties with a supranational currency currently exist (see World currency – Political difficulties). According to the Futurist view, to overcome the extant difficulties the Antichrist will use forced religious syncretism[44] (i.e. in the name of counterterrorism and world economic stability) to enable the creation of the supranational currency. Some interpret the mark as a requirement for all commerce to mean that the mark might actually be an object with the function of a credit card (e.g. implanted RFID tags).

Afraid of the 666 number? That mental illness is called Hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia.


Hudson Media on Amazon.com - http://www.hudsonmedia.co.cc

Election Turned On Economic Issues, But Constitution May Suffer Collateral Damage, Says Americans United

CommonDreams.org
[REPRINTED]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
November 3, 2010



CONTACT: Americans United for Separation of Church and State
Joe Conn, Rob Boston or Sandhya Bathija
202.466.3234
202.466.2587 fax
www.au.org

Election Turned On Economic Issues, But Constitution May Suffer Collateral Damage, Says Americans United Religious Right Forces Are Certain to Demand Action in Congress on Divisive Culture-War Concerns, Says AU’s Lynn

WASHINGTON - November 3 - Voters want Congress to focus on fixing the economy, but Religious Right groups are sure to demand that attention be paid to their divisive agenda, according to Americans United for Separation of Church and State.

Exit polls show that more than 60 percent of voters cited the economy as their top concern in yesterday's voting. The figure was even higher in states hard hit by the financial setbacks.

But the changes in Congress, says Americans United, will empower Religious Right leaders who will insist on action on controversial social issues.

"Voters sent a strong message that they want Congress to focus on fixing the economy," said the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, Americans United executive director, "but the election results may inflict collateral damage on the Constitution. I think the Religious Right will seize this opportunity to advance its agenda in Congress."

Lynn said he expects the Religious Right to push for religious school vouchers, publicly funded "faith-based" hiring bias, creationism in the public schools, laws allowing electioneering by churches, "Christian nation" resolutions and other measures that undercut church-state separation.

Lynn noted that likely House Speaker John Boehner and Majority Leader Eric Cantor have long records of working with the Religious Right on a wide variety of social issues.

"Americans did not vote to stoke the fires of the culture war," said Lynn, "but they may have done so inadvertently."

Lynn noted that many candidates who openly attacked church-state separation were defeated.

Delaware Senate candidate Christine O'Donnell, Delaware House candidate Glen Urquhart and Nevada Senate candidate Sharron Angle all lost. (Colorado Senate candidate Ken Buck was trailing in his race, but a vote count was still under way.)

Lynn noted, however, that the Religious Right remains a potent political force in some situations. In Iowa, for example, a concentrated campaign by the Family Research Council, the American Family Association and their allies resulted in the ousting of three state Supreme Court justices who voted in favor of civil marriage rights for same-sex couples.

"Church-state separation is going to be under sustained fire for the next two years in Congress and in many state legislatures," said Lynn. "Religious Right leaders are re-energized by the election results, and they are going to want action. Those of us who believe in individual freedom and equality are going to have our hands full."

###

Americans United is a religious liberty watchdog group based in Washington, D.C. Founded in 1947, the organization educates Americans about the importance of church-state separation in safeguarding religious freedom.