Historical roots of Christmas
How very right-wing and delusional to peddle the nonsense about a war on Christmas. That is pure Fox News propaganda, picked up and run with by Donald Trump to hoodwink the gullible.
There never was a war on Christmas. If you want to get historical, Xmas predates the use of Christmas. But if you really want historical accuracy, Christmas was a culturally appropriated pagan Roman festival which early church leaders adapted to attract followers, as who doesn’t like a festival in the darkest days of the year?
As for the reason of the season, even if an historical [man] called Jesus even existed, the bible cannot even agree on the date of his birth. Nor is there a shred of actual evidence that he was even born. As the entire birth story is pure invented fiction as are all the stories that turned the all too human Jesus into the legend of The Christ.
Sorry to burst your bubble, well, actually I’m not, but I have no doubt I know more about the origins of the Bible, the forgeries, invented stories, plagiarisms of earlier myths, than most people warming the pews on Sundays with their butts.
I have made it my mission to study of the history of the origins of the bibles for decades. Studying the factual history, not biblical make believe, actual archeology of that area, not preposterous leaps of faith that is the substance of biblical archeology. I have read many books on theology such as those by Bart Erhman and have gone far beyond a mere Sunday school understanding of the Bible, including all the ugly bits that have no place in the modern world.
Jesus was born and died a Jew. He never intended to create a new religion and his earliest followers never thought he was the son of god as that would have horrified Jesus himself as the Jewish religion totally rejects the idea that a mortal can mate with god. It was the ultimate taboo even to suggest it. St. Paul forced a marriage of the Jewish religion onto traditions of the pagan world and thus Christianity was born out of that unholy union.
I also trust in science in all things, so I was happy to have recently read the findings of a DNA study in the Middle East which proves beyond any doubt that no one has a deed to that land. Science scares people but I find the truth shall set people free. And the fact that the Jewish and Arab speaking peoples of Israel, West Bank, Jordan, Lebanon, and parts of Syria have 67 per cent shared DNA going back to their Canaanite ancestors.
It is a sad fact that someone making totally nonsensical claims based on their being “religious” are far more likely to be printed than someone like me who relies on fact-based evidence to explain the world.
But hey ho, celebrate the annual pagan picnic with a pagan tree as I do, buy presents and feast like the pagans of Rome did to their god during the Winter Solstice, and even kiss under the mistletoe as the Druids did as mistletoe, holly, and the ivy were sacred to them long before Christians stole those traditions, too.
Even as an atheist I say Merry Christmas as a traditional greeting in the culture I was born into, but not with any belief that it is more than that. It is all just Santa Claus for adults, and Santa Claus was invented by an ad agency for the Coke Cocoa company.
Robert T. Rock
Mission City