I believe firmly that we should not be encouraged to celebrate pre-packaged holidays just because some political, social, religious or commercial entity wants us to. For example, Mothers Day was originally a post-Civil War call for forgiveness, unity and peace for mothers of veterans, but was commercialized by Hallmark and American Greetings Inc. during the 1950s in order to boost sales of cards, gifts, ornaments and trinkets of every type and variety. Today FTD spends millions making sure you'll feel stultifying pangs of guilt if you don't order flowers on this oh-so-extra-ultra-special day.
St. Valentine's Day has a most ironic origin, it was designed to steal the thunder of the more popular Lupercalia, a pagan 'festival of 'romance' held each February 15. The church officially declared February 14 a holiday in "honor" of a priest they themselves had beheaded on the same date many years earlier, for conducting illegal weddings against the wishes of the presiding "warrior pope" who wanted men to stay single so they could be more easily steered into the military.
And alas, Christmas. I invite comment here because there are differing opinions surrounding the origins of Christmas, the so-called holiest day on the Christian calendar. From what I know, the message of the Christian faith was delivered for centuries at the tip of a plunderer's sword, practicing the exact opposite of what it was supposed to be preaching and synthesizing it's holidays to induce lemming-like behavior. For example, Jesus Christ is said to have actually been born during summer, March or September, but changing the "observed" date of his birth to December 25th effectively waged a public relations war against the wildly popular Saturnalia, or winter solstice festival, in which the masses uproariously celebrated nature and the harvest season.
Today, the modern American Christmas celebration typically consists of each family terminating (murder is such a harsh word) a young tree, dragging it into their homes where it dries out and dies, even though we've had declining air quality and timber shortages for decades and have widely forgotten about the many tree-planting initiatives made popular in the past. Then we string our houses up with electric lights, leaving them on all night to signal to our neighborhoods and communities how deepy we adore Christmas. This increase in demand, no matter how modest is again the opposite of the use-only-when-really-needed mindset we need to be teaching our young in the face of dire energy use shortfalls facing them. We also decorate our homes with all kinds of cheap, disposable paper and plastic decorations, which, though getting cheaper, still fill up bags and bags of garbage by January, out on the curb next to the discarded tree, and ultimately end up stuffing our rapidly shrinking landfills along with the mountains of discarded wrapping paper wads, injection-molded plastic packaging from Barbie, mounds of styrofoam, perfectly functional "fat" TV sets, and a few petrified fruitcakes.
Not to be a Scrooge, but the only reason we jump through these hoops is because our well-meaning parents and grandparents indoctrinated us into doing the same things they did when there weren't energy and waste management crises. Using a bit of wisdom here, are we prioritizing handed-down holiday tradition over our own children's well-being? You tell me if your community has more or less vacant landfill space then it did 25 years ago. I'd say it was a safe bet you were moving massive piles of unecessary crap from your local dollar store into your nearest dump every yuletide season.
We need to re-evaluate the inertia of things we do in these routines and teach our kids to spot and deconstruct the subversive all-points advertising campaign encouraging us to spend every last cent buying into this media-hyped Christmas frenzy every year. There is nothing at all wrong with visting family and friends, gathering and gift giving, being creative, generous or compassionate on the days we all have off of work or school together, but let's not fool ourselves as to who is behind the Christmas "warmth", pushing it out at us earlier and earlier every year - the American economic engine that sells us what we need and then "markets" all the things we don't need.
If Jesus was, as accounts say, a devoted pacifict who renounced worldy possessions for a life of relection and preaching his gospel of peace, love and enlightenment, why do we celebrate his birth by a prolonged period of overeating, insanely increased commerce and glorification of materialistic gratification? Seems very un-Jesus like to me, to teach our kids at young ages that the way to recognize Jesus' birth comes through shredding gift wrap to get to nifty gadgets.
GW is a proud American from NY State, concerned about ethics issues, media manipulation and overconsumption. He has recently changed careers to become an inner city schoolteacher. A firm proponent of curbing overpopulation and international adoption, he hopes to adopt a third child and enjoys history, outsider art, garage rock music and rare/unusual vinyl records.
When I first saw the title of this article, I was ready to come out swinging. I am sick of Commerce Day, and am so glad I won't have to hear about it until two weeks before Halloween next year. I can't BEGIN to tell you how happy I am that it's over.
According to the bible, Jesus was born during a time that shepherds were watching their flocks by night. This only happens when the ewes are expecting. That only happens in spring, somewhere between March and April. Ergo, by this evidence alone, Jesus wasn't born in December.
Since the christians had already laid claim to the Spring Equinox by way of Easter (their bastardization of a pagan fertility celebration), they had no choice but to put Jesus' supposed birthday near the Winter Solstice.
Even if Jesus had been born at that time, would he have thought the idea of rampant commercialism and people literally falling all over one another to shop on Black Friday to be an honor to his name, or a curse upon it? Considering the fact that he preached against the rich and threw the moneychangers out of the temple, I think he'd be pissed off to the extreme! Don't you?
So good-bye Commerce Day. Good riddance. I hope the world wises up before we have to face you again.
Blessed be!
Pappy
by
Pappy (61 articles, 0 quicklinks, 11 diaries, 863 comments)
on Thursday, December 28, 2006 at 3:17:17 PM
The previous comment sums it up nicely: Christmas, as well as Easter and Valentine's Day, are all pagan holidays stolen by the Christians because their converts didn't want to give up their fun festivals.
Given thet the Gospels were written by men who depended on hearsay about Jesus; that the Gospels contain contradicting information; that no historian who was alive in Jerusalem at the time of Jesus' life mentioned any of the events described in the Gospels; that nothing written about Jesus was by eyewitnesses;
STOP FEELING GUILTY AND HAVE FUN!!!!
by
jnik (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 22 comments)
on Thursday, December 28, 2006 at 9:02:58 PM
Thank you, Mr. Wynn for the article about Christ (Christ) mas (day).
You are correct on many things. Jesus was born in August because the names mentioned in the New Testament books of Matthew and Luke have been found in secular records. Many pagan holidays were brought over in to the Christian calendar by the Roman Catholic church. The Roman world was declared to be Christian by fiat in the late fourth century. The pagans or non Chritians just renamed their gods after Biblical personalities. Mary and Minerva, Jupiter and Peter, Paul and Saturn and so forth. There is nothing sacred about these days in themselves. Here are a few facts as I understand them according to New Testament records.
Birth-- in Bethlehem in a stall around August.
Three wise men-- No record as to how many there were. They were probably Jews comning any where from the east. Most likely as far as present day Iran (Persia). There could have been two or two hundred.
Names of Wise men-- some groups say their names were Reuben, Judah and Melchior. Bible does not say.
Murdering of Children two years old and younger-- When the wise men came to Bethlehem Matthew records that they found Him in a house and since King Herod had all the children in Bethlehem murdered who were two years old and younger. Jesus may have been two years old when they found Him. The typical manger scene is a composite.
It is not much different with Easter.
The name comes from the eastern goddess Astarte who was worshipped with child sacrifice or burning the child to death while alive. The once mention of "Easter" is in the Book of Acts. The New Testament was written in Greek. The Greek is πασχα or "Pascha" which is Greek for Passover. Since all Christians at the time of Acts 12:4 were Jews, we can see why Passover would be mentioned. The first Gentile is not brought into the early church until later in Acts 12 where Peter a Jew is told by God to go into the home of Cornelius a Roman soldier and present to him the offer of salvation in Jesus' Name. Cornelius was the first Gentile convert to Christianity.
Some Christian groups which are considered heresy groups such as Jehovah Witness do not recognize any Christian holy days. I believe this is true also of some Christian groups such as Mennonites and Amish. They are probably closer to the New Testament in that one thing than the rest of us.
Phil.
by
pratliff94 (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 940 comments)
on Friday, December 29, 2006 at 12:42:20 AM
