[Editor's Note: Although this is a topic I've written about previously it seemed like a good way to bring the discussion up again in case anyone wanted to talk about it.]Hello All,
I apologize in advance if this gets kinda long but I have a point I want to make. It is up to you and everyone else who isnt sucked in by the lies that the Christian Church spews to do the right thing and bring some truth into our lives.
The very core basis of the Christian holidays are a farce. There is not one Christian holiday that has any basis in its religious doctrine, in the facts of where traditions come from or in the stories we are told that supposedly give them reason.
You probably all already know, or at least have realized by now that both Easter and Christmas both fall almost bang on days that correspond with relevant solar and lunar confluences. The date of both Christian holidays have changed repeatedly over the last couple of millenia. Christmas has no basis in the biblical doctrine, Easter has only a feint basis as a celebration. Obviously there are no rotund jolly old bearded men wearing red and white in the bible and no bunnies delivering chocolate eggs either.
Where do those things come from? Pagan tradition.
The reason for all this is that Christmas and Easter are both based upon pagan origins - the biblical events were clumsily superimposed over the top by conquerors who murdered anyone who dared disobey the Churches of Europe and their hijacking of our cultures.
April Fools Day is in fact a day of Christian creation - a papal decree intended to oppress non-Christians and force them into falling into line with their doctrine.
Ancient cultures, including those as varied as the Romans and the Hindus, celebrated New Year’s Day on April 1. It closely follows the vernal equinox (March 20th or March 21st.) In medieval times, much of Europe celebrated March 25, the Feast of Annunciation, as the beginning of the new year.
In 1582, Pope Gregory XIII ordered a new calendar (the Gregorian Calendar) to replace the old Julian Calendar. The new calendar called for New Year’s Day to be celebrated Jan. 1. Many countries, however, resisted the change. In fact, some European countries held out for centuries (Scotland until 1660; Germany, Denmark, nd Norway until 1700; and England until 1752).
In my opinion, the great misnomer of the period is the humble “Christmas tree” - a name that may well be oxymoronic - a self-contradiction. The act of cutting down an evergreen tree and bringing it inside your home at winter time is a tradition that is more than 7000 years old - That is a fact. Many cultures did this - including even the ancient Egyptians millenia before the Judeo/Christian faiths existed!! It was believed that the trees would bring luck and that they had a magical power to resist winter and if people brought those trees inside with them they believed the tree would help their family to survive the hardships of the season.
Not forgetting of course that the bible actually directly forbids and condemns the taking in of an evergreen tree as a pagan tradition.
“Thus saith the LORD, Learn not the way of the heathen, and be not dismayed at the signs of heaven; for the heathen are dismayed at them. For the customs of the people are vain: for one cutteth a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman, with the axe. They deck it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers, that it move not.” (Jeremiah 10:2-4, KJV)
Christian apologists make the excuse that reading the rest of Jeremiah gives the context that the tree is only forbidden if it is an “idol” and they try to make some technical distinction between todays “Christmas trees” and those of old by saying that the sin was in idolizing the object.
Make up your own mind - but I think that’s BS. Bringing an evergreen tree into the house is a pagan tradition, non-Christians have been doing it for millenia, many asian cultures do the same thing in fact.
Easter is an rip on the Spring Equinox - An obvious time in an agricultural society to have a celebration - time for sowing and planting new crops and a time when and traditions concerned with hopes for a good harvest.
The 25th of December is a close approximation to the shortest day in the western half of the northen hemisphere (the 20th/21st of December).
The Winter Solstice in Pagan tradition was a time when quite often families would surprise each other with secret stashes of food that they had put aside during the warmer months of the year when there was plenty to eat.
Fruits, nuts, berries - all preserved by drying or some form of waxy glaze in some circumstances, smoked and salted meats were always a favorite around the time of the holidays - in the right conditions even without refrigeration apparatus meat that is cooked, smoked and salted will stay edible for many months.
The idea of saving one or two of your fattest healthiest turkeys or other fowl for slaughter around this time to be the centerpiece of a big feast must have surely crossed peoples minds too. It’s a well known fact that Dark ales, Port, Sherry, and Spirits are all winter favorites which were also given as gifts.
You only have to imagine what it must have been like for a working family who were not wealthy to have to get Children through long and bitterly cold winters before modern convenience items were available. There was no 24 hour Asda/Sainsburys/Walmart/Target/etc around and you ate what you could find, kill, steal or scrounge.
So what can we do? Well we can all try to set things straight and place rational traditions of joy and preclude traditions which enforce doctrines that are centered on selfish arrogant belief systems that promote irrational and unscientific cultural arguments.
Take back our culture - Don’t call it Christmas - Call it what it is - The Winter Solstice. Don’t call it Easter - call it Spring Equinox.
Only by beginning new traditions can we begin to rid ourselves of our cultural dependance upon religious doctrine.
The good news about this is that you can do this yet almost none of the traditions we enjoy at these times of year need be sacrificed - only their meaning should be changed to reflect reality - not Christian revisionism.
Tree’s, Gifts, Feasting, Turkey, and of course - Booze! All part of the pagan traditions of the winter solstice.
In lieu of that you can always decide on Festivus!!
Festivus for the Rest of Us!
Happy Holidays to all of you.
Deoxy.
P.S. My apologies if I am singing to the choir here - I’ve found that even some the best educated atheists don’t realize to what degree the Christian Churches have managed to pull the wool over peoples eyes. If you all know this stuff, I’m sorry if I come off as patronizing, arrogant or a little presumptuous. I’m here to hopefully meet a few cool people who think on the same wavelengths.
Posted on 11/26/2005 at 05:47 PM 
Honestly if I were going to stop referring to it as Christmas the last thing I’d start referring to it as is an old Seinfeld joke. I’m not enough of a fan to go that far.
Most of the time I prefer to give credit where credit is due and refer to the holiday as Yule, but you’d be amazed at the number of idiots who don’t know what you’re talking about if you call it by its original name. So I use Christmas mainly for expediency’s sake. Personally, I don’t really care what you call it so long as I can enjoy it in my own fashion.