Wikkid's blog: "Religion and Government"

Christmas and Easter

Atheists celebrate the Winter Solstice, which has been recognized since ancient times as the shortest day of the year – December 25 by the Julian calendar. The ancients celebrated this day because they realized that they had “rounded the corner” and, soon, days would grow longer and longer, and their crops would once again provide sustenance.

During the early days of Christianity, believers tried to persuade the ruling authorities to establish a legal holiday to commemorate Jesus' birth. But the governing authorities refused. So the Christians decided that “if you can't beat them, join them” and thereafter celebrated Jesus' birth on an already-established holiday: the Winter Solstice, Dec 25^th. (This was in the 4^th Century. Before that time, Christians only celebrated Jesus' Resurrection, not his birth.) Pope Gregory XIII later revised the ancient Julian calendar; and so the calendar we use today –the Gregorian calendar-- moves the Winter Solstice back a few days to Dec 21^st for astronomical reasons, whereas Christmas continues to be celebrated on the 25^th.

Christmas, Easter and the Communion were pagan celebrations/rituals taken by the Catholic church to gain converts. Earlier Christians did not celebrate Jesus' birth or death and they did not persecute non-believers. These ideas developed after Rome was converted to Christianity, a nation of pagans that persecuted Christians before Constantine made it the national religion.

((By the Middle Ages, Christianity had largely replaced the pagan religions of Europe. Catholic Church stemmed from pagan Christian sects such as the Pauline Christians and Gnostics. It was in Italy that the Holy Bible formed. From the 5^th century to the European Reformation in the 17^th century, new denominations, such as the Puritans, Protestants and others formed from those who claimed the Catholic Church had become corrupted. During the Nine Crusades, which originally had the goal of recapturing Jerusalem and the Holy Land from Muslim rule and were launched in response to a call from the Christian Byzantine Empire for help against the expansion of the Muslim Seljuk Turks into Anatolia. The term is also used to describe contemporaneous and subsequent campaigns conducted through to the 16th century in territories outside the Levant usually against pagans, heretics, and peoples under the ban of excommunication for a mixture of religious, economic, and political reasons.

Old pagan temples and statues of pagan gods were destroyed or converted in Christian temples, and thousands of historical and pagan religious books were destroyed. Many pagan ideas, history, rituals and holidays were adopted by Roman Catholic Church to gain converts. Most of the main stories in the Bible were rewritten mythologies that began in Babylonian, Sumerian and Egyptian mythology.

The Crusades had far-reaching political, economic, and social impacts, some of which have lasted into contemporary times. Because of internal conflicts among Christian kingdoms and political powers, some of the crusade expeditions were diverted from their original aim.

The Crusades, The Inquisitions, the Reformations, and witch hunts were all Christian campaigns to persecute and weed out pagans and non-believers.

For 1500 yrs, the Christian Church systematically operated torture chambers in Europe. Torture was the rule, not the exception. Next to the Bible, the most influential and venerated book in Christian history was the Malleus Maleficarum [Hammer of Witches], which was a step-by-step tutorial in how to torture “witches” and “sorcerers.” Each year, the Christian Church in Europe tortured to death tens of thousands of people, including children as young as 2 yrs of age. Witch-burning was not a brief period of Colonial America, but ended in Colonial America after a gruesome 1500-year reign of terror throughout Europe.

As with the journey to the Promise Land by the Israelites in the Bible, The Crusades was a military campaign to take over Jerusalem by the Christian/Vatican controlled government of Rome. In the Bible, the journey to the Promised Land - led by Moses, Kind David and other prophets of God – was a military campaign in which God orders the murder of men, women, children and animals; the sexual slavery of women and the annihilation of entire cities. In order to validate these unethical and immoral contradicting stories, Christian claims that God did it because the people had become wicked, however, it is in clear context that there was no legitimate reason for these serial mass murders.))

Every Christmas season, ministers preach sermons about how we have forgotten the “true” meaning of Dec. 25^th. I agree! We have forgotten that Dec. 25^th had nothing to do with Jesus' birth. It was an ancient celebration of the Winter Solstice. Easter is likewise a Christian hijacking of an ancient pagan holiday, the Vernal Equinox or Spring Solstice a day when darkness and light are equally divided. Even today, the date of Easter is set each year by calculating the first Sunday after the first full moon after March 21^st, the Vernal Equinox.

Ministers and people says that Christ has been lost in the commercializing of Christmas. Implicit in that is the idea that Christ had ever totally been the center of Christmas and as Christmas has been celebrated, ever since it was instituted, its a feast of the Nativity. These notions are false. There's always been other rituals, other ceremonies, and other activities associated with Christmas, even before Christians celebrated Jesus' birth.

Christmas trees and gift giving were customs that originated from pagan celebrations, not from the Nativity. Pagan celebrations were mostly “12 days of Christmas” of food and dance, a countdown to Dec 25th. Meat was abundant as many cows had been killed for food for the winter.

A big part of Christian Christmas and tradition is the Nativity Scene. It is central to the idea that the “true meaning” behind Christmas is the celebration Jesus' birth. There is a big misconception with this tradition and Christian scene of Jesus' birth.

While John and Mark don’t see it to be of any importance to mention Jesus’ birth, only Matthew and Luke write details of it.

The Nativity Scene is a story that's not even written in the Bible and in context, the alleged biblical birth of Christ was probably in the Spring, based on Luke's account of the shepherds in the field looking over their flock whom went to see Jesus in the manger.

The Naïve Story, or Nativity Scene, is a story derived from selective details from Matthew and Luke, whose details contradict each other and from other details that neither Gospel mentions at all.

For example, Luke mentions a manger but no house, while Matthew mentions a house but no manger.

Neither Gospel mentions Joseph, Mary and baby Jesus being in a stable or of there being any animals in the presence of them on the night of his birth.

Neither Gospel mentions 3 wise men. Matthew mentions no shepherds or manger as Luke does, but mentions wise men and only an unspecified number of them, whom follow Jesus’ star to the house. Luke mentions no wise men or house as Matthew does, but mentions shepherds who are visited by an angel and are told to see Jesus in a manger.

The Naïve Scene is a story that is not in the Bible, because no one ever wrote it. It was created by St. Francis of Assisi almost 1200 years after the Bible was put together.

After Jesus' birth, Matthew claims Joseph and Mary fled to Egypt with Jesus because Herod intended to have Jesus destroyed and they remained there until Herod’s death. Luke, however, makes no mention of Herod or his plan to kill Jesus nor does it mention them fleeing to Egypt. After Jesus is circumcised on the 8^th day after is birth, Joseph and Mary take him to Jerusalem for a time, to present Him to the Lord, and after they had done everything required by the Law of the Lord, they returned to Nazareth where Jesus grew up. At no point in the Luke account does it mention them fleeing to Egypt.

Christmas was started in the United States to be a holiday for kids, as Moms, Dads and Grandparents already had their own holidays. It was a time to remind us to give to others. Christmas trees were a tradition that came from Germany. The only Christmas tradition that came from the United States is the character Santa Claus. God seems like Santa Claus for adults.

The Communion is also an ancient pagan ritual that was hijacked by the Catholic Church to gain converts. If you think about it, however, the Communion is in essence symbolic for cannibalism and vampirism, both of which resemble the very thing that Christians in the 80's spent a lot of time making claims of Satanic cults eating flesh and drinking blood and fussing over it. People usually are what they hate and if you take a deeper look into the Christian religion, those who persecute others are committing those very things they hate.