Every year around this time you can hear conservatives caroling the song: the Liberals want kill the baby Jesus and destroy Christmas. Ya, because killing a holiday on which the economy is dependent and getting this holiday off our work calendar is at the top of the list of every card carrying member of the ACLU. Christians, as it turns out, have typically been their own worst enemies when it comes to destroying religious holidays. The Catholic Church, at first, banned Christmas as Pagan since it came from the Sol Invictus celebration. Christians/Protestants also turned All Holy Eve into Halloween and Candlemas into Groundhogs Day. The point is Christmas, and most of its traditions, were never really Christian to begin with.
Earliest examples of "Christmas" were practiced as long as 4000 years ago by Babylonians as a celebration of a 12 day New Year festival honoring the god Marduk. Also called Sacaea by the Persians, these celebrations involved holiday feasts, giving gifts, and caroling.
The Roman Pagan celebration of Saturnalia started in the middle of December and lasted until January 1st. This was a celebration of the solstice, marking the Sun's return. The exchange of gifts, decoration of homes with greenery, feasts, and the suspension of private and public business marked this celebration. Once Christianity began to spread throughout the Empire, Pagan and Christian societies began to merge and the prosecution of Christians decreased. During the reign of Constantine (a sun worshiper), Pope Julius I moved Christmas from January 6th (Epiphany) to December 25th, which was the Pagan Deus Sol Invictus, or the birthday of the unconquered Sun god. Sun god. Son of God. Not a huge leap of faith for these early Christians assuming the Latin words for "son" and "sun" sound as similar as they do in English--but really, who speaks Latin? This is where Christmas started to take on some of the traditions and meanings that we see today. Still, these events are not the only things that contribute to Christmas as we know it.
Yule or Yuletide was the Pagan winter solstice celebration which in the Julian calendar was December 25th and Gregorian calendar December 21st (depending on the year). The Scandinavians and Germanic tribes of Northern Europe celebrated this as the return of the sun from the long dark winter nights. Trees were decorated with candles, holly decorated doors, a Yule log was burned, and feasts were prepared along with the sacrifice of a pig, which is where we get the traditional Christmas ham. The mistletoe was used in both Norse and Druid celebrations. Obviously, as Christianity spread in this region, Scandinavian seasonal celebrations merged with the Roman's Pagan/Christian winter solstice holiday. It must also be noted that Odin, the primary figure in Norse mythology, had a hat and a big white beard had a flying 8 legged Horse instead of 8 flying reindeer. Odin at one point also had hung from a tree and had a spear wound not unlike the fate of Jesus.
One other reason that Christmas is not a Christian holiday is that Jesus was not born on December 25th, nor is there really any proof that he was born in Bethlehem in a cold manger. Every Biblical scholar knows that if Jesus was born when "shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night." that this would have to have been between the months of March and November as it would have been too cold for the shepherds to have still been there at night in the cold rainy season. Since we know Jesus was born 6 months after John the Baptist and we know he was born in late March or early April, Jesus had to have been born in late September or early October at the latest.
Christmas has really always been a celebration of winter solstice, it’s just that in our calendar it is 4 days off the mark due to the difference in the Julian and Gregorian calendars. Just as they did with the once secular pledge of allegiance and our currency, Christians stole Christmas and made it their own, adding the nativity scene and Jesus' birthday. Somehow, secular Americans are the assholes when we merely try to take the pledge, our dollar bill, or Christmas back to its original incarnation.
My Father is an Atheist, my Mom is a Christian who doesn't believe Christmas is Jesus' birthday, and I am Agnostic. We all welcome Christmas as a time for sharing and togetherness, not the birth of baby Jesus in his manger. What does a Christmas tree have to do with the birth of your savior? What does getting your kid the new XBox have to do with Christianity? Nothing. And you know who else thought this way? The Puritans.
That’s right, about the time they started burning witches, Puritans in New England outlawed the Christmas celebration. Christmas, The Mass of Christ, was considered to be a Catholic holiday which had nothing to do with the actual birth or birth day of Christ so they therefore outlawed the Pagan traditions of decorating trees and caroling. Since they believed that the Christmas celebration and the birth of Christ was completely separate, Christmas was outlawed in Boston from 1659-1681 and the Colleges in New England didn't even start observing Christmas until about 1847. Christmas was not declared a federal holiday until 1870. Other "religious" holidays destroyed not by liberals and Nancy Pelosi but by Protestants include, once again: All Holy Eve (Oct 31st), Candlemas (Feb 2nd), Michaelmas (Sept. 29th) and Childermas (Dec 28th).
For these right wing nut jobs to say that December 25th, and all that is associated with that day, is purely Christian, is ludicrous. So when they say that the secular Christ-haters are trying to destroy Christianity when we call it the holidays and not Christmas, tell them that you think it's ironic that someone who thinks that America was founded by Puritans is so intent on going against Puritan beliefs, which were anti-Christmas. You can also tell them that you find it ironic that the same people who are trying to censor the internet, cable TV, song lyrics and art are offended when someone tries to censor their 1st amendment rights.
No one wants to destroy Christmas, anyone who thinks this is paranoid. Who doesn't want a couple of days off work every year to hang out with family and friends to eat, drink, be merry and get presents? We just realize that roughly 23% of the US is not Christian; you cannot simply bully minorities because you outnumber them. We realize that all the traditions of Christmas, except going to mass, are secular and or pagan. We realize that like the Pledge of Allegiance and US currency it has been adopted by Christianity, not the other way around.
So if some Jews in your town don't want The Night Christ was Born playing at the town hall manger, get over it. Go home and play your own Christmas music; you are free to do so. You wouldn't like it if you were forced to fast for Ramadan would you?
Sources: Holidays.net, History Channel, Wikipedia, Pantheon.org, World Wide Church of God (wcg.org) , Religioustolerance.org, All about Jesus Christ, Renewamerica
6 comments:
hey. write new material. you posted this last year.
New material is below. I post this every year around Christmas.
Here's the Bush Death List everyone's talking about:
Roster of the Dead
This is a list of bodies, a roster of the dead, who might have been called Witnesses had they not met their untimely ends. Some of the names on this list will give you pause. Some are rumor. Some you may find incredible, and some frightening. Do your own research http://www.google.com. You will draw your own conclusions.
The above paragraph began the last edition of the Bush Body Count. In previous editions, there were no special criteria for adding bodies - only that they could be related to the Bush family in some way, and be dead. In fact, the original Bush Body Count started as a parody of the so-called Clinton Death List.
Times have changed. The Bush Body Count is no longer a parody, and many of the names have been removed. This edition examines the scandals and misdeeds of the Bush family generations, and lists the corpses they leave in their wake.
Bush Went AWOL
Bodies
Sid Adger
Mr. Adger, a Houston oil supply company executive and Bush family friend, died in 1996 of unknown causes. Adger was the mysterious businessman who approached General James Rose and asked him to help George W. Bush avoid Vietnam by recommending him for a pilot position with the National Guard.
General James Rose
General Rose recommended George W. Bush for a pilot position with the Texas National Guard. He died of unknown causes in 1993. He was immediately buried and no autopsy was performed.
Lt. Colonel William Harris, Jr.
Lt. Col. William Harris was one of two commanding officers who could not perform George W. Bush's annual evaluation covering the year from May 1, 1972 to April 30, 1973. They stated in their filing that "Lt. Bush has not been observed at this unit during the period of this report." Fortunately for George W. Bush, Lt. Col. Harris is not here to verify his 1973 statement. He's dead.
Lt. Colonel Jerry B. Killian
Lt. Col. Jerry B. Killian was another of George W. Bush's commanding officers. He cannot testify in a court of law as to George W. Bush's dereliction of his sworn duty. Lt. Col. Killian is dead.
James Downing Aalund
Mr. Aalund's name is the first on a long list of young Texans who died in Vietnam. These young men did not have influential fathers to pull the strings necessary to get them into the Texas Air National Guard. If they had been so lucky, they would surely have fulfilled their responsibilities to the ANG, if only out of gratitude that they did not have to die, thousands of miles away in a strange land. They surely would not have disappeared from duty for over a year, as did our fearless leader George W. Bush.
Enron
Bodies
J. Clifford Baxter
Found dead in his car, shot in the head. Mr. Baxter was vice chairman of Enron Corp. when he resigned in May 2001. Enron has been hot copy lately with the revelation that they were the largest campaign contributors for George W. Bush. Was J. Clifford Baxter a potential witness to Bush foreknowledge of their wrongdoings? His death was ruled a suicide.
Charles Dana Rice
He was the senior vice president and treasurer of El Paso Corp., an energy corporation swept up in the recent energy scandal. Two months after the "suicide" of Enron executive Clifford Baxter, in the midst of questions about the accounting practices of El Paso Corp., Charles Rice was found dead of a gunshot wound to the head. His death was ruled a suicide.
James Daniel Watkins
His body was found on December 1, 2001 in the Pike National Forest in Colorado, a gunshot wound to the head. Mr. Watkins was a consultant for Arthur Andersen, the accounting firm for Enron. He disappeared on November 13 after he left work. He was described as a devoted family man who always called home if he were going to be late. Officials initially said that the death was suspicious, but have changed their tune and have ruled his death a suicide.
Commerce Secretary Ron Brown
He died in a plane crash on April 3, 1996. Was Ron Brown the first Enron body? In 1995 Enron officials accompanied Brown on a trade mission to India, and to Russia in 1994. Speculation among right-wing whackos suggests that our last duly-elected President, Bill Clinton, was somehow responsible for his death, but we wonder: was Secretary Brown privy to information that would conclusively link George W. Bush to Enron greed and corruption? Charles Meissner, Assistant Commerce Secretary, also died in this crash.
Jake Horton
He was the senior ice-president of Gulf Power, a subsidiary of Southern Company, a cohort of Enron in the energy industry, and a major contributer to the Bush agenda. According to reporter Gregory Palast http://GregPalast.com and http://www.guardian.co.uk/enron/story/0,11337,643422,00.html , Horton knew of the company's appalling accounting practices, and "... had no doubt about its illegal campaign contributions to Florida politicans - he'd made the payments himself. In April of 1989 Horton decided to come clean with state officials, and reserved the company jet to go confront company officials. Ten minutes after takeoff the jet exploded.
Kennedy Assassination
Bodies
John Fitzgerald Kennedy
An internal FBI memo reported that on November 22 a reputed businessman named George H. W. Bush reported hearsay that a certain Young Republican had been talking of killing the President when he came to Houston. The Young Republican was nowhere near Dallas on that date. According to a 1988 story in The Nation, J. Edgar Hoover said in a memo that Mr. George Bush of the CIA had been briefed on November 23rd, 1963 about the reaction of anti-Castro Cuban exiles in Miami to the assassination of President Kennedy. George H. W. Bush has denied this, although he was in Texas and cannot account for his whereabouts at the time.
Hale Boggs
He sat on the Warren Commission, which concluded that President Kennedy was slain by a lone assassin. Later, in 1971 and '72, Boggs said that the Warren Report was false and that J. Edgar Hoover's FBI not only helped cover up the JFK murder but blackmailed Congress with massive wire-tapping and spying. He named Warren Commission staff member Arlen Specter as a major cover-up artist. Congressman Boggs' plane disappeared on a flight to Alaska in 1972. The press, the military, and the CIA publicly proclaimed the plane could not be located. Investigators later said that was a lie, that the plane had been found. On the plane were Nick Begich, a very popular Democratic Congressman, and Don Jonz, an aide to Mr. Boggs. All were killed.
George de Mohrenschildt
A rich Russian oilman, he was described with his wife as being the two people friendliest to Oswald at the time of the assassination. De Mohrenschildt was the man who moved Oswald to Dallas. In the late 1970's, shortly before the first meeting of the House Select Committee on Assassinations, de Mohrenschildt started seeing a new doctor in town. He quickly became mentally unstable, at which time his wife convinced him to stop seeing the doctor. They moved away and left a false forwarding address. On the same day that the Committee tried to contact him about testifying, he was found dead of a gunshot wound. In his personal address book was the entry Bush, George H.W. (Poppy) and Zapata Petroleum Midland (the oil company owned by George H.W. Bush).
Mrs. E. Howard Hunt
In December 1972, while George H. W. Bush was at the Republican National Convention, a United Airlines flight carrying Mrs. Dorothy Hunt, CIA operative and wife of Howard Hunt, (CIA operative and suspect in the Kennedy assassination) crashed. Believed to be carrying $25,000 in "hush money", she died in this crash.
George H.W. Bush
Bodies
Gary Caradori
He was investigating Lawrence E. King, Jr., a very influential black Republican who was also a friend of George H.W.. Bush. King was director of the Franklin Community Credit Union in Omaha, Nebraska, and was suspected of embezzling $40 million . The Nebraska Senate questioned child prostitutes, who accused King of running a child prostitution ring. One of these children said that she saw George H.W. Bush at one of King's parties. "Pronto", a newspaper in Barcelona, Spain, reported that the scandal "appears to directly implicate politicos of the state of Nebraska and Washington DC who are very close to the White House and George Bush himself". On July 11, 1990, Gary Caradori was killed along with his 6-year old son in the crash of his small plane, after a mid-air explosion, the cause of which was never discovered. He had told friends repeatedly in the weeks before his death that he was afraid his plane would be sabotaged.
Orlando Letelier
He was torn to bits by a car bomb on the streets of Washington DC just before he was to testify against the Chilean dictator Pinochet. After the bombing, CIA Director George H. W. Bush told the FBI that there had been no Chilean involvement whatsoever. In 1991 the post-Pinochet Chilean Supreme Court asked George H. W. Bush if he would submit to questioning. BUSH REFUSED.
Ronni Moffit
She was Letelier's assistant. She and her husband were riding in the car with Letelier when the bomb exploded. Mr. Moffit survived. Ronni didn't.
Jack Delaney and Ted White
These young men were killed when pilot George H. W. Bush abandoned his plane when it was hit by enemy fire. Much has been made of this story - Bush propaganda would have us believe that he was a hero. An eyewitness to the event tells us otherwise: Chester Mierzejewski, who was the turret gunner in another plane, had an unobstructed view. He states that he saw a "puff of smoke" come from Bush's plane and quickly dissipate. He states that the plane was never on fire and that Bush never attempted a water landing, which was standard procedure, and which would have given Mr. Delaney and Mr. White a chance.
Silent Voices
Bodies
Steve Kangas
His web site, Liberalism Resurgent, was meticulously researched and presented such a problem to the "real boss" of George Bush, Richard Scaife, that he hired a private detective to look into Kangas' past. Steve Kangas was found in a 39th-floor bathroom outside of Scaife's offices at One Oxford Centre, in Pittsburgh, an apparent suicide. Mr. Kangas, a very prolific writer, left no note. He had brought a fully-packed suitcase of clothes with him to Pittsburgh. He bought a burglar alarm shortly before he left for Pittsburgh. Why did he need a burglar alarm if he was going to commit suicide? An avowed advocate of gun control, he nevertheless bought a gun. What was he afraid of? Why did he go to Pittsburgh? After his death, his computer was sold for $150 and its hard drive wiped clean. Everything in his apartment was thrown away.
Danny Casolaro
He was working on a book that tied together the scandals surrounding the presidency of George H. W. Bush. He told his friends he was going to "bring back" the head of the Octopus. Instead, his body was found in a hotel in Martinsburg, West Virginia, on August 10, 1991, an apparent suicide.
Mark Lombardi
He was an accomplished conceptual artist who, while chatting on the phone with a banker friend about the Bush savings and loan scandal, started doodling a diagram and was inspired to create a complex series of drawings and sketches that charted the details of the scandal. According to the New York Times, "He was soon charting the complex matrices of personal and professional relationships, conflict of interest, malfeasance and fraud uncovered by investigations into the major financial and political scandals of the day; to keep facts and sources straight, he created a handwritten database that now includes around 12,000 3-by-5-inch cards."
On the evening of March 22, 2000, Mark Lombardi was found hanging in his loft, an apparent suicide.
James Hatfield
Mr. Hatfield was the author of Fortunate Son, an unauthorized biography of George W. Bush. The book detailed Bush's cocaine use and cover up of a cocaine arrest. He was found Wednesday, July 18, in a motel room, an apparent suicide.
Prescott Bush
Bodies
William S. Farish
He was one of Prescott Bush's partners in business deals with Adolph Hitler. He was devastated by the intense grilling he received from the Senate about his dealings with Nazis, and while Prescott Bush skated free, Farish collapsed and died on November 29, 1942.
James Forrestal
He was U.S. Secretary of Defense, and become a problem for Prescott Bush when he proposed racial integration of the Armed Forces. On March 28, 1949, he was forced out of office and flown on a military plane to Jupiter Island in Florida. From there he was taken to Walter Reed Army Hospital, where he was given insulin shock treatments. He was shielded from all visitors except his estranged wife. From "George Bush, the Unauthorized Biography":
On May 22, Forrestal's body was found, his bathrobe cord tied tightly around his neck, after he had plunged from a sixteenth-story hospital window. The chief psychiatrist called the death a suicide even before any investigation was started. The results of the Army's inquest were kept secret. Forrestal's diaries were published, 80 percent deleted, after a year of direct government censorship and rewriting
Texas Justice
Bodies
Karla Faye Tucker
She was executed in spite of enormous protest from the public, even those religious groups that advocate the death penalty. Even Pat Robertson thought that Karla was truly repentant and asked George W. Bush to spare her life. He refused. Afterward, in a Talk Magazine interview, Bush mocked the woman whose death warrant he had sanctioned, pursing his lips and whimpering, "Please don't kill me!"
David Wayne Spence
David Wayne Spence was executed in Texas in 1997 in spite of compelling evidence of his innocence. Two of the State's witnesses were co-defendants who testified to avoid the death penalty, one of whom changed his story three times in response to discrepancies. He later testified that D.A. Simons encouraged him to alter his testimony. Two other witnesses for the State were jailhouse snitches who recanted later and stated that Simons offered them favors in exchange for testimony. All of this and more was supposedly reviewed by Governor George W. Bush, but Bush refused to commute his sentence, and did not order the Board of Pardons and Paroles to review his request for clemency. It is a myth that a Texas Governor can do nothing to stop executions; the Board will almost always go with his recommendation. Bush washed his hands of the matter and did nothing. Reasonable doubt is not a factor in Texas justice.
Gary Graham
Gary Graham was convicted of the robbery and murder of a white man in 1981. Nearly two weeks after the crime, the state's prime witness could not pick Gary's picture out of a photo line-up. Mr. Graham was arrested with a 22 caliber pistol. The victim had been killed with a 22, but the police firearms examiner determined that Mr. Graham's gun DID NOT fire the fatal bullet. Four witnesses said Gary Graham was with them, miles away from the convenience store, when the murder occured. All four took and passed polygraph tests. George W. Bush, predictably, expressed his faith in the Texas judicial system and allowed Mr. Graham to be put to death. Mr. Graham maintained his innocence to the end.
Related Websites:
http://www.greaterthings.com/News/Dubya
http://www.holywesternempire.org
http://www.bk2k.com/bushbodycount/index.shtml
http://www.americanpolitics.com/070699deaththreat.html
When they don't have muslims to attack, they'll attack each other...vicious people...and these are their highest members.
BETHLEHEM, West Bank — Robed Greek Orthodox and Armenian priests went at each other with brooms and stones inside the Church of the Nativity on Thursday as long-standing rivalries erupted in violence during holiday cleaning.
The basilica, built over the grotto in Bethlehem where Christians believe Jesus was born, is administered jointly by Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox and Armenian Apostolic authorities. Any perceived encroachment on one group's turf can set off vicious feuds.
On Thursday, dozens of priests and cleaners came to the fortress-like church to scrub and sweep the floors, walls and rafters ahead of the Armenian and Orthodox Christmas, celebrated in the first week of January. Thousands of tourists visited the church this week for Christmas celebrations.
But the cleanup turned ugly after some of the Orthodox faithful stepped inside the Armenian church's section, touching off a scuffle between about 50 Greek Orthodox and 30 Armenians.
Palestinian police, armed with batons and shields, quickly formed a human cordon to separate the two sides so the cleaning could continue, then ordered an Associated Press photographer out of the church.
Four people, some with blood running from their faces, were slightly wounded.
Twas the fright before Christmas; the merchants did
grouse, Not a damn thing was selling, not even a
house; Restocking was futile with goods still on
shelves, And the streets
were now teeming with unemployed elves. The FSA warned
of a housing collapse, An environment hitherto known
just to Japs. And Shanghai and Shenzhen encountered
sharp falls An ominous sign when east Asia appalls.
(Only Tesco was thriving - and that was before 'Fresh
and Easy' was launched - how Wal-Mart did guffaw.) The
bankers were choking on alphabet soup Of CDOs, SIVs;
all sorts of gloop. Bond salesmen were sweating, awake
in their beds, With visions of dole queues (and
widening spreads).
In Floridian fund pools there was such a clatter As
portfolios blew up with foul fecal matter. Their
managers, much like their bonds, were distressed, With
the agents who'd rated them under arrest, And the
banks that had sold everyone down the river Saw their
equity ratios down to a sliver; Man turned against
man, and the brokers the same Lashed out at their
rivals (it was all just so lame): Punk, Ziegel slashed
Goldman Sachs, Morgan and Merrill, And Bear Stearns
and Lehman they did also imperil, The markets a-brim
with black swans and fat tails - What happens when
mania with credit prevails. The quant funds were
savaged as bell curves deflated And CFOs had to be
strongly sedated. Will central banks save us ? The
stock markets rally, But interbank lending now feels
like Death Valley. The bulls now see good news in
looming recession But try to
get upbeat about repossession. The bank stocks are
cheap now but could yet get cheaper As retailers cower
at the sight of the Reaper. Diversification in assets
should work If lending conditions continue berserk.
Some market neutrality also appeals For when
event-driven runs out of new deals, And if the
unthinkable does now unfold There'll be
merit in silver and still more in gold. Amid
confidence crisis and capital flight Happy Christmas
to all, and to all a good night.
Actually, Catholics (there were no distinctions for other Christians at the time) supplanted pagan holidays by turning them into Christian holidays. It doesn't make them evil, just good marketers.
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